How Long Do Refrigerator Water Filters Last

Tom Lohr is an avid domicile improvement enthusiast. He prefers to spend the money he saves on new tools and gardening supplies.

Water filters are the existent cash cow of the appliance industry. Similar clockwork, the "modify filter" calorie-free comes on every six months, prompting you lot to change your water filter. According to most manufacturers, if you don't, a giant asteroid will collide with the world, and nosotros will all be killed. In reality, each fourth dimension that low-cal illuminates, the visitor that sold you your refrigerator hears a cash register.

Water filters are not cheap. If y'all stick with the recommended brand (of course supplied by the manufacturer), yous will exist shelling out somewhere betwixt $xx–50. I am not sure about you, only spending $50 every six months hits my wallet pretty hard.

The same could be said of the motorcar industry. For decades, automakers swore that you needed to change your oil every 3,000 miles or risk serious engine damage. As it turns out, under normal driving conditions, your oil lasts significantly longer than that.

It is the aforementioned with refrigerator water filters. They do not demand to be changed twice a year. Once a year, maybe. That 50 bucks you salvage could fill up a shelf on your refrigerator with something yous really demand—say, beer, for case.

What Is Within Your Refrigerator H2o Filter

I only inverse my filter last week, after four years. I figured it was time. The expanse I live in has very hard water, and I imagined the inside of my filter being choked with difficult water deposits.

So I flake the bullet, bought an off-brand filter (much cheaper than the manufacturer'south make), and changed information technology out. The process was super simple. Just now that I had that old filter in my hand, I had to know just how nasty it was on the inside. So, I cut information technology open to see.

After locking downward the filter in a vise, I introduced it to my hacksaw. After v minutes of sawing, the mystery of the within of fridge water filters was revealed. Franky, I was underwhelmed.

Inside that thick, plastic shell is a round charcoal filter with a pigsty in information technology. In that location was no nastiness, no slime, no goo, and admittedly no hard h2o deposits. I even cut the charcoal element in half and was even more underwhelmed.

After purging the air out of the line by dispensing x or so glasses of h2o, the flow was the same, and the sense of taste was the same. Personally, I recollect it could have gone another iv years without changing.

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Hit the Reset

Co-ordinate to the manufacturer's manuals, the charcoal element will eventually stop filtering out the nasty creatures that live in the water. But call up of what feeds your water filter: city tap water.

The h2o supplied by your municipality is tested regularly and deemed safe to drink. Then information technology runs through your fridge filter. If you accept funky tasting water in your locale, then maybe it helps. But in nigh cases, information technology isn't doing much.

If your water is tasting funny and you brainstorm to see black bits of charcoal in your dispensed water, or if the menses is significantly reduced, then, by all means, spend the dough and go a new filter. Otherwise, consider saving a few bucks and hitting the filter reset button.

One of Two Filter End Pieces — One of 2 Filter End Pieces

Tom Lohr

This commodity is authentic and true to the best of the author's knowledge. Content is for informational or amusement purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional person advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.

Questions & Answers

Question: If I don't employ my fridge ice maker or water practice I simply do reset when red low-cal goes on?

Answer: Yes.

Question: I have a model RF261 BEAESR Samsung fridge and I need to change the water filter. The manual says to plow off the water, but I cannot move the fridge to get to the water valve. Exercise I have to turn off the h2o earlier changing the filter?

Answer: On my Samsung, I did not have to shut off the water. Your model may exist different. I recommend shutting off your main house water line if you cannot accomplish your desiccated refrigerator line. Better safe than sorry.

Ron on April sixteen, 2019:

Information technology must be two years since I installed my first filter and I noticed the water improvement over the tap right away, very glad for that. And after all this fourth dimension it even so seems fine to me, I but keep resetting the low-cal.

Affections Guzman from Joliet, Illinois on March 17, 2019:

After six months Sears mailed me one and my card charged. The water taste fine to me and its been 7 months at present. Haven't changed information technology nonetheless.