ALK System

I purchased the 5 stage home drinking reverse system on March 1st, and it arrived at my north central Ohio home on March 6th. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box. The unit is a quality built unit, with a manifold that houses the 3 standard filters on the bottom, with the RO filter and final charcoal filter on the top, in the horizontal position. The unit was complete with fittings to connect it under the sink, and includes the sink faucet with a nice mounting washer that fit in an existing hole in my stainless steel sink. It even included the safety clips for all of the push to connect fittings that makes them nearly impossible to come apart if the clip is in place.I installed the system on Saturday, the 7th. If I were to mount this under the sink, as it was intended, I am sure that everything I would need would have been there, except maybe for a fitting to tie into the water line. The one supplied is for a different size line than the ones in my home. I installed the unit in the basement up in the floor joists. I hung the manifold by two screws into a floor joist, next to a beam, so if I ever finish the basement, I would not have too much hanging down. The tank was 11-1/2” diameter, and it would not lay above the beam as I had hoped, so I ripped down a 2X4 to 2-1/2” wide, and tied it onto the 9” floor joists with a couple of dry wall screws, and put a piece of plywood on it with some more drywall screws and laid the tank on the shelf, directly behind the manifold.I wanted this unit to supply water to my sink, my refrigerator, and my Keurig coffee pot. I tied into the water line, through an existing saddle valve that was used for water to the refrigerator. I ran the supply line, about 10’ to the RO unit, and fed it through a supplied valve. The plumbing was very easy and straight forward. I did add a permeate pump, which I also purchased from Amazon. It was the ERP1000-JG-S and it came with fittings, some tubing, and a mounting bracket which I attached to the manifold on the left side by drilling two holes. I probably would not have needed the pump as I have 70psi water pressure, but my water is from a rural water company, and is fairly expensive and I didn’t want to put too much down the drain so the permeate pump would waste much less as it relieve the backpressure the RO water puts out as it tries to fill the tank and uses the waste brine as the pumping power source.I stepped the ¼” output line to 3/8” and ran it through a “T” to branch over to the sink, and back to the refrigerator and coffee maker. Near that end, I stepped it back down to ¼” to go to those appliances. This allowed me to make a longer run with less pressure loss.I also purchased the HM Digital TDS-EZ Water Quality TDS Tester and it arrived before the RO system, so I tested the water and it was 172ppm Total dissolved solids. I took the tester to work, and compared it to a similar unit we had at work as we have a large, commercial RO unit there that produces up to 600 gallons a day. The low cost HM Digital read identical to the high end unit we had at work. On my first batch of RO water, I tested it and it was at 19ppm TDS, which is a great number considering, the first tank gets dumped as it had impurities in it from the coating on the RO membrane and the other filters. After two weeks, the water quality has settled in at about 15ppm TDS.The water from this unit tastes great, with absolutely no odor, and is of very high quality. I ran around for a day, testing every brand of bottled water I could get my hands on with the HM Digital TDS meter, and found that the water through the RO system is as good as, and better than most bottled water you buy. I doubt that you will find a better unit than this for twice the price. I looked at the big box stores, and most of the RO systems they sold used custom filters that they rip you off for. The filters in this unit can be purchased at a lot of different vendors, and the four extra filters they supply makes this an even better value. They do not supply an extra RO membrane, but that is usually rated to last up to 24 months so it won’t need to be replaced until after the extra filters have been exhausted. Plus, if you want a higher capacity unit, you can purchase a higher capacity RO membrane, which I may do when I wear this one out after a couple of years, but for right now, it supplies all the clean water I need.One last note, if you are looking for a Keurig coffee maker with a water supply, you may not find it. I added a Okeler Adjustable Mini Plastic Float Valve which I also purchased from Amazon to mine as I got tired of filling it everyday.

We actually have pretty decent tasting, clean water already. Absolutely no complaints on that one but some of the reports of what even very low-levels of some chemicals may be doing are enough to raise some concerns and this is decently priced so we decided to give it a go.Although installation was not too difficult, there were a few, fairly small issues that could have been smoother. Firstly, the instructions include no clearances or dimensions so the installer is left to measure and um-and-ah for themselves. We have a slightly awkward install as I decided to place it in the corner where there is some otherwise infrequently used space. There is a permanently installed shelf there. After a bit of backward-and-forwarding, I was able to ascertain that there was clearance for the tank and for changing the filters (with about 1/4" to spare). A mounting template would have been a very useful addition. Due to the confined space, I mounted one of the screws very slightly from where it needed to be and had to move it.The instructions are laid out like a brochure. Not terrible to work from but it means you have to hunt for the specifics sometimes. Other than the aforementioned dimensions and template, they're pretty complete though although it claimed a washer for the faucet that I didn't appear to have. It didn't seem to affect anything.You'll want to attach a fair amount of the pipes before you're crawling under your sink, especially if you have reduced access as I did. The top two filters are also probably best removed for the first part of the operation. They pop back in pretty easily.The faucet is a bit of a pain to install, especially with the small nut and that you can't attach the pipe before the faucet is installed (having a way to do that before was a godsend). I tried using the push-fit attachment first but that somehow seated wrong and was leaking. The plastic-olive alternative works fine though. A small, cheap angled wrench for tightening up the nut(s) would be a welcome addition to the kit. I did have a regular wrench but it wasn't ideal for the space.The short pipe to the leak-stop mechanism is just a bit too short. I had to mount the filters high because of the shelf and that means it doesn't quite reach the bottom. I bought some more pipe to give me that extra length but just a few more inches would have been nice.The water itself... To be honest, I can't taste much difference. It's good but, as mentioned, it tasted good anyway. I have noticed that flavored drinks seem to taste a bit better though. Maybe a hint less of a chlorine smell (though that wasn't really an issue anyway). But it's more about the health side of things anyway. It might be interesting to see the difference in TDS but I'm probably not going to bother.Oh, one other thing is that the shutoff exits to the right but my system is to the left. Not a big deal, just a little annoying. I couldn't see any way to switch it over.Edit: Having used for a few months, no complaints. There is a slight whine when running the faucet but no big deal. One thing that could have been included in the box would be replacement schedule labels. It's not hard to manage ourselves, of course but it would be a good way for the company to encourage filter replacements. An app might be an idea too for people who would use such a thing.