One of the things I don’t like about the city I live in is the tap water. The Wife and I long adopted the Brita Filter to help make our water less gross and drinkable. We buy Brita filters for our pitcher regularly, but The Wife is still not a fan of the filtered water it produces. He also gets annoyed when little bits of charcoal end up in his water.
Cut to the Natural Products Expo where I met a spritely young intern who pitched me the Clearly Filtered brand of pitchers, water bottles and filters. After the expo, the President & CEO, Asaiah Passwater, and I exchanged emails and voila – a pitcher is shipped to me to review!
Clearly Filtered Pitcher Review
Excuse the mess all over our kitchen counter. It’s a galley kitchen so space is tight!
Look how pretty it is – Clearly Filtered Pitcher
Let’s compare it with the Brita pitcher – Clearly Filtered Pitcher
The first thing you do is run the filter and flush it out with your faucet. They’ve got great videos in case you are impatient like me and don’t want to read instructions.
Unscrew the filter from the pitcher – Clearly Filtered
Stick the bulb on top and run it through the faucet – Clearly Filtered pitcher
I don’t drink the first couple gallons in a filter pitcher (ever). There were tiny snowflake-like particles in the water, so I watered my neighbor’s plants with it. Once I cleared those gallons, I made The Wife do a taste test. He’s got the pickiest and most sensitive palate I know.
Water filters faster with my Clearly Filtered pitcher
I compared the two pitchers as well. The Brita has a slight bitter taste to its water, almost rough.
The Wife thought the Clearly Filtered water didn’t seem as harsh or hard as the Brita water. He said it tasted smoother than the Brita.
I thought, maybe it’s a placebo effect or the fact that the Clearly Filtered filter was so new. This review was delayed because I spent two months (yes, two) taste-testing both pitchers. I’d try to trick The Wife into drinking Brita water and he protested. He said he could tell the difference and asked why I was trying to “poison” him. (Please. Like I’d do it with water.)
That said, after two months, we retired our Brita pitcher and have used our Clearly Filtered pitcher exclusively. During the first month, we still got some snowflake-type particles in the water, so I contacted Asaiah (President & CEO of the company) who suggested we run the filter again. Smart man, we did do that, and we saw less of the snowflakes. I don’t think we flushed the filter long enough the first time around.
If you’re concerned about the stuff that’s in your tap water, here are some stats:
Stats – http://www.clearlyfiltered.com/products/filtered-water-pitcher/
Not only did the company send me a pitcher, they sent me a survival straw! The straw has been packed into my earthquake preparedness bag. This is California – you don’t have an earthquake preparedness kit? Are you crazy?! Even if you’re not in California, you should at least have some sort of natural disaster/zombie apocalypse bag in your home or car, so you can just grab and go.
All in all, this Clearly Filtered pitcher is doing what it’s supposed to – filtering out our tap water to make it drinkable. I’d recommend this pitcher over the Brita. The cost of a Clearly Filtered pitcher is $69.95 US. They’re offering free shipping in the US. While the initial cost is higher than a Brita (about $36 at time of post), you don’t have to buy filters regularly. That’ll save you more money in the long-run.
Bonus: This is made in the USA! I also wanted to point out that a percentage of the company’s profits are donated to charity. Their mission is to provide a way for people to have clean drinking water… all over the world.
UPDATE: I’ve since bought a second filter to replace my first filter. I continue to drink my water through a Clearly Filtered pitcher.
Disclosure: This pitcher was sent to me for an honest review, which this blog post serves. This post also contains affiliate links. Shopping through them does not cost you anything.
How many gallons should I expect the filter to filter before I need to buy a new replacement filter cartilage . Also how can I tell if when the filter needs to be replaced, and what would be the cost of filter replacement.
In response to Karl- if I drank 3 of the 20 0z glasses of water per day, I would have to set up a desk for work in my bathroom. Many of us just can’t put that kind of liquid through us in a day, so the math would be based on the individual consumption.
Does your filter remove blue green algae and cyanobacteria? I couldn’t find anything about that on in the test report.
Hi Paul, I don’t know about that. You may need to contact Clearly Filtered directly for that info. Thank you for visiting!
Thank you for all the info – been wanting to stop using Brita for years due to fluoride issue. Have considered Berkeley product. This product looks like the one I’ll switch to. Have a question regarding “cost per gallon” comparisons. Brita shows .55- .90. Brita filters are $7+ for single units and as low as $4+ each when purchased in boxes of 10. That comes out to only .20/gal even at $7+ single price.
Hey Bill – thanks for reading and commenting! According to ClearlyFiltered’s chart, a filter would last you about 200 gallons. That’s $50 (cost of a new filter)/200 = $ 0.25/gallon. (That’s if they hold steady with the $49.95 price for a new filter.) Does that help?
What is the size of the entire unit. I have a space problem. I presently have a Brita and it fits well in the fridge. How doe the Clearly Filtered compare in size to the Brita.
Thanks for your review. I live in socal, so i agree with your statement about a preparedness bag.
I read the stat sheets on what get filtered. the cf product is great on long chain contaminants, but does not get some of the heavy metals very well. i will stay with reverse osmosis water and use the mineral product i buy to put the minerals back in since ro gets rid of everything.
still bothers me a bit about ro, the machines use water to back flush the contaminants off the membrane so this is a downside.
will wait until i can get a countertop unit with better heavy metal removal.
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting! I would love a reverse osmosis system but for me, it’s cost-prohibitive. I’m with you – it also seems counterintuitive that you use more water to get, say, a gallon of “good water.” That bums me out. If you find a counter unit, please let me know!
Just picked up a Berkey with flouride removal part. I haven’t used it yet but the reviews were good. Will be selling my Multi-pure which I have used for 25 years until I discovered it doesn’t remove fluoride.
Some comments about Clearly Filtered products. I have the Athletes edition water bottle and jug. Unfortunately, the athletes bottle itself has a strong plastic smell similar to the cheap plastic toys you used to get as a kid. The smell is off-putting. The bottle also tends to leak from the spout after you have closed it. The jug is OK except for the fact you have to hold the lid on while pouring or it will come off. And if full it would be quite heavy for many people. I pour water from the jug into a protected glass bottle like those from Life Factory. These are really pleasant to drink from.
THanks for your comment, Michael! Yes I agree – the pitcher does get heavy when it’s filled with water. GTK about the bottles. Please LMK if you end up with other filtered bottles you prefer.
omg I’ve quit using our brita while pregnant because I can’t STAND the taste of that water. I don’t even want to tell you how much we’ve been spending on bottled water 🙁
How often do you have to replace the filters? I know the Brita ends up being every 2 months for us (or so).
@Melissa Dell (@Melissa_Dell), here’s my non-scientific calculation. The filter is supposed to last 200 gallons. I’m assuming The Wife and I drink 1 gallon per 2.5 days. 200 gallons x 2.5 days = 500 / 365 days = 1.36 filters to go through.
If you’re only drinking 25.5 oz of water per day then you are NOT drinking enough water. Your calculation above is grossly off. My wife and I drink about (3) 20 oz glasses of water per day each. That alone is nearly a gallon. Then our daughter’s formula uses 16 oz per day. Throw on top of that about 8 oz per day for our two cats (we fill a 168 oz water fountain once every 3 weeks approximately). That’s a total daily consumption of about 1.12 gallons. Given a lifetime of 200 gallons you’d have to replace the filter more likely on the lines of every 178 days or every 6 months. That’s $100 per year for filters which is pretty much the same as what we spend on our in-fridge filter to be replaced every 4 months. Just thought I’d throw some more reasonable math into the discussion.