Reply #25: One filter does around 60 gallons, iirc,so...

[TreasonousBastard]

if you just use it for coffee it will last months.

I've got the big gallon one with the spout, mainly to take out the rust in my ancient well piping for up to two pots of coffee a day, some mugs of tea, and general cooking and drinking water. A filter lasts me several months, and I try to get them on sale.

No filter will take out the dissolved ionized minerals in some water-- you need a water softener for that. What the Brita does is take out suspended minerals. I've noticed that when using my well water without the filter, boiling water leaves a white ring on the sides of the pot. With the filter, I get no such ring.

The Pur filter is supposed to be a little better, they say, because of triple filtration, and both filters list what they filter out. This is supposedly and accurate list filed with various gummint agencies. Besides giardia and heavy metals, if you have public water the chlorine itself isn't so bad, but it forms other compounds that both companies are good at filtering out. This is a good thing because these chlorine derivitives are probable carcinogens.