Review on 💧 Enhance Water Quality with the AO Smith Under Filter System by Todd Vesci

Firstly, this filter is manufactured by Aqausana and sold under the Aquasana brand as Clarium Direct Connect or the AO Smith brand. I don't have my own faucet with a water filter in my kitchen and I don't want to drill/install it, but use a normal faucet and connect a built-in cold water filter. I wanted to be at least NSF certified for 42 and 53. It is certified for 401 and P473. You can examine them to see what's being removed, but generally it's better to remove more of the bad stuff. (On the other hand, depending on where you live and water quality, this can be overkill and you might not need as much filtration.) I looked at other water filters, including the Multipure Aquaversa that a friend has a dedicated faucet, but these were $385, has a flow rate of 0.75 gpm compared to this one which has 1.5 gpm. I reviewed the Epic Smart Shield, which honestly looks identical to this one, except it has a metal bracket instead of a plastic bracket. The only problem was that Epic says it needs to be mounted vertically, which I didn't have space for. It is said to be able to be installed horizontally but 'prefers' it vertically. Well, it costs $130 versus $80 and this one (for $80) says it can be mounted horizontally. So I bought it and installed it on the floor of the space under the kitchen sink. Yes, the white shard is plastic, you need to make one out of metal, but it works fine. Please note that the white hoses must be FULLY installed to prevent leakage. But once you plant them, they become waterproof. But when I turned the water on, the current was very weak. I thought, okay, 1.5 gallons per minute isn't that much, what can you do. I lived with it, filled the pots for a long time. But it was uncomfortable. Then, when I was at my friend's house with the 0.75 GPM filter, I saw that his flow was much better. So I checked my installation and found no problems. I figured I might have to send it back but after a couple of phone calls (AO Smith / Aqausana) someone explained to me what THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS SHOULD HAVE! Here it is: the instructions say "insert cartridge and turn clockwise until it clicks into place". If you do this and turn fully clockwise until it stops, it is too wide, it will no longer fit the inlet/outlets in the head of the device . The flow is actually obstructed if you turn it all the way. But there is no physical stop or indication, if the water inlet/outlet is the same in the head, turn it all the way to the right, cold water. Then, when the water is flowing, slowly turn the filter counterclockwise again - the flow will increase - until the maximum flow is reached (and the orientation is correct). Spin it wide as well and the flow will decrease again - so find the sweet spot happy with that and I think in 8$0 is great.