The PUR Plus 11-Cup Pitcher is an excellent item for households that don’t have a refrigerator with a built-in water filter. The PUR filter produces excellent tasting water, in a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, there is a pretty large flaw to consider.
PUR Plus 11-Cup Pitcher
An excellent water filter pitcher with an infuriating flaw
The PUR Plus 11-cup water filter pitcher is an all-around excellent water purifier. However, it suffers from a terrible flaw that prevents pouring while unfiltered water is in the reservoir.For several years I’ve relied on PUR filters and PUR’s Large Filtered Water Dispenser. It just sits on the counter and it contains enough water that you don’t have to fill it up that often. I saw no reason to change.
My previous home had a Whirlpool refrigerator with a built-in water filter. My new home does not. So I thought I might purchase a PUR filter pitcher to put in the fridge.
The good
PURs filters are quite good. The filtered water that it produces tastes great. I have not done any scientific testing on this. PUR filters tend to be The Wirecutter’s pick for best water filters—that’s good enough for me.
The filter indicator light is a nice improvement. I never wanted to place the stickers that come with the PUR filters on my dispenser—so changing the filter was always a guessing game. I think that the indicator light probably encourages most people from changing the filter too quickly, but at least there’s some indication how old the filter is.
The bad
It’s difficult to see the water level in the reservoir. The blue-tinted plastic makes it hard to tell how much water still needs to be filtered. Did you see the water line in the header image for this post? Generally, I wouldn’t think that this is an issue, but…
The lid comes off and water pours everywhere if you attempt to pour with water in the reservoir. This is such a critical design flaw, that I would recommend most people go with the Large Filtered Water Dispenser, if you have the space. Even though it’s just water having 11 cups of water all over your kitchen, because you didn’t know water was still filtering is unacceptable. My girlfriend and I have had this pitcher about 2 months and have probably made this mistake 5 times. We now only pour water over the sink.
Who should buy this?
You are single, can keep track of refills and don’t have a lot of counter space. I think this is the one scenario, where I’d say this is a decent buy. The disasters happen when someone else in the household fills the pitcher up and it’s difficult for others to tell how much water is in the reservoir. If you don’t have a lot of counter space and can keep track of refills, you’ll be fine.
For everyone else, I’d strongly recommend the dispenser over the pitcher.
