I purchased from Costco. As of Jan 2011, Costco is currently selling it for $189 with $30 MFG rebate, so the unit can be purchased at $159 with tax.I replaced an older GE GXRM10GBL Reverse Osmosis Water Filtration System purchased at Home Depot with this Watts unit. Where this system wins out is the ease of maintenance. It's very easy to pop any of the filter cartridges in and out. GE system was harder to maintain and some of the parts broke during maintenance. The main issue was that whenever I need to sanitize the system or replace RO cartridge, I had to open the plastic cap to the RO cartridge holder, which is made out of fairly light plastic. Every 1-2 years, after opening a couple of times, the plastic cab would break when I screw it back on. The replacement part for the RO cartridge holder is $150, which is the same price as buying a new unit.
Here is my comparison, as of Jan 2011. Watts is a clear winner in my mind. Just a lot less hassle to maintain and probably cheaper in the long run. I'll probably update the post after a year or so to see if Watts still holds up well.
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Initial Price Slight advantage GE. GE is $150 from HomeDepot where $189 with $30 MFG Rebate from Costco
OS Membrane Cost Slight advantage GE. We replace this every 2-3 years. It's $50 for GE replacement cartridge from homedepot.com (FX12M) and $61 for Watts from filterfast.com
Carbon filter Cost Advantage Watts. Watt's it's only $50 for 1 year replacement set that replace pre-filters every 6 months and post filter every 12 months. For GE it's $75 a year ($37 for a pre/post cartridge pair (FX12P) from filterfast 2 pair a year). which replace post pre/post every 6 months. In my opinion, post filter only need replacing every 12 months
Noise Advantage Watts. Both make sound when ro process take place, but Watts is quieter. With GE, I can really hear it in the middle of night.
Water quality Same. My family can't taste the difference. Both specs seem to remove about same amount of all the contaminants.
Initial Install Slight advantage Watts. The system is more well designed and it's a bit easier to install although the GE one was not bad
Replacing pre/post filter Advantage Watts. Watts takes me 10 seconds. GE takes me 10 minutes and water can get spilled easily.
Replacing RO membrane Advantage Watts. Watts takes me 5 seconds, GE takes me 20 minutes if everything goes well. I also have to have 2 very large clamps to open up the RO cartridge holder.
Sanitize system Advantage Watts. Watt is a lot easier to sanitize, takes 5 minutes to put in the bleach, and 4 hours flush afterwards, which can be unattended. GE require us to remove pre/post/RO membrane, and sanitize, and then put everything back. It's something that takes me about an hour, with 4 hours flush time in between. And water gets spilled easily.
Durability Advantage Watts. I haven't had Watts for long, but I can tell by how simple it is to swap the cartridges that it won't break easily. We simply don't have to take anything apart during maintenance where as GE requires you to do more mechanical things. Parts of GE breaks system after a couple sanitization or replacing RO membrane. Buy parts is a big pain since local stores don't sell it and have to call GE to older. Some parts are very expensive.
Jan 13, 2012
Updating after an year.....
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Durability comment about WATTS above holds so far, nothing breaking. Water still tastes great.
The indicator light on the faucet, indicating filter need to change, seem to light up earlier than what the document replacement time should be ... So I end up ignoring that light.
PS. if you are installing an RO system yourself (any RO system), make sure plumbing is done right and always check for slow leaks every month. With RO systems, the water pressure in some pipes build up slowly as filtered water gets created. So don't just install the system and assume there are no leaks. Check in 1 day, a week, then in a month...
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