Do I Really Need To Change The Water Filter In My Refrigerator

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

Water filters are the real cash moo-cow of the apparatus manufacture. Like clockwork, the "change filter" light comes on every six months, prompting y'all to change your h2o filter. Co-ordinate to most manufacturers, if you don't, a giant asteroid will collide with the earth, and we will all be killed. In reality, each time that light illuminates, the visitor that sold you your fridge hears a greenbacks register.

H2o filters are not cheap. If y'all stick with the recommended make (of course supplied by the manufacturer), you will exist shelling out somewhere between $20–50. I am non sure most you, but spending $fifty every six months hits my wallet pretty hard.

The aforementioned could be said of the auto manufacture. For decades, automakers swore that you needed to modify your oil every 3,000 miles or run a risk serious engine damage. Equally it turns out, under normal driving conditions, your oil lasts significantly longer than that.

It is the aforementioned with fridge water filters. They practise non need to exist inverse twice a year. One time a twelvemonth, peradventure. That 50 bucks y'all save could fill up a shelf on your fridge with something you really need—say, beer, for instance.

What Is Inside Your Refrigerator Water Filter

I just changed my filter last week, later 4 years. I figured it was time. The surface area I live in has very difficult h2o, and I imagined the within of my filter being choked with hard water deposits.

And so I bit the bullet, bought an off-brand filter (much cheaper than the manufacturer's brand), and inverse it out. The procedure was super unproblematic. But now that I had that old filter in my manus, I had to know simply how nasty it was on the within. So, I cut it open up to see.

After locking down the filter in a vise, I introduced it to my hacksaw. Afterward five minutes of sawing, the mystery of the inside of refrigerator water filters was revealed. Franky, I was underwhelmed.

Inside that thick, plastic trounce is a round charcoal filter with a pigsty in it. There was no nastiness, no slime, no goo, and absolutely no hard water deposits. I fifty-fifty cut the charcoal element in half and was even more underwhelmed.

After purging the air out of the line past dispensing 10 or so glasses of water, the flow was the same, and the taste was the aforementioned. Personally, I recollect it could have gone another four years without irresolute.

Gyre to Go on

Hit the Reset

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

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

If your water is tasting funny and you lot begin to run into black bits of charcoal in your dispensed h2o, or if the flow is significantly reduced, then, past all ways, spend the dough and get a new filter. Otherwise, consider saving a few bucks and hitting the filter reset push button.

One of Two Filter End Pieces — I of Two Filter End Pieces

Tom Lohr

This commodity is accurate and true to the best of the writer's knowledge. Content is for informational or amusement purposes just and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in concern, financial, legal, or technical matters.

Questions & Answers

Question: If I don't employ my fridge ice maker or h2o practice I just do reset when red lite goes on?

Answer: Yes.

Question: I have a model RF261 BEAESR Samsung refrigerator and I need to modify the h2o filter. The transmission says to plough off the h2o, but I cannot motility the fridge to get to the water valve. Exercise I have to turn off the water before changing the filter?

Reply: On my Samsung, I did not take to shut off the water. Your model may be dissimilar. I recommend shutting off your main business firm water line if you lot cannot reach your desiccated refrigerator line. Better safe than sorry.

Ron on Apr 16, 2019:

It must be ii years since I installed my commencement filter and I noticed the water improvement over the tap right away, very glad for that. And afterwards all this time information technology nonetheless seems fine to me, I just go on resetting the low-cal.

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

After vi months Sears mailed me one and my card charged. The water taste fine to me and its been vii months now. Oasis't changed information technology yet.