APEC Water ROES-PH75, 6-Stage Under Sink RO System, Alkaline, 75 GPD

The APEC ROES-PH75 is the third RO system that I've owned. In the past I had an Aqua King AK40 and a Pure H2O 5-stage system. Of all these three, the APEC system is the best I've had so far.Price: I purchased the AK40 system for $2500 dollars (with filter replacements costing circa $250/year) and the Pure H2O system for $150 (with filter replacements costing $50-60/year). The APEC system cost a little more than the Pure H2O system, but far less than the Aqua King.Noise: The AK40 system had to be flushed at least once a week and was pretty noisy during a flush. It also would make some noise while refilling in high quantities. The Pure H2O system made sucking and draining noise all the time. It was so obnoxious that guests would get distracted during a conversation. I have not heard the APEC system make a sound (besides when I initially turned on the water flow to the system).Water flow: The AK40 system had good water flow and would slow down proportionately with the quantity of water in the tank. The Pure H2O system was overall slow. This system is high water flow up until the tank is practically empty.Installation: The AK40 system took around 2 hours to install with difficult instructions. The Pure H2O system took 1 hour with good instructions. This system took 1 hour with good instructions. The filters were easiest to replace in the following order from easiest to hardest: Pure H2O, APEC, Aqua King.Taste: Of the three systems, I would rank the taste in the following order from best to worst: APEC, Aqua King, and Pure H2O. The Alkaline filter makes a big difference in taste.Durability: I can't speak for the durability of this system yet, but have not had any issues with leaking during installation. The Aqua King served me for about 8 years and had issues with leaking once in a while. The Pure H2O system gave up the ghost after 1.5 years, when it started leaking from multiple places one day (even though I replaced all filters every 6 months).Overall, I am impressed with the performance of this system and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good RO system.

This product literally changed my life! Back in the day I had to go the rite aid on a monthly basis, find Poland Spring boxes, haul them home in the trunk of my car, carry them to the second floor. Then same thing over and over again every month, carrying 5-6 boxes of Poland Spring up the stairs to the second floor. Also, I became a bit concerned with the fact that I throw out more than 100 plastic bottles per month. That is when I started doing my research. At first, I wanted to go with a BRITA pitcher (or PUR) but then after doing so much research I came to realization that those filters do make tap water better, but still not healthy enough for me and especially for my newborn. At first, under sink water systems were out of the question for me because I did not want to deal with finding a plumber, doing major plumbing overhaul in the house which I rent and pay top dollar for this. I was very fortunate to stumble upon this product and after reading all of the reviews I am very happy that I purchased it.The item comes in a big white box labeled APEC. Unboxing it was fairly easy so no need to write too much about it. The top layer of the package consists of 3 filters, then in a middle is 4th stage membrane filter and the piece that goes on top of the filters. Also, there is a wrench that helps tie the filter. There are also color coded tubes, faucet, adapter, drain saddle, teflon tape, etc. On the bottom there is another box with the water tank. In order to install the item you will need a drill, adjustable wrench and a screw driver. Installing 3 stage pre-filters is fairly easy, just follow the instruction as to which filter goes where and then screw them into the arrowhead using the included wrench to tighten the housing, but don't over tighten it too much.Installing the system under the sink is easy if you follow instructions carefully. One thing to note is that instructions are also available in the video format on youtube - just search for APEC water filter installation video. Although installing the item is fairly easy and the video shows that too, the difficult part is spending an hour or two under the sink, which can get very uncomfortable. Also, would be great to have someone help you because it is a bit difficult getting under the sink and out then back under again. The video makes it sound much easier that in real life. To install the feed water adapter you have to turn off the cold water (check that you turned off the cold water by turning on the faucet). I recommend turning off both hot and cold water just to be sure. Then you need to loosen the nut at any location and connect feed water adapter there - you can either loosen the nut at the top where the faucet is or at the bottom where the valve is, either is fine. Be careful - that adapter edges are very sharp and I cut my hand twice by accident. Also, don't forget to use teflon tape that is provided. Now the drain saddle - you need to use a specified size drill (refer to instructions) and drill a hole in the drain pipe. You need to drill in the horizontal pipe to avoid drain noise. If you do it correctly you will never hear the filter system working or making noises. Keep in mind that you need to apply pressure on the drill so that it goes through the pipe. Then you need to align the hole on the saddle to the hole on the pipe. I am not going to comment on installation of tubes so please refer to instructions - just don't want to confuse you.Last step is to install the faucet - you can either drill a hole in your counter but I used the spray hose hole instead. I removed spray hose (you disconnect it under the sink and pull it out, make sure that the water is turned off. Then I put the faucet that came with APEC through that hole.Once you are ready and everything is assembled, I suggest emptying at least 5 tanks of water. To do this, just wait till the tank is full and then open the faucet to let the water drip until it stops and repeat that 5 times.Now, in terms of water quality and taste. I got APEC ROES PH75 which is the same thing as ROES-50 but great tank output (75 vs. 50) and PH filter which you can either use or not use. There is a way to bypass it and you can call APEC support, they are great they can guide you through the process. For extra $20/$30 I decided to go with ROES PH75 - and I love it. You also get more output from your tank. And if you ever decide not to go with PH filter you can bypass it.At first, the water tasted a bit bitter to me, especially compared to Poland Spring but then either I got used to it or flashed a few tanks. Now the water taste is perfect, I absolutely love it. It replaced Poland Spring and I had it for a few months and everyone loves it. I also bough glass Life Factory bottles and love them too! I also bough HM Digital TDS (ppm) meter to check the water quality. Since this PH filter (6 stage) adds minerals back the ppm will not be zero, I am getting around 10. Tap water in NYC is pretty good at about 50 ppm and Poland Spring is roughly 20ppm.If you are considering PH75 or non-PH 50, I suggest going with PH75. It has better gallons per day output and comes with PH filter. If you don't like that filter you can easily bypass it. The water tastes great and this filter definitely improved by life. Thanks to APEC, Amazon and to all the reviewers who contributed to the great rating of this product, which in turn resulted in me buying it!

