How reliable is your water purifier?

I get several press releases about new and improved launches of water purifiers. As I perpetually toy with the idea of getting one but never take the final step, I read them with interest each time and never fail to be impressed by the number and variety of claims they make.

There is UV technology and RO technology, and one has to decide which kind of purifier to buy based on one’s drinking water supply. A comparative study by Consumer Voice magazine tested 10 brands of water purifiers and found that most of them removed pesticide up to 100 per cent from the water used in the tests.

Only Pureit Advanced, AquaSure and Unitex Waterpot were able to reduce E coli , which causes nausea, diarrhoea and stomach cramps, up to 100 per cent when tested at different intervals.

Pureit emerged as the top performer, scoring 94/100, followed by Aqua Sure and Kent Gold. Aqua Sure emerged the most value-for-money brand.

Various tests Microbiology tests found that only Pureit and Usha Brita’s Shriram Brita SF-620 removed microbes from the input water completely.

However, the total plate count level was contained between 4 and 18, which is not high and non-pathogenic.

Pesticide (lindane) was added to the water to test the purifier’s capacity to remove it. Bajaj’s XTP 21, the model tested, could only remove 8 per cent.

Metal concentration No brand was able to completely remove heavy metals such as arsenic. The reduction was found between 9.4 per cent and 93.05 per cent. In any case, only a few brands make such claims, observes the magazine.

Water purifiers must be able to remove chlorine, added to drinking water to protect against water-borne diseases.

None of the brands tested revealed any chlorine in the output water.

Ever found your drinking water cloudy? That’s turbidity, which refers to the amount of dissolved solid particles that are suspected to be in water causing light rays shining through it to scatter, making it cloudy or even opaque.

Tests revealed that all brands were able to remove it to a level that makes water safe to drink. Storage-type water purifiers usually have two containers.

The tested brands’ capacities were close to their claimed values.

Unitex was found to have the highest filtration rate, followed by Kent and Usha Brita.

It was the lowest in Crystal Everpure. A higher filtration rate means a higher output of water from the purifier.

Service factor The Consumer Voice team tested the after-sales service of most of the brands by making a formal complaint. Kent, Usha, Aqua Sure and Pureit resolved the issues within two days.

As Crystal, Aqua Fresh Waterpot and Unitex had not mentioned any manufacturer/marketer detail, the complaint was lodged with their distributor/dealer and it took more than a week to resolve the problem, and that too after many follow-ups, says Consumer Voice .

Tata Swach Silver Nano Technology and Zero B Suraksha Plus were the other brands tested. Consumer Voice conducted the tests based on Bureau of Indian Standards guidelines using standard test methods and also took the claims of the brands into account.

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