Culligan FM-15A Level 3 Faucet Filter

Full Overview

The Culligan FM-15diy faucet mount water filtration system will improve your quality of life to the point where you'll want to scream "Hey, Culligan man!" just to thank him for helping to make such healthful, refreshing water available. This do-it-yourself system screw-mounts to your existing water faucet and comes with everything you need for up to 200 gallons of crisp, clear water.

Technical Details

- Filter life of up to 200 gallons
- Reduces unpleasant odor
- Improves taste
- Reduces lead, chlorine taste and odor, cryptosporidium, and giardia cysts
- NSF Certified

I got my first Culligan faucet filter (FM 15) about 2 years ago after doing quite a bit of research. I finally chose the Culligan over Britta and Pur after reading Consumer Reports regarding their testing of water filters. The Culligan filtered out more impurities and the filter lasted MUCH longer than the others. Best of all it was cheaper back then, I don't know if it still is.

I've been very pleased with the filter with one exception. At my old apartment I had great water pressure. I guess too great for the filter. After about 9 months of use the plastic casing started to leak. The good news is that Culligan warranties the filter so I just took it back to Sears (where I got that one) and they gave me a new one. Thus, I still give it a five even with the problem since they warranty it.

Okay, tried Brita. That fell apart. Tried PUR. Lasted longer but on wrong tap on it and its a fountain all over the place with leaks from the connection / unfixable. FINALLY...Culligan.

THIS THING IS GREAT. It's small. It doesn't leak. The water tastes CLEAN - LOVE the toggle back to tap water all by itself. I replace the reasonably priced cartridge every 2 months no problem...

Just skip the rest - So small...sure its white but hey - small price to pay for one that FINALLY WORKS...doesn't LEAK....doesn't crack -

terrific. It's a no brainer BUY NOW item! Wooohooo!!!

My town is currently going through upgrades to most of the water mains around my house. This has caused our water to take on a horrible chlorine like smell and sour taste. The water department told us that it is just the residual ......(they never explained what the residual is!!) and that the smell and taste would be gne within a few days. After a full week and living off of bottled water, I decided to give this faucet water filter a try due to its low price.

I got the filter and had it installed in under 30 seconds. For me, that is huge as I am petrified of anything plumbing related. For anyone with modern plumbing this filter just screws on to your existing faucet with no tools necessary. If you have an older faucet, this comes with multiple attachments that are supposed to fit most other connections. I can't comment on that as mine went on without needeing them.

Once it is installed you need to run the water for about 10 minutes or so to completely clean out the filter and then you are ready to go. To activate the filter you need to pull out the metal tab. Once the water is shut off, the tab automatically returns to its closed position so the filter is shut off. The water will automatically run through the normal faucet until you pull the tab agin for filtered water.

After my filter was "cleaned" I filled to glasses with water. One from the unfiltered tap and one from the filter. The unfiltered water had the horrible chlorine smell and sour taste(and waht appeared to be a lot of sediments). The filtered water had zero smell, no sediments and tasted, well...didn't really have a taste at all. Just plain water which is what I expect from my water!

So far, I am very happy with this filter. I will post back once I need to change out the filter (2 months or 200 gallons) to give an update if I have any problems. But for now, the price can't be beat to get great tasting and clean water from my tap. And I am happy I don't have to spend $1 or more per gallon for water at the market which, in my opinion, is no better than most tap water.

Update: February 18, 2009*****

After a full two months of use I can say that my initial impressions have not changed. The water filter has continued to operate as expected and I find myself drinking more water than in the past due to the clean taste.

My only issue is with replacement cartridges. The only place I can find them is here on Amazon. Problem is that the seller has them listed for $9.50 or so plus $7.50 for shipping bringing the total cost to $17.00 (or my original purchase price of the unit itself. The listing only states one filter so the cost to replace a filter is the same as buying an entire unit.

Amazon recently reduced the price of the whole unit to $14 and change. Because of this, I find it cheaper to just buy the entire unit rather than just the filter. I get free shipping from Amazon so I ended up buying two more units. Hopefully the filters will become available through Amazon (as the seller) so we are not hit with shipping charges that are almost as much as the filter itself. Otherwise, I will end up with a ton of leftover parts!

This is a tiny filter that's super-easy to install and use, and doesn't get in the way of using your faucet for washing dishes, etc. I like that its default mode is unfiltered - the filter toggle is held on by water pressure, so when you turn off the tap, the filter turns off too - this means you don't end up using filtered water when you don't need to. However, the taste of the water is really not as nice as the previous Pur filter I used.

I have no complaints about the construction or operation of the filter. It's one of the nicer faucet-mounted filters there are, with a very nice solid feel of quality. However, I did experience what some of the other reviewers mentioned: after a short while the filter didn't appear to have any affect on the taste of the water.

The problem, I discovered, is that if you run the water through the filter too quickly (by opening up the tap all the way) the charcoal filter just can't do its job. As a rule of thumb, only allow enough flow through the filter so that it takes about 15 seconds to fill up a glass of water, and you'll have great tasting water. So, if you have high water pressure, make sure you don't open of the faucet all the way when filling a glass. There's just no way a filter as small as this can do its job properly at the max flow rate of most faucets. You really need a large in-line filter for that.

Note that this only applies to the filter's odor and taste removal properties, because this involves a chemical reaction of sorts where activated charcoal pulls chlorine (and other chemical) out of the water by binding to them. This is a completely different mechanism than what you normally associate with filtering, such as particles being caught in a mesh (which is essentially how the rest of the filter works in these, and so it's really only the odor and taste that is affected by the rate at which you let water through the Culligan).