Reverse osmosis really does make a difference. My water tastes awesome, and I can tell it's cleaner after measuring TDS. Installation was mainly very simple - it took me about 25 minutes (see note below). I even did the Pepsi Challenge with this thing, and was able to tell the difference between the tap water and the RO water every single time.Minor niggle - ROES-75 with PH is a new product, so the instruction manual is essentially the ROES-75 plus a one-page supplement with a modification for the PH filter. It was a little confusing at first as to what to do when connecting the main line to the system. I would expect a separate manual at some point - minor point however.I had trouble understanding the difference between the Essence series, which is much cheaper, and the flagship Ultimate series. What am I getting in the Ultimate series that I am not getting in Essence? I spoke to Ken at APEC customer service to discuss it. He explained that it was mainly 2 things. One is longevity of filters. With Ultimate you only need to change filters once per year. The second difference is certifications - it costs $$ to send things to the labs and with Essence the idea is to keep price lower. However he seemed confident that an Essence would pass certification and said the water quality is about the same. Finally - Ken @ APEC told me you can upgrade an Essence to Ultimate by buying the more expensive filters and swapping them out. The quick-connect fittings for the tubes are universal.I now feel fully satisfied I have the best possible experience given the price tradeoff, knowing I have the option of upgrading should I choose to. And I feel confident in the water quality given my experience with it and with what APEC said to me.All told, I would recommend this product because it appears to function as advertised. It produces high quality water, with low TDS, and is very quiet as well. My pressure is good, so I can fill the 4 gallon tank in about 2 hours. Your mileage WILL vary if you have low water pressure. If so, consider a pump.

I replaced a pay by month RO water system, and so glad i did this is much cheaper in the long run. I did a lot of research looking for the best quality RO System. I found APEC Water here on Amazon. The listing, clear details and pictures sold me on it. Arrived a few days later thanks to Amazon Prime. I saved it for a weekend project as i did not know how much time it would take.To my surprise, it was mostly assembled including most of the hoses. I really liked that the whole thing is freestanding too so i did not have to mount anything. Just slid everything in there. It took me and my wife helper about 1.5 hours or so to install. But i really took my time on every step.Once i had everything connected, i had one small leak at the Needle Valve connection. Fixed quickly by an extra turn.All of the connectors are like those Shark Bite connectors. Super easy. Just push them in and done. Cant believe they work so well and so simple but they work great. Taking them off is a little tricky but also easy to do. The plastic hoses taht come with it or 1/4" diameter. Color coded hoses red, yellow, black and clear making following instructions easy.Instructions are very clear with pictures, and full contact info to APEC WATER is right on the back of the booklet, that is always important to me. Most companies hide their contact info not APEC. I did not need any help but nice to know they would be there if i did.I have no CONS really except i was a little disappointed they did not included a 1/4" T connector to tap into my ice maker line. Shows it in the instructions as optional. I think as cheap as they are they should have just included it. No big deal i ordered those on Amazon too. I just have to crawl back under my sink again in a couple days.TIPS TO OTHERS:- Read the directions carefully and follow to the letter. Dont lose a single part, some of them are tiny.- Make sure to leave plenty of room on the hoses to you can move it out when replacing filters. They are extra long so ok to cut some but not too much.- When you cut hoses, make sure not to smash the ends or it will restrict water flow.- Put several wraps of teflon tape where it says to, i did 3-4.- Do not over tighten anything it is easy to break the plastic connectors.- Make a note of the the link to the replacement kit here on Amazon and put a reminder in your calendar 6 months or a year from now to remember to change. I plan on doing mine every 6 months.- I got the 6 stage as it included the PH filter which creates Alkaline water. This is suppose to be good for cancer prevention i read as it cannot survive in an alkaline environment.Solid high quality product very happy with my purchase.LenO

