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Comment by schwoll | Hacker News Reader

How does this apply to our water filters inside our refrigerators?

It's a risk if you don't swap the filter regularly as recommended by the manufacturer, and everything downstream of the filter (tubing etc) is at elevated risk for biofilm buildup when the filter is stripping out chlorine/chloramine.

It's an even bigger risk, generally, with pitcher/reservoir type systems (e.g. Brita or Pur) that require manual fills, given that they get a lot of environmental exposure. If you use a Brita pitcher for a while and then leave the filter media and pitcher somewhere at room temp for a couple weeks, you can often see evidence of fungal/microbial growth popping out of the bottom of the filter cartridge. It's pretty gross. I've also had a relative end up in the hospital with a pretty severe amoebic infection, which investigators traced back to her Brita filter cartridge she had neglected to change for some time.

Sure, but as long as you change the filter every 2-3 months and keep it in the fridge there's nothing to worry about.

And if you leave almost anything out at room temperature for weeks kept moist you're going to see gross growth. It's nothing specific to a filter.

Part of the reason I purposefully bypassed the filter on my fridge. The tap water is fine and doesn't need filtering but an old water filter can cause all sorts of nastiness.

Well the main point of a Brita filter is to remove the chlorine so you tap water doesn't taste like it was mixed with pool water.

But this is why you replace your Brita filter every 2-3 months and wash the container.

Refrigerator filters generally need to be replaced every 6 months.

It's both because they lose effectiveness and because bacteria builds up inside them.

Ice machines are open to the air, water lines in a fridge are not.

And your ice maker is normally always cold.

But clean any parts that do get warm.

Cheap filters don't do much and the more expensive ones don't remove chlorine.

It's really shocking how ineffective things like pitcher filters are when compared to a quality cartridge filter. The pitcher filters really do practically nothing.

Hard disagree. My tap water has a strong chlorine taste, I hate it. In my Brita pitcher, it's totally gone. Just tastes like water again.

It's the total opposite of "practically nothing", it does exactly what I bought it for -- effectiveness 100%.

It’s still probably not doing anything, chlorine readily evaporates out of water left in a pitcher. It’s a common technique used by indoor growers of certain plants - leave a bucket out for a day.

I can taste the water 5 minutes after it goes through the filter. The chlorine is gone. (Which is not the case if I pour it into a glass.) It has nothing to do with how long it sits around for.

I find it strange you're insisting filters don't work when one can tell from taste that they clearly do. And scientifically, activated carbon absorbs chlorine -- that's not a myth. So everything checks out.

Pitcher filters work for chlorine.

Sure, they work for chlorine, but there are plenty of other issues (arsenic, PFCs, other VOCs, glyphosates, TTHMs, lead for non 'Elite' Brita filters) that Brita filters are woefully inadequate to address.

Are any of those issues for something like the NYC municipal water supply?

I think most people buy filter pitches to fix the taste of water. Not for health or safety reasons.

Actually, NYC is a major concern in terms of water quality because it's very common for buildings to have old plumbing that releases trace heavy metals, and many buildings use rooftop water reservoirs that are a common source of organic contaminants (and occasionally cause building-wide outbreaks of things like legionella).

Similar issues exist in most 'older' US cities. I started becoming worried about my water filter efficacy after moving to downtown DC and learning that a significant portion of the municipal water supply's last mile piping contains lead, and that while the municipal water is safe at the source, water in DC housing is often heavily contaminated by lead and other compounds resulting from the use of extremely aged pipe infrastructure.

There's no question that Brita filters improve water taste by reducing chlorine/chloramine levels, and they will remove relatively large particulates, but they pale in comparison to proper pressure-driven cartridge filter systems if you start looking at comparisons for other contaminants.

Sure, but for people who are getting perfectly safe water from their municipal water supply, and just want to get rid of the chlorine taste -- that's where pitcher filters work perfectly. You don't need anything else.

Yes it will. Any carbon filter will remove chlorine, it's impossible for it not to.

Cheap filters improve taste, not water quality. And in most places that's all you need.

Thanks for clarifying.

They are dirty and risk for your health. Unless you clean it carefully every week.

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