Features:

  • Supreme quality - designed, engineered, and assembled in USA to guarantee water safety & your health.
  • Only technology to remove up to 99% of contaminants including arsenic, chlorine, lead, fluoride, heavy metals, bacteria, virus and 1000+ contaminants. System Capacity- 50 gallons per day @ 60 psi, 30 gallons/day @50 psi and 77 deg F.Tank Capacity-4 gallons. Feed Water pH- 2.0 -11.0. Max Total Dissolved Solids- 2000 ppm. Feed Water Pressure 40-85 psi.
  • Premium long-lasting filters used to treat tap water, well water. Provide unlimited clean, refreshing crisp tasting water superior to bottled water
  • America's No.1 rated water filter brand with 20 years of success guaranteeing trouble free, noise-free system for long lasting, dependable, pure drinking water.
  • System comes with 100% lead-free designer faucet, plus FDA Certified JG Food grade tubing and parts to provide safe, contamination-free pure water..Pipe Size:1/4 inches
  • 2 year extended manufacturer warranty with registration. System comes with all parts and industry's best instructions and videos for an easy DIY experience.
  • High quality leak-free quick connect fittings require no extra lock clips to seal leak, and does not rely on water leak detector to protect your home like other brands.
Sweet spot for quality and price

The APEC Top Tier 5-Stage Reverse Osmosis system delivers on it's most important function - clean, good tasting water, and it does it at great value. This is a six month review. This 5-stage system includes 1 pre-filter, 2 particulate filters, and 2 micro filters. This gives it large capacity for cleaning silty water, while providing a high-level of purifying for harmful contaminates. The installation materials are comprehensive, and give you all the items needed to install under your sink. It is a moderate difficulty home-owner level install. Figure 2+/- hours if your are replacing a current system, and up to 4 if it's a new install. You will need only basic tools. The exception is if you need to drill a hole in your counter to install the small faucet. That may require special hole saws depending on your counter top material. The actual unit is very compact, and I managed to wedge in between my garbage disposal and cabinet wall (see picture). I saved water from our old 3-stage system, and compared taste and quality to the new APEC 5-stage system. All of the family agreed the this APEC system delivered superior taste, and higher flow rate. The water was visibly clearer. My experience with a family of 4, and a reverse osmosis system servicing a counter faucet AND the refrigerator ice/water dispenser is that the main large particulate filters last about a year. So I suggest buying a complete set of all 5 filters, plus additional large particulate filters when you purchase the unit. Having these spares on hand will let you get in the habit of changing them regularly. The included faucet is a solid upgrade over the older style we were using. It's solid, and easy to clean. Flow rate is better than expected. All of the included polyhose is color-coded and connects without tools. The supplied pressure tank can be installed upright or on its side. The included installation materials have water and drain taps used to integrate into your existing supply and drain with minimal fuss. PROS: 1) Great value. The price is only slightly more than the cost of buying three replacement filters for an older 3-stage system. 2) Purification level exceeded my expectations. Great tasting water. Like it actually tastes good, maybe even Fiji Water good. 3) Everything (and I mean everything) needed for installation is included. Competent home-owner installation. 4) Very compact unit. Fits in the tightest of spaces. CONS: 1) You may need special hole saw tools to install the supplied faucet in your counter top. 2) Expect to lie on your back, under your sink cabinet, and fight for room between drains, sink bowls, and garbage disposals. Some nimbleness is needed.

Affordable and effective under-sink filter

We installed this filter primarily to improve the taste of our well water. Our water quality is naturally good enough that we require nothing more than a sediment filter but there has always been a bit of a sour taste to the water. This reverse osmosis filter system was very easy to install and everyone in the house noticed the difference immediately. It fits snuggly inside our kitchen sink base cabinet while allowing room for detergents, cleaners and other items. To avoid drilling another hole in our solid surface countertop we chose to remove the hand soap pump dispenser and install the faucet which worked perfectly in this pre-drilled hole. Definitely recommend if you’re simply looking to add filtered water at your kitchen sink.

