Seychelle 1-40101-W Family Water Pitcher, Regular

Do yourself a favor and purchase this advanced water filtration pitcher unit. My water has never tasted so good. I purchased this a few months ago, and have been meaning to write a review but forgot. Since my first glass of water from it, I have been completely impressed with the taste and clarity. Yes, it does filter slightly slower than a Brita or other economy cleaning pitcher but the quality surpasses it so much it really should not even be compared to the other pitcher units. And for the cost, you simply can't beat it. I went to the website to investigate and realized how much research was conducted to ensure this product delivers. I was overly impressed, as I could not find this type of research on the other sites for water filtration products. My health is very important to me, and drinking high quality water (and the herbal teas, etc. the water is used to make) goes a long way in ensuring that my improved health (and taste) continues. The thought of drinking impurities, leftover medicines, toxins (some of the stuff I've even seen floating around in glasses of water previously) is alarming. The peace of mind this filtration product gives me is priceless. I write this review with the hope that others may benefit also. Good health to you.

We've been trying to replace our "other potables" intake with water for years by buying gallons and gallons of bottle water--what a pain and expensive too. And the plastic bottle that expensive bottled water comes in have BPAs! Now one of our pets has liver and kidney problems (partly from age but probably from ingesting stuff in the food and water). We did some research (Brita says nothing about BPA-free plastic so we skipped them although their filters are available everywhere). There was some other reports that listed water filtering pitchers that we could not find anywhere. Seychelle was listed as one of the best, it's made right here in Calif. and we can get replacement filters right from the company (online yet). It's working great, filters enough water fast enough to be able to replace the pets' water bowl at least daily (more often if they drop stuff into it) and they seem to like the cleaner taste, hopefully they are drinking more water. Since we do go through water fast, I'm looking for big bottles that will fit in the refrigerator door (I prefer cold water but not with ice) but haven't found anything yet (can't be heavy, I have hand problems due to injuries from my younger days)--might eventually buy at least one more Seychelle pitcher and not use the filter in it so we can keep a pitcher in the frig. Lid doesn't feel like it is securely on the pitcher but you just have to hold it in place as you pour--not a big deal as far as I'm concerned. Pitcher is BPA-free (yeahhhhh). Filter lasts around 6 mos. I should find out if the filter can be recycled. Water tastes great. I thought I'd read that it filters out chloramines, which our water has, but now can't find that claim so I may be wrong. I'm pleased with this water filter even though it cost more than a Brita or Pur--but it does more and the filters last longer. Have to figure out a way to mark when a filter has been started so we can be sure to have a replacement filter ready to go when the old one slows down. We'd get the shower head filter too except we have a handheld branching off from the shower head which won't work with the Seychelle shower head.(July 31) So we've been using this water filtering pitcher for almost a month and it's been great. The cat with kidney and liver problems has been drinking more water which is good. I've completely given up drinking soda because I prefer this water, only problem I have is I prefer refrigerator cold water which I can't get at work (bought a thermos but keep running out of water during my work day)--not Seychelle's problem. It's only been 3 or 4 weeks but I just had to change the filter today--no water was flowing through at all. They claim a filter should last around 6 months but not so, and I know our tap water is fairly "clean" since the water dept does everything (including UV now) to make our water potable but it comes out the tap tasting of all that doing The new filter I just put in is leaving a lot of black charcoal bits in the pre-filtered water reservour but it doesn't look like they're passing through to the drinkable water. Also, as someone else pointed out, if all the water in the pre-filtered reservour hasn't filtered through yet and you pour some water out, there is a real good chance the pre-filtered water is going to flow into the out spout and go into your glass (bottle, thermos, etc.) since there is nothing stopping the pre-filtered water and basic physics is going on. Would have been better if the lid snapped tightly into the filtering unit rather than it setting gently on the pitcher to prevent this from happening--kind of makes you wonder if their R&D Dept. is overpaid.January 2016--------Wish I'd dated my reviews above since I don't remember how long we've been using Seychelle's water pitcher. I like drinking cold water, not iced, so I just bought 2 half gal. BPA pitchers that fit in the frig door, use one up and refill and then let it get cold while we use the other one. Works. I also found that although our water is supposedly clean enough to drink straight out of the tap, found the Seychelle filter got completely clogged within 30 days or less (one didn't even last a whole week). When I talked to the person at Seychelle about this, she said to reattach the lid thingy it comes with, rehook it to the faucet, and turn the faucet on medium high to blast the filter a bit, clenr it out. However, that just sounded too dubious to me--blasting with water will clean the filter? I had a Brita we weren't using so I just started pre-filtering all our water through the Brita to get out the chunkier stuff, and let the Seychelle filter the crud I cannot see. Works much better although on average one filter only lasts about 3 months. I also used to send the used filters back to Seychelle to recycle but stopped doing that just in case all they did was blast water through the used filters and resold them (don't know if they do or not but didn't want to take a chance, plus it started to cost too damn much to send them things back since Seychelle doesn't give you a trade-in discount or anything). I do put the used filters into recycling (don't know if our recycling company can recycle them but there you go). I wish Seychelle had some sort of "buy 5, get one free" or "buy a 2d one for half the price" or something because the filters now cost over $30 and then you also have to pay for shipping. We are now retired so we may not be able to afford to buy new filters for our Seychelle forever (and, no, they have no senior discount either). BTW, I have just gotten into the habit of taking off the top whenever I pour out the pitcher--then I don't have to keep a hand on the top to prevent it from falling off (which seems to happen with a lot of water pitchers, not just Seychelle); I figured I'm going to take off the top to refill the thing anyway (my aim is NOT true so I don't use that flip opening).

