Clearly Filtered Discount: Pitcher, Water Bottle, Under-Sink

have water filters An increasingly fear-based economy. But people have good reasons to be careless about their drinking water – chlorine, microplastics, PFAS everywhere, heavy metals in groundwater, whatever bothers me yesterday.

But while most water filters seem to make many promises, only a few back them up with independent third-party laboratory tests — something I was sad to discover while testing and researching countertop, under-sink, and shower water filters. I feel very relieved when I see letters from NSF or IAPMO, the two main independent laboratories and certification bodies based in the United States.

Those are the bodies that have tested and certified the filters from California-based Clearly Filtered, whose pitchers and under-sink systems I’ve been testing this month along with several other brands. This is relevant, because Clearly is discounting all of its filters right now. This includes a 10 percent discount on all filters purchased through its website and a 19 percent discount when you enter your phone number to receive a promo code.

How clearly the filters work

Clearly Filtered is a little different from one of its main competitors, ZeroWater, whose filters I’ve also been testing. ZeroWater removes almost all dissolved solids, including minerals such as calcium and magnesium, from water passing through its filters. This is absolutely a holistic approach, but I’ve also noticed that it usually doesn’t taste as good as water that still has some mineral content.

Clearly Filtered’s water pitcher uses carbon filters and other media to remove many substances including free chlorine, PFAS and PFOA, and other heavy metals. But it does not remove the mineral content or reduce the total dissolved solids in your water at all. Partly due to the activated carbon filter, my testing showed that the filter actually has a bit increased total dissolved solids. (A small amount of activated carbon isn’t a problem: If there is some, some people think it’s good for you.)

Clear certified its water pitcher to filter out chlorine and PFAS according to international NSF specifications. The company also released laboratory results from the IAPMO laboratory in New Jersey, showing the reduction or near-elimination of hundreds of other pollutants, all of which do not meet international standards. (See all IAPMO lab results here.)

The resulting water still tastes as pleasant as the semi-soft water coming out of my tap, without containing almost all of the chloramine (the chlorine compound used to disinfect my water in Portland, Oregon). The pitcher filter takes about 13 minutes to filter half a gallon of water from the top reservoir to the bottom reservoir. But note that the priming process is a bit awkward, consisting of squeezing the water through a somewhat delicate plastic bag and passing it through the filter. This bag should be kept for future filters, or repurchased for $15 if you lose or puncture it.

The 32-ounce stainless steel water bottle uses the same filtration technology as the pitcher, but requires that you suck water through a filter attached to a washable drinking spout — a solution that lets you filter water wherever you might find it, even in the wild. You have to suck the straw pretty hard to pull water through the filter, but it’s a mostly elegant solution for instant water filtration – somewhat similar to backpacking filter straws in concept but much more socially acceptable.

A Homeowner-Friendly Undersink Solution

But the filtration system I find most useful at home is Clearly Filtered’s three-stage under-sink system. To some extent, this solves a problem for me. A good percentage of under-sink water filter systems require some level of installation, space for a separate faucet, or even integration with a faucet. As a renter, this makes it hard for me to consider them.

But Clearly’s under-sink filter installs in-line with the water line and works with your existing faucet. It took me less than five minutes to install, without drilling a single hole or calling my landlord. All I had to do was turn off my cold water line, open the water line at the valve, and connect the water lines to the proper connections on the obviously filtered system.

This is a more expensive system than Clearly Filtered’s other systems, but it doesn’t require filling and refilling a pitcher that takes up space in my fridge or on my counter. This also reduced my water flow rate a bit, but not enough to bother me. Lab-reported filtration levels for PFAS are also as good as I could have expected, at or near 99 percent in most cases. My own chemical testing showed that the three-stage filter removed chloramines in my water system to undetectable levels. (The pitcher’s filter almost, but not quite, achieved this.)

Note that it takes at least 15 minutes of running water from the tap to prime the three-stage filter, although I will say that I needed to run the water for half an hour before the total dissolved solids returned to normal levels. This mirrored my experience with the pitcher, which also required a few additional filtration cycles to fully prime.

Anyway, clearly none of the filtered systems are the lowest on the market in terms of price. Therefore discounts are greatly appreciated, especially on a three-step system, where percentage discounts are most profitable.