I've got one on every floor!

"You have one on every floor?" Yes. I have three APEC RO filters, and I love them all. Let me explain: Where I live, we have "city water", but that's really a community well. The water here is EXTREMELY hard. The last time I had it tested to size out a water softener, I was hovering around 30 grains per gallon (that's about three times what the WQA considers "very hard water"). There's tons of sediment, too. At the tap, using my trusty water tester, we're hovering in the neighborhood of 600 ppm. Not "that one time I used a glass that I wasn't sure was clean, and got 571 ppm" but "in new, plastic cups rinsed with distilled water, the readings are between 590 and 630." Not surprisingly, the net result is that the water tastes gross. If you don't want to read the entire review, here's what you need: this filter turns 600 ppm water into 10 ppm water. Ten. One, zero. Anyway, I had gone the Primo water route for years (a water cooler with bottles you exchange at Kroger / Walmart / etc.) but got really tired of lugging 40 gallons of water around every time I went to the store. And when I did the math, my almost top-of-the-line Ultimate RO-PERM filter by APEC was going to pay for itself in about six month's time, versus what I was paying for Primo water every month (not even factoring in gas and time involved in getting the bottles). Then we had a PFAS scare. The river just yards from the municipal water supply was found to be contaminated with PFAS. That's "Don't eat the fish, and if you decide to swim and accidentally swallow some water, you'll get sick" contaminated. Testing was done on the municipal supply, and it was deemed safe. Let me pause here. I live in Michigan. I don't live in or near Flint, but I'm willing to bet you've heard of it, and that the state said their water was safe, too. And I'm like a level 1 still on the training level conspiracy theorist. I decided I wanted to have a second RO system on the second floor bathroom. My family tends to spend a fair amount of time upstairs, and I thought it would be good for brushing teeth, and so on. As much as I love the Ultimate RO-PERM, I was kind of skeptical about the Essence series. It was cheaper, but the specs seemed to be similar (minus the permeate pump and associated output). Turns out, the biggest difference is that the Ultimate series filters are all made in the USA and WQA certified. The Essence series has imported filters, and APEC seems to have skipped passing on the cost of WQA certification. Side by side, you can't really tell the filters apart, other than looking at the labels to see where they came from. As far as I can tell, the quality is the same. And what's more, the parts are interchangeable, so if you want to "upgrade" the Essence series by replacing the filters with the American-made Ultimate filters, you can. But as far as TDS, both filters appear to be equally effective! Installation -- just like my first system -- was dead simple. Turn off the cold water, take off the compression fitting to your faucet, install the adapter (there are several different configurations that should work for just about anybody, included in the package) put your faucet on the adapter, drill a hole for the new RO faucet (difficult on steel, super easy on laminate / composite surfaces), drill a hole for the waste water, tighten your fittings, connect some push-in PEX lines, and you're done. I'll say this: the first time I installed one, I was feeling really overwhelmed before I started, took a crazy amount of time in unnecessary prep and caution, and had no trouble whatsoever. After I was done, it was so easy, I was offering to help friends and family. Installing this one took me maybe 30 minutes, most of which was spent making a small modification. So, basic installation doesn't get easier, quality is excellent, and oh by the way, their customer support is awesome. I had a reservoir lose pressure, but initially I couldn't figure out if it was a problem with the filter or something else. They responded to e-mail super fast, we determined what the problem was, the troubleshooting steps were easy, and when we figured out a part needed to be replaced, there wasn't even the slightest pushback about just sending me a whole new reservoir. Thinking about an RO system? Buy it. Have a few bucks more / want to buy American? Get the Ultimate series instead. NOW... I know this is wordy. If you don't care about pressure, efficiency, or the modification I made, skip the rest of this. I decided this specific system was going to go in my basement. I've got different projects I work on in the basement, including indoor gardening. Lugging bottles around for water changes isn't the most fun thing in the world, and heavily softened water with 600 ppm is just not going to work for gardening. I already ran a bunch of PEX down there to install my whole-house humidifier last year, so I knew adding another RO filter was going to be a cinch. But... I also knew the pressure on that line was low, and didn't like the idea of creating so much wastewater. Enter the permeate pump! I wanted maximum pressure and regeneration on my Ultimate filter, so buying the version with the permeate pump was overkill on my part. But in the basement on the low-pressure line, it was useful. Permeate pumps also increase efficiency by something like 80% and reduce wastewater discharge by over 50%. Not everyone needs one, but you might for pressure. Or, you might want one for efficiency and / or reducing water usage. I'm pleased to say with that pump, Essence ROES-50 performs like an absolute champ on a low-pressure line. All I did was tee off the water line to my humidifier, add a shutoff, and extend the waste line a bit to go to a floor drain. The manifold on this filter is metal, so drilling through it was a tiny challenge (we're talking maybe three or four minutes) but adding the clamp for the pump and rerouting the connections from the auto shutoff took just minutes. Almost everything you need (depending on the length of PEX you need if you're extending a feed line or drain) can be found in this kit for less than you'd pay for a tee and a shutoff valve at any home improvement store. TOTAL installation from box to modification to making clean water was about 30 minutes. And after filling, flushing, and filling, now I have 10 ppm water in my basement, too. I adore this system, and wouldn't even consider buying from another company. If you're not going for an Ultimate system, don't mess around with the cheaper lookalike brands on Amazon. Go with an APEC and enjoy clean water from a solid system, from a company that's still going to be around when you need to change your filters.