I have owned this set for 3 months so far and I am 100% satisfied. Initially, I went to the Costco for the water solution and got a quote of 4-stage RO + Softener system cost thousands of dollars. After some online research, I figured out that buying online and getting it installed by a local plumber could be a better decision and for most home users a good RO system is typically the only thing you need for cleaner drinking water. Eventually, almost every online review article I ever read lists two systems as their top picks, APEC ROES-50 and iSpring RCC7 5-stage. I almost decided to purchase the latter but eventually picked APEC brand since it claims it is all USA made. Also some reviews mentioned that the 1st stage transparent filter case of the iSpring looks beautiful but somehow could be easier to break which pushed me also towards to APEC. Finally I picked ROES-PH75 instead of ROES-50 since I want the flavor but be aware if you have any health condition please skip the mineral addition.After the order arrived, I contacted a local plumber to drill a hole in my kitchen sink and install the RO and he did throw away some of plastic connectors came along with the system and used his own copper connectors during the installation. Note that in the picture showing the final installation, there was a leak prevention tray added by the plumber for $25 which will shut the water input if the sensor detects the water inside the tray (not included by APEC). The installation took about 1 hour and seemed to be easy. But after 3 weeks, I saw water flowing out of the cabinet under the sink, wondering why the leak tray didn't take effect to shut the water off, I finally found out that it was leaking from the water tank connector shown in the picture. I immediately contacted the APEC with photos and got quick response with some instructions on how to fix it and told APEC will send a replacement for the top connector. I shut the system off and two days later the replacement part arrived but turned out to be a wrong part. I wrote back and again got quick response that they would send the correct one again. Two days later, I received the correct part and called the plumber again since I found out that he reversed the 5th and 6th stage filters. After the fix, I haven't experienced any issues so far and it has been providing clean and tasty water for the whole family to drink and cook.Overall, the product is really a good one. Before my tap water was measured at 280+ ppm but the number dropped to 20+ right after the installation. I hope APEC could have several minor enhancements to make the product better 1) use better connector parts (metal over plastic) 2) better labeling for the 5th/6th to avoid confusions 3) provide an alternative faucet with brushed nickel finish (on this I like iSpring's one better) 4) add a water leak detector

We have city water that is sourced from a river, and had been spending a fortune on bottled/gallon water. We have a house built in 1954 but no lead pipes, although my husband said it's possible we may have some lead soldering somewhere along the way. You can see our lead test in the picture, before and after. If the bottom line is darker than the top line, lead is "undetected." So our water before the test was technically "undetected" but barely. After switching to the reverse osmosis system it was very clearly undetected. The system also brought our total hardness down to 25 ppm from 350 ppm. The reverse osmosis water tested completely negative for pesticides. It brought our ph down from a 10 to an 7.5We have had this system for 9 months now and have not changed any of the filters so I decided to take the water parameter tests again. Lead was still undetected, although the top line had darkened a bit. (Nothing close to the unfiltered water results though.) Total hardness was still at 25 ppm. Pesticide test came back positive, faint line. We should have changed our first three filters at 6 months per recommendations but my husband thought that was an unnecessary recommendation meant to make the company more money. Would be interesting to see our current water tests had we followed the "rules." We will now change all of them, and start our testing from scratch, and I'll update our tests results here at the 6 month mark. So I would say defintely change the filters as recommended and don't just wing it.Also, we have had no issues with the system leaking as others have claimed. We had a lot of bubbles in the water the first couple days after installation and then they never came back, so if you're worried about that, it doesn't last. Also, my husband had no issues installing the system, but he's a handyman so that's probably why.Last thing I'd like to mention is the water tastes great and very crisp but my husband still prefers the taste of aquafina lol. The system was mainly for me though since I drink literally over a gallon a day, and for cooking purposes. Adjusted for current inflation prices, if my husband and I were still buying the amount of water we were before installation, we would be spending $845.52 a year. So this system paid for itself PLUS all of the replacement filters four months ago.

