2018-01-10
I just received my iSpring RCB3P GPD whole house RO system. I'm not sure what happened during the packaging of this item but the screws for half of the brackets holding the membrane and carbon filters came off so the filters were free floating during shipment and the unit is very heavy. Consequently the faucet end of the Inline Carbon Filter broke off. It took over two weeks to receive the item now I have to contact the manufacturer to get an Inline Carbon Filter replacement before I can even test the unit for other issues. The Inline Carbon Filter appears to be a solid unit with special connections so it doesn't look like I can just go to the store and buy another filter to test the system. There is not any part number on the Inline Carbon Filter so I'm not sure how I'm supposed to replace it every 6 months as recommended. These are questions I need to ask the manufacturer. I purchased the unit with the pump and the power cord looks like the styrofoam melted onto the cord. It doesn't look like the styrofoam should affect the functionality of the unit it's not very appealing. Also, there are color coded stickies that cover the openings where tubing should be inserted. The sticky for the "To water inlet" opening had slipped into the opening and I had a heck of a time getting the sticky out because it stuck to the inside of connection. The stickies should probably be bigger so they can't fall inside the connector openings. The frame of the unit is quite hefty and the motor, pressure gauge, and other electronic items appear to be installed well. I will update my review after I am able to test the unit. This unit cost over $500.00 so the initial issues are very disappointing especially since I have no idea how long it will take to get the broken part. 1/16/18 Update I sent iSpring an email via their Contact Us option from their website late at night after posting the above review.. I received an email from one of their representatives (James) the following day. He has been working with me to resolve the broken Inline Carbon Filter connections. He first had to verify my purchase. He is in the process of shipping me the replacement part now. So at this point iSpring customer service has been very responsive implying that they are concerned about the quality of their products and customer satisfaction. I will provide more feedback once I am able to test the unit. 1/21/18 I received the replacement Inline Carbon Filter on Friday 1/19/18. I was disappointed in that the replacement filter was a 1500 gal rated filter and the original filter was a 3000 gal rated filter. I'm upgrading this to 4 stars, if I hadn't had to deal with the connector issues and if I had known that I needed to do all the reducing and expanding of tube connections I would have given this a 5 star. The following information may help prevent some frustration. I believe that ISpring has some quality control issues since the iSpring RCB3P GPD Commercial Grade Reverse Osmosis Water Filter System w/Booster Pump and Oversized Pre RO Filters unit was damaged upon arrival and the iSpring 20 gal storage tank I purchased was also damaged upon arrival. The damage did not alter the functionality of the units they just caused some frustrations. During the test phase of the RO system I found another connector that had been broken during shipping. I didn't find the second broken connector until about 8:30 PM when I opened the water valve to the RO unit. Very inconvienent running to a parts store when they are all closing. I'm not sure why but the design of this RO unit (RCB3P) has an input of 3/8" OD tubing but the tube size is reduced to 1/4" OD tubing through the membrane cartridges and carbon filter. The output lines to the faucet and storage tank is 1/4" OD. The input to the iSpring 20 gal storage tank is 3/8" OD. I wasn't able to find connectors that reduce from 3/8" OD to 1/4" OD and visa versa so I had to spend a lot of time at hardware stores to find parts to do the trick. This is very frustrating and inconvenient for the customer. I will say that once all the issues were fixed the unit appears to be working well. My TDS reading before the unit was 435 and the TDS reading from the RO faucet is 26. I did run the unit for some time before taking the RO TDS reading since I wanted to flush out all the lines. In addition, the storage tank recommends that the tank be flushed after the first filling. Be sure to run the faucet and tank lines into a bucket or drain before connecting them to the house RO line and tank, this flushes out the lines all the carbon from the carbon filter. On the positive side: I installed a sharkbite pressure guage and a sharkbite shutoff valve just before the reduction from my house 1/2" copper line to the 3/8" OD tubing line. My pressure is slightly over 50 psi going into the unit. Our water pressure from an outside faucet typically fills at 5-6 gal per minute. The RO unit produced about a gal of RO water a minute with about a gal of waste water (to get this information I placed the drain hose in a 5 gal bucket and the RO faucet hose in another 5 gal bucket and timed the test). I'm not sure how this unit works without the booster pump but I highly recommend getting the unit with the pump since all the wiring and other electronics are already installed. Don't be alarmed if the pump appears to run for a long time. Once I started filling the tank It took about two hours for the tank to fill and the unit to pressurize enough to turn off the pump (the gauge on the RO unit read about 1 when the unit turned off). When the unit turns off the water coming out of the waste water line will also stop. Our RO water has no smell or taste so I'm not sure why some of the other reviews had those complaints, maybe they didn't flush the lines and tank and some of the flux or other plumbing chemicals got into their tank and now it's hard to get it out. As I did, I suggest placing both RO output water lines (line to the faucet and line to the tank) into a bucket or drain before connecting the lines to the faucet and tank, this will help remove anything in the lines and avoid contaminating your tank. I ran my unit in this configuration for about 20-30 minutes. It's been one day and now that the unit is working my frustration is quickly diminishing. I'll keep my fingers crossed that the design of the unit is a good design. Good Luck.