Some people would consider me a water snob, but I can't drink tap water. First, I tried buying a cooler and some water bottles and refilling them at my local Rite Aid, but that got really annoying really soon. Then, I had water delivered to my house, but then I was paying more than $50 a month! So, I opted for the water filter. I bought a Pur water filter. It worked great (great!) for the first few months, but after I replaced the cartridge, the filter started leaking. I'm not the only one, read the reviews.

So, I looked and looked, and all faucet filters (Pur, Brita) had leaking problems. So, I tried the Culligan (cheap, recognizable brand name). It didn't disappoint. Water tastes great, and it has a cheap replacement cartridge. Best of all, no leaks!!!!

Only drawback: Pur and Brita let you know when you need to replace the cartridge by flashing a red light. Culligan's cartridge "has" to be replaced every two months, and you don't know if it actually needs to be replaced sooner or later. Other than that, fantastic filter.

Edit (June 12, 2009):

Unfortunately, my Culligan has started dying on me. The filter has a clever mechanism to switch from regular water to filtered water. I don't know if it's because the water is too hard, but that mechanism gets stuck now. It's no big deal; you just have to remember to make sure you switch to regular water after each use. Otherwise, you could turn on the hot water and ruin the filter.

We've tried both Brita and Pur faucet mounted filters. Neither company makes a quality product in this catagory, nor offers them at a reasonable price.

This Culligan filter was a refreshingly quality product. We are actually very happy with it. It comes with a metal (not plastic!) faucet adaptor that attached securely, something we've had a problem with in the past.

The filter capacity is 200 gallons, more than other brands offer. While there is no gauge to measure filter life, my experience is that those gauges are prone to breaking. You can tell easily by the flow rate when a filter needs replacement. These replacement filters are reasonably priced.

Love it!

While each of the three national brands of faucet-mounted water filters has its own unique features, the overriding consideration of quality is whether or not the filter actually *stays* attached to the faucet. This Culligan model does, whereas both the Brita and the Pur did not.

I have an externally threaded faucet so it doesn't require an adapter. Nevertheless, I had the same problem with the device falling off that others attributed to the adapters. No matter how tightly I screwed the filter onto the tap or how cautious I was when turning the thing on and off, it always came loose.

There's nothing more annoying than turning on the tap and having the filter blast off, scaring the heck out of me, nearly missing my face and soaking me with spray. This happened several times, most recently with the Brita, which I finally just gave up on and threw in the trash. Then, having read the reviews here on Amazon, I bought the Culligan.

Unlike the Pur and the Brita, which are all plastic, the Culligan has a metal ring that attaches to the faucet. It's easy to screw on and it stays put. And here's the kicker -- it costs *half* the price of the others and its replacement filters are cheaper!

I do wish that Culligan offered its filter in chrome rather than only white, but I can certainly live with the white given Culligan's quality and the price. Plus, it's guaranteed for two years. My advice -- skip all the aggravation with the other brands and buy a Culligan.

I've been using a Brita filter pitcher for the past seven years. It still works fine, but I've gotten tired of having to constantly replace the filters, and it seems like the new filters aren't doing quite as good a job as the old ones, so I decided to look into a faucet filter. I immediately ruled out the ones made by Brita and PUR after reading all the bad reviews.

When I came across this filter from Culligan and saw the high number of favorable reviews, I decided to give it a try.

I've had the Culligan FM-15A for a couple of weeks and so far, so good! It does a nice job of making my water taste better. It doesn't taste quite as lovely as a cold bottle of Poland Spring, but it does taste as good as, or slightly better than, the water I used to get from my Brita pitcher.

Installation was simple and took about five minutes. The only tricky part was trying to figure out which adapter to use in my internally-threaded faucet. After that, it was smooth sailing.

The instructions say that the filter core is good for two months or 200 gallons. Since I live alone and certainly don't drink 200 gallons of water every two months (I probably drink a gallon a day at the very most, which would be 60 gallons every two months), I wasn't exactly sure when I should replace the filter. I sent an e-mail to Culligan and received a reply the next day. They stated the most important factor is how much water has passed through the filter. So, if you're like me, you can get away with replacing the filter every six months or so. On the other hand, if you have a big family that consumes more than 200 gallons every two months, you may need to replace it sooner than that. I would suggest measuring your drinking water usage for a couple of days, and then sitting down with a calculator to figure out how often you should replace your filter. I'm absolutely thrilled that I'll only have to replace mine every six months!

One final note: the product description on this page (as of the day I'm writing this review) says that the product has a five year warranty; however, the product I received has only a two year warranty. Five would have been nice, but two is still better than one. Hopefully Amazon will update the description accordingly.

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UPDATE August 29, 2010: I've been using this filter for a year and it still works great. Haven't had any problems with it at all. Very happy with it, and have recommended it to friends and family.

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UPDATE November 14, 2011: Two years and still going strong! The knob doesn't return to its position when I shut the water off, but that's not a big deal; I just push it back in when I'm done filtering. The filter cartridges do seem to get kind of slow after a while, so I'm now replacing them every three months instead of every six, but that's still better than the lifespan I was getting from Brita pitcher filters -- and a heck of a lot less expensive than buying bottled water.

The Culligan Faucet Filter #FM15A is simple to install. It took only five minutes to do so. It removes what it claims and, in the process, also takes out the excessive chlorine taste, leaving water with no taste. Because it accomplishes its intended purpose at a relatively low cost, I must give it five stars.