Great product and very good tasting water, a lot better than fridge water . We had it for over 6 months now and we love it . Tank holds a good amount to fill up coffee tank and ice machine at once and will start refilling as soon as we shut it off. Installation was easy if you are handy with plumbing.

Edit: I bought and installed an inline TDS meter that has 2 sensors. It's reading 250 ppm going into the RO and 5 ppm before the last PH filter that adds calcium. I figure that's a better way to tell when to change the membrane, before the PH filter skewers the TDS numbers. Thing is, I tested the meter before installing it by putting the sensor in a glass of the RO water and it read 3 ppm, so the PH filter must be removing something while adding calcium. All I know is the water tastes great. Best investment I've made in a long time. I even use it to water my small garden. By the way, you might want to install an inline meter BEFORE you get your RO up and running. I should have known the water was still under pressure even after turning off the water pipe valve. It was a sprayfest in my kitchen when I cut the line and had to scramble to push the lines into the Tee connector.I shopped around and this seems to be the perfect size for me. I didn't want a larger system because I was afraid the water would stagnate in a larger tank. Now I can finally use the fridge door water dispenser and ice maker/crusher. The fridge's built in water filter was useless against our nasty Vegas water, so don't believe the filter hype when you go shopping for a new fridge, unless your tap water already tastes good.Install wasn't too bad, the hardest part for everyone being having to crawl around under the sink, so find a way to get comfortable under there. They say NOT to use a copper tube for the refrigerator supply line because the RO makes the water so pure that it becomes 'hungry' and will start eating away at the copper, so I bought the icemaker kit with the milky white plastic line. The house already has the copper tubing in place but the previous owners used that rickety saddle connector on the water pipe and it was corroded and leaking. They really should ban those things and make people use the correct plumbing parts. I had to break out my trusty dremel to cut through the rust to remove it, then cut the water pipe and install a new water cutoff (Sharkbite, these things are great). I had already connected all the RO pieces to the new cutoff valve so after cleaning the water pipe all I had to do was shove it on and I was halfway done with the install. All the rest was just to install the drain tube, connect the faucet, and push the connecting lines into the quick connects. Turned the water back on and nothing leaked, (I did also order a couple of those battery operated water alarms for peace of mind).Now I no longer have to lug cases of water home from the store every week.

I was researching a long time about RO systems, which to buy and which would have a better taste in water quality... We used to buy water from Canadian Tire, and it was amazing quality water... BUT I didn't like the fact that we always had to carry bottles into the house and store them and change out bottles. After that we switched to Zero Water Filtration system for our water cooler. It fit our water cooler perfectly and worked a long time, until one day the cooler broke and started leaking all over our kitchen floor. So I was on the search for a replacement. Then I came across this unit! What an amazing quality RO System this unit is! Absolutely loving it. Would definitely recommend it anyone who is looking to replace it for bottled water. It's easy to install, all the lines are color coded and the water tastes amazing. I would never purchase anything else. APEC Water Systems are made in the USA!!! Top quality, excellent tasting water, good value for your money! What more do you want? Buy it, enjoy it. It's amazing!Definitely recommend this one! Don't buy any cheap garbage made in China!

Awesome filter . using it on a old 50 year house with awful smelling water on copper pipes. I used a plumber to install and he was able to use the supplied manuals to read installation. Also able to use most of the parts supplied but plumber used AU standards plumbing connections to drain which feels more hygienic than using the stock drilled fitment. has to be drained a fair around 20 mins in startup to clean the cloudy water from the remineralization stage. I also paid extra to connect it to fridge water/ice dispenser. Only downside is I paid more price for it and it is cheaper now in amazon

The installation instructions were clear. Everything was included in the box. The water tastes great. What more could one ask?FYI, when you use the product for the first time it will be full of tiny bubbles. Give it a few days and they'll all work themselves out of the system and you'll have non-cloudy water.

This unit was replacing my previous 25 year old reverse osmoses system so all the fittings were already in place., Twenty minutes work to replace the tank, hook up the pipes and it was running. Water tastes even better than it did with the old unit but total Dissolved Solids are a bit higher because this one adds calcium at the end.

Supply the whole house drinking and cooking water,5 times cleaner then the council water supply.