How Do I Like This After 1 Year?

I don't like it at all. I LOVE IT! This is far and away one of the best purchases I've made for our home. Before having this RO unit, our tap water was horrible. Not too long after moving into this house and realizing how bad the water tasted, we went the bottled water route. For 9 years, we've been buying bottled water. Easily going through at least 8 bottles a month and at one point got up to 13 bottles a month. That's anywhere from $60 to just short of $100 a month for bottled water!! Even after I purchased this unit, I didn't get my lazy butt under the sink to put it in for 4 months or so. To be fair, I have knee issues...but yeah, it was mostly that I was just lazy. Anywho, I finally got up the gumption to put this together and it really was quite easy to get-er-done. So now, we're easily saving $1000 a year, our water tastes fantastic, we can finally use our ice-maker on the fridge and actually use the ice it makes for more than pouring it into a cooler to keep drinks cold. If your water tastes horrible, do yourself a favor and get this unit. It has really easy instructions you can follow to install it... and even if you have to hire someone to do it, you'll come out ahead and will definitely love the taste of your water again. It is well worth it! Our next step is to buy one of the APEC full house systems so we can have great water throughout the house...and even out of the tap itself! Oh, and I forgot to mention that using these RO systems will help your water heater and all of your pipes, shower heads, etc. to last longer too! Tired of nasty hard water spots on your dishes after they've been washed? Buy the whole house system and you won't have that issue anymore. 5 stars just aren't enough for this wonderful product! BTW...I know I sound like a commercial or paid advertiser for APEC, but I'm not. Just a very happy guy now that I have this product in my home.

Install is a breeze

1. Delivery - Amazon was late delivering this, but we had some weather and overall I was not in a hurry to install. 2. Inside the box - Everything was well packaged and nothing was damaged. 3. Instructions - The instructions were very clear, well laid out and easy to follow, especially with the color coded hose. 4. Installation - Overall the process was easy and straight forward. An issue I ran into was the adapter provided in the kit to connect the shut off valve to my water pipe. I was trying to also install a water shut off as there was not one installed previously. I purchased a part at the hardware store and found the adapter in the kit was threaded differently than the standard valve threading. In the end I had to bypass installing the shut off valve at this time. One thing I would recommend during the install of this system is USE THE TEFLON TAPE! Also make sure you tighten things all the way and properly. I also added a "T" valve and ran a line to my fridge for water and ice, the instructions for this are also included with the kit, you just have to buy the connection hardware separate. 5. Use - The system functions perfect! Overall I am extremely happy with the system, it's install process and functionality. I would highly recommend this system to anyone.