This filter pitcher is highly questionable. It makes one wonder if the reviews are actually real or folks just haven't done enough research on this? So they do have lab test results on their web site, however these tests are very outdated dating back to 2006. In my opinion if the company makes claims how effective their product is, it helps to back your product through quality and control and have up to date lab results.I bought this pitcher while I was still researching water filtration systems and did not have enough knowledge about it so I tried several products (Brita, Zero Water, Big Berkey, Doulton, etc.) including Seychelle. With this particular product I did not do any lab testing so I cannot state that this water pitcher is not working as it is supposed to, but I did measure the TDS using two different devices and I also measured the pH levels of water after it was filtered (several times). I found that my water TDS jumped nearly 100 TDS and my water pH levels went from 6.5-7 to 9.5-10. By the way, I ran water through filter several times just to prove it wasn't the filter because it was new. Of course I followed the instructions carefully and primed the filter prior to its use. The results were the same and knowing what I know now about water filtration this does not make any sense whatsoever. First of what type of media is this filter using to raise your pH levels and why was the TDS increased instead of decreased? Normally pH levels will be raised only through calcite neutralizing (calcium carbonate) type filter and usually they only go up by 1 pH or so not by 3 or 4. This gives you better tasting water so they claim, however I would be subjective to that as well because too much calcite can actually put stress on your kidneys and lead to development of kidney stones. Also most companies do not state where the calcite is derived from, so it is something to think about. Lack of calcium could also cause osteoporosis but you can always replace your calcium intake through vitamins or food source. I wouldn't use my water as my only source to consume minerals. So if this filter is truly working then the TDS levels would go down (as its removing anything present in water other than the pure water molecule and suspended solids) and not up, again this does not make sense. That said I would highly recommend that you test the pH and TDS levels of your un-filtered city or well water then test it again after its been filtered through this pitcher --maybe I just received a bad product.Moving on, the pitcher itself is not really practical to use. When you angle the pitcher to pour water it will leak water from the top where un-filtered water sits even if its half-way full. I later found that some of the reviewers that had the same problem were actually correct. So what is the point of filtration if you will be pouring in un-filtered water?In summary I would not recommend this product because of the poor pitcher design, concern about pH levels and highly increased TDS. My recommendation is to do your research, don't buy into online advertising. Water filtration is a huge business now days and everyone claims their product is the best and does the job. First thing you want to do is check your city water quality reports, each will be different and by law cities/villages have to report this yearly. Knowing what's in your water is important because it helps you customize your filter system according to what you are trying to get rid of. When you have this information then you can pick and choose a specific filter system that will help your needs. Second, get the pH strips and TDS meter. These are very cheap and will help you analyze your water and test it afterwards. Third if you can swing extra 50-60$, send a water sample to an independent lab so that you can get a true report on your filtration system.Through my research I found that best and most effective filtration is reverse osmosis. You may read claims about RO and how it filters out beneficial minerals and makes your water slightly acidic by lowering pH and this is apparently bad for you. In my opinion it's an untruthful marketing strategy to get you to buy their product. I have not yet to find one scientific study that shows slightly acidic water will cause health issues. RO has been around for many years and truly is one of the few effective water filtration methods. You have to wonder why do major water bottling companies use RO filtration method to filter water? Simply because it works. I ended up buying an RO system and do not regret it at all. Buying a good RO system can also be complicated because there are so many to choose from but in general they all do the job as long as they use a TFC (thin-film composite) membrane which is the heart of any RO system. Also make sure that if you have high chlorine levels in your water that you get at least a 2-stage carbon filter prior to TFC membrane because RO membranes don't handle chlorine well. I would also recommend that you stay away from filtration systems that use DI (deionizing ion-exchange) media such as Zero Water or filters that use Activated Alumina such as Big Berkey, just because there is no guaranteed proof that those filters will not leach remaining residue to your drinking water. Those residues would be left overs from saturated sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide and aluminum as both of these filtering solutions use chemicals to filter out other chemicals and impurities from water. So keep that in consideration.I hope this review helps.