Vitapur GWF8 White Top-Load Water Filtration System for Home, Office, and Kitchen Use

Unless or until we get a comparable water dispenser type filter tank I'm left basing my thoughts on out of box experience and comparisons to other filtration methods we have used. Here goes.The unit comes in about a half dozen pieces packaged in one box. The instructions are good, the assembly is not rocket scientry. There are, as others report, a couple of miseries. One is the nested nature of the tank upper and lower sections. The manufacturer does this for all the right reasons shippingwise and if the box hasn't been subjected to an inordinate amount of shake, rattle and roll aggravating how one piece settles into the other I expect that the contents would remain reasonably easy to separate for assembly. Alas, this is the real world. Expect the worst, hope for the best. It took me about as long to type this as it did to get the pieces unpacked but I do fiddly bits for a living so there's that. Still, I can see how with enough settling the two tank body components could challenge the end user to a death match.The other thing is the lid assembly which begs "break me, I'm a fragile polymer ring and I'm begging you to be just a little hamhanded so I can rain on your parade." Don't be hamhanded and you should be fine. Once assembled it's as rugged as any other oversized lid on a hinged ring... made of plastic.Here's an obvious tidbit. This Greenway system is not for use in coolers that store the bottle below. If you doubt that statement and go ahead and try, please post a video. This is a pretty dry topic but a vid of a bottom fed attempt would wet it up pretty good.My cooler is a floor standing Primo. There's umptyteen models of floorstanding Primos but they are probably all just about the same structurally. In my case, I had to remove the ring that provides the rest for store bought bottles and with the ring comes the spear tip that pierces the store bought bottle lid. YMMV but the ring/spear slides out with a little effort. I think that the absence of the ring makes the Greenway appear less stable than a store bought bottle is with the ring left in place. Fortunately since my wife and I tend not to engage in Greco Roman style wrestling in the kitchen much anymore the Greenway seems fine on its perch without said ring for support.The instructions include an appropriate warning about overfilling. It is not wasted words.The water quality is today with less than a months use registering 47 PPM from the Greenway, while my tap (city water) is measuring 58. I have seen the Greenway as low as 36 and we typically get the high thirties out of both a faucet PUR and a Britta box in the refrigerator. Subjectively the water from the Greenway tastes good, expectedly sweet and with enough mineralization to tell my taste buds this is not RODI. I am not impressed though with today's PPM reading compared to my other sources of filtered water. I do not have a regular testing regimen. I tested it when new and a couple of days later but not since until this review. Unexpected result and I guess that I will be more diligent and update.OTOH the Greenway is way more convenient than our other filtered sources. I get quite a bit of convenience from the cooler itself so it's fuzzy math carving out the Greenways contribution but suffice to say the Greenway is integral to having a 4 gallon reservoir of filtered water on hand that I don't have to shlep from the market or pay inflated prices to have filtered and delivered to me. That alone is a no brainer. My other filtered water options carry their own baggage, not the least of which is filter changes, committed refrigerator space, goofy wart on the end of our expensive kitchen faucet and so forth.The economics and ergonomics of the Greenway rate it a 4 on the Lee scale although it is really a 3.75 or thereabouts in lieu of the less than stellar filtering results.It is just so much better a solution feeding this thing one gallon jugs of tap water than it is storing and hoisting five gallon jugs of store bought water.Lastly, the Greenway is not the only game in town. It's kind of antiseptic looking and if your kitchen is anything other than "industrial chic" the Greenway will not augment your food prep gestalt. Having been through a few of the hand held plastic water dispenser types I would venture to guess that this thing will look pretty weathered in a couple, maybe three years. Since it's so prominent wherever it is due to it's size that means it either earns it's keep nicely on all fronts or by 2015 it gets replaced by a less Spartan looking competitor.Either way, the concept is outstanding and should be a wake up call to the ridiculously overhyped and overpriced bottled water industry.This was the perfect water filter to fit my primo water dispenser. The other water filters didn't fit as well as they advertised.Item arrived sooner than expected. Read most of the reviews, so was expecting to have a difficult time separating the two chambers. Well, I share some advice to all that purchase this item...put it under the faucet, allow the water to seep into the sides of the chambers, at the same time pulling on the plastic. Mines popped out in under a minute.So, as of right now, I have not been able to use the filter. After opening the package and going through all the parts, the photos in