I've used 3 different filtration systems over the past few years. This one is THE BEST!

Granted I already have a handyman background, but compared to other water filtration systems I've installed (Whirlpool, A.O. Smith) this one was by far the easiest. The instructions are clear and detailed. Another note on parts of the installation/setup process that I appreciated: The Whirlpool system I had before required you to run the faucet for 24 hours the first time you used it, and every time you changed the filters. Let me tell you, the sound of a dripping faucet gets pretty annoying after a short while! This one only requires you to fill the tank once (mine took two hours), drain it (5 minutes), and fill it again. I had to do that one more time to get completely rid of the grayish-colored water from the first cycle, but at no part of this process did I need to leave the faucet running and listen to it drip-drip-dripping like the Whirlpool one. As for water pressure, the Whirlpool has APEC beat in that regard, but not by much. This one still fills a 20oz water bottle in ~10 seconds. The A.O. Smith system I had would have taken ~30 seconds for the same water bottle, and the Whirlpool about ~5. It's worth noting, however, that the Whirlpool one and this one were installed in two different homes, so the water pressure likely varied. Lastly, the water tastes fantastic!—much better than either the A.O. Smith or Whirlpool system. And it's crystal-clear. At first I noticed what looked like particles floating around, but discovered that they're actually teeny-tiny little air bubbles from the filtration process. They go away after a few moments. Overall, after having used several different brands, I'll be sticking with APEC for the foreseeable future. I can tell just by the packaging/instructions/design that these systems are well-thought-out and there is an attention to detail that just isn't there with others. Also, it looks like their support team is active in answering customers on Amazon which makes a difference as well!

Best value, best investment, best water ever!

This system was easy to install, appeared very durable and well made, and best of all it changed the water from a TDS reading of 983 to 25 to 30!! Our feedstock water is from a very deep well, and of good quality (except for the TDS, mostly salts). The prefilters lasted a year before changing, and replacement filters are both affordable and easy to change. This system does a better job than the much more expensive system used by relatives on the same well, I very highly recommend this system!

Great Water Quality

The water quality was noticeably better after the install. I definitely recommend this apec water system, the filters last a long time and the installation was very simple. I definitely recommend it for the clean water taste and avoid any particles or contaminated water due to old pipes and tainted water supplies.

DIY Friendly

It's been over a year now since I installed this under the kitchen counter and still working well on well water. I'm saving quite a few pennies by refilling my Aqua Fina bottles which was getting a bit expensive. No leaks, tank holds quite a bit of filtered water which it shares with the ice maker. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, BTW, my wifes best friend boasted about how she had hers installed (some other brand) and it cost her only 800.00 bucks. LoL

Wish I Had Bought It Years Ago!

I am a water snob. Water is all I drink - and it needs to taste absolutely clean and pure. In other words, my water needs to taste like absolutely nothing. This product delivers! Water from the faucet comes out cool unless I've just been doing dishes or running the dishwasher, in which case it comes out a tad warmer. I drink my water at room temperature, and that's the real test. Any water can "pass" if it's ice cold or hot. This water is good at room temperature! If I had known I could basically make my own filtered water at home, I would have bought this years ago! Even with professional installation courtesy of my favorite plumber, this system easily paid for itself in under a year. No more Brita! No more water delivery! No more Aquafina! None of those other options even come close. We now have our own filtered water coming out of its own faucet right by our kitchen sink. We use it for people. We use it for pets. We use it for cooking. And after a solid year of use, we still have not needed to change the filter. Do buy the little tester gizmo. That's how you'll actually prove to yourself how clean your new water is. That's also how you'll know to change the filter.

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