I looked for a non electrical simple water filter considering unpredictable power cuts but a reasonably clean water supply. My last filter was’Amrit’ from Aquasure family of Eureka Forbes products. It had the problem of being difficult to clean owing to its very odd shape not fitting well into an average kitchen sink, but it seemed to work otherwise. Of course I never did get the water quality tested! However, its plastic was brittle and one day a fatal fall while being awkwardly washed took its toll. I went for’Xtra-Tuff’ for its plastic body seemed less brittle and hoped the shape would be easier to handle too. Here is my experience:
It has been 2 months since I bought it, and the cleaning of the body has been easier, although a cylinder perhaps would have been the best shape to handle. Only time will tell if this plastic will break later.
The cartridge inside is different from Amrit, and requires a plastic’bellow’ to flush it out. That is easy. But the’bellow’ doesn’t dry up for a couple of days while it gathers dust, and it is likely that using it will actually push germs inside the cartridge.
There is a rubber seal which is meant to be taken out, which the product booklet mentioned but didn’t show in diagrams, and which I left in situ. A month later, when the filter stopped working, a technician visited after 3 escalations of service request and removed it.
A plastic cage goes around the cartridge, which, if correctly installed according to the booklet, will float up and away. I lodged a request for information about this online when I installed the product, only to receive a phone call from technician 2 days later saying he’d come and take a look. He didn’t turn up. The second technician who removed the seal said it was a known problem and inverted cage would be fine.
Before a fortnight had gone by after the technician visit, the filter stopped working again. A technician called a day after lodging a service request and promised to take a look. When he didn’t come, I called him back the next day and found him rather unco-operative, with a’will-see-it-when-I-get-to-it’ attitude. On complaining to him that life without potable water is a problem, he mentioned that if the cartridge was faulty(and I have no doubt it will be so found), it’d be 4 days before it could be replaced and I’d be charged for it. A new cartridge with the product, used at barely 5 litre per day, to be replaced in 2 months?
The website, although allowing for escalation of complaint, does not allow you to actually air your grievance, unless you are a whiz at twitter or such.(Only 120 characters allowed). There is no call, email or sms from anyone senior in response, only a technician visit as before. The feedback form has no space to write and tell what actually went wrong, only fixed options for a few questions which you have to choose. This is a company which doesn’t actually want to know if its product is good or bad; doesn’t care how its’representatives’ are representing it; isn’t bothered about solving your problem - it just wants to show on some report card that it has these various theoretical ways to address a problem. If there was a way of getting to the company, you wouldn’t hear from me here, would you?
Overall, product doesn’t seem robust enough. Not recommended.
Update an year later: After further pursuing the complaints, finally managed to get a senior service representative and someone from the lab, who clarified that the product was indeed working, and no new cartridge was required, and that the rate of filtration is normally quite fast. The aforementioned cage was now put in the right position, and doesn’t float up because the soft filter underneath had by then swollen to fit and hold it.
There are still few problems with it. When you fill the filter, unless you are v-e-r-y careful and slow, or are using a pipe, the water will bypass the filter bag meant for screening big objects and dirt and get in through holes on the side of the opening. A design deficiency which has no fix. The float mechanism is also faulty, or perhaps only in mine(but I am done trying to get someone to take a look), and half the time the lower compartment will get filled up and overflow. The use of’bellows’ to flush water from the actual filter cartridge is faulty planning at the design stage once again, but I am forced to use it.
Update after two years - Had to discard the filter as the rubber sealing rings that helped keep the filter part snug with the opening between the top and bottom containers broke. Bought a new one - unfortunately optimism got the better of me and I repeated the same mistake. The new one doesn’t work from day one, and the service is absolutely incredibly useless. Someone may call from the call centre but nobody turns up, and I can’t even escalate the request as the website doesn’t recognize the’ ticket number’.
Update 2019 Aug. The company recently commented on this review and asked to get in touch with them directly. Encouraged, I bought a new one and when that had an issue on day 1, I wrote to them(see message). 18 days later, I am still waiting for someone to contact me. Nothing has improved as far as customer service is concerned.
Now further 20 days down the line, still waiting. And a message posted on their Facebook page did not elicit any response either. There is some leakage - water bypasses the filter and trickles down the side(see photo). Surely easy to rectify, but nobody wants to help!