the manual did not match what I had. After contacting the manufacturer, they sent me pictures of what it is supposed to look like, and sure enough, missing was the silicone float. Seems a normal thing with this item, and I made it known to them. I sent them my purchase receipt for verification, and now have to wait 10-14 days for the replacement float seal.Would give it more stars, considering the product was a warehouse deal with damaged packaging, but item was perfect, accept for the missing piece. Unfortunately, minus one star for missing piece, minus one star for having to wait 10-14 days for a replacement part on an unused item, and minus one star for the fact that I cannot use it yet.And just a warning to all future buyers...make sure you have the silicone float seal in your parts set, or IT WILL LEAK.EDIT: 4/26/17Manufacturer sent a complete assembly with the silicone float installed on the tip. Kudo's to Grennway and their customer service.So, after receiving the silicone float, my next quest was to find a compatible water dispenser. Well, I ended up buying a Primo cold/Hot water dispenser from Lowes. Now, this dispenser is not really a good fit for the Greenway system, since the leak proof ring is unable to be removed. However, I was able to get the filter system mounted onto the dispenser using some self ingenuity and a large rubber o-ring around the base.2 weeks of use so far, and only issue I had was user error...filled it up to much, and bottom chamber couldn't take all the water I put in, so it seeped out onto my floor overnight. Won't do that again!Overall, I am happy with the filter system, it does what is is supposed to do, and I am saving $$$ by not having to buy bottled water! Besides, Hawaii has excellent drinking water right out of the tap, and I already pay for my water bill. It just makes sense.My initial review was a 2 star rating, but I am adding back one star for the customer service i received from Greenway, and one more star for the effectiveness of the product.If you want to save money on water, this is a great way to go!This product is awesome. Will save a lot of money on weekly recurring water jugs. I filled the whole bottom component fully and then filled the top. This flooded all over the floor because I didn't read the max fill line. Haha whoops....Be careful filling it!!Had it almost a month. So far so good! It's basically the same as a brita, except for your water cooler.Tip: If it seems to be flowing very slowly or not at all through the filter, that means there's air trapped in it which blocks the way. Take the filter off, submerge it horizontally in a bucket of water, and shake the filter side to side vigorously with your hand to force the air out and waterlog it. Then reinstall.My parents use this since many years. So I know it works fine...So I bought it too, but it doesn’t fit on my water dispenser. Even worse than that, it doesn’t fit vitapur water dispenser (VWD266BLP), you would have to remove the bottle suppor collar anyway.First off the filter was REALLY DIFFICULT to get into its spot before the tabs click. After about 20 mins of struggling to get the filter in I used it immediately and the water actually tasted dirty and had more dissolved solids than my tap water by DOUBLE. I used a meter before and after. The idea is good but this thing had to go in the garbage because Amazon will not return it... what? 60 dollars for dirty tasting water. Just avoid this thing at all costs. I ended up just buying 5 gallon jugs for 5 dollars a pop. It's more expensive but at least the water tastes amazing vs like dirt.I have 3 different water coolers including a vitapur, a whirlpool and a sunbeam, this thing did not fit any of them, contacted the company and they're like "no guarantees" and to just return it. I did that whole return item thing with Amazon, printed the label, packed the thing back up and as I was loading things in the car a dude came rushing and stole the box as I was in the front drivers seat trying to find something. This purchase has been a nightmare. Wish the company made the fitment universal, I don't see why they couldn't make it like a standard water bottle size insert. Ya so now because of bad luck, I'm out the amount spent on this worthless thing.I fricken love this thing!!! I had to take off the cuff of my machine where the jug goes. The jug will then kinda sit on the machine, don’t worry it won’t leak and it shouldn’t fall.This thing has saved my back countless times haha. We used to go through one 18L jug a week (I know I know, we like our water ?)Since buying it, we haven’t had to go to the store once and lug those monster bottles back home and up the stairs, or spend any money.I can’t really say anything about the taste because it’s just easier for me to use my zero water filter jug to fill it up, so I guess you can say the water is filtered twice. I still believe it a million times better then the jugs you get in the store (water quality wise)For this reason I prob will change the filter on the machine less since I’m using filtered water already. If you have a hot water option on ur machine it makes no difference it will still come out hot.Never had any issue with it leaking, sometimes the water will take a while to filter down into the main jug but it always does.Overall it will pay for itself in a few months, a great investment!!