Picture, for a moment, the rusty undercarriage of a car that’s spent too much time by the sea. That was the color of one of the filters (it comes with three). Just six months before it’d been bright white.
What awful brew had my family been drinking before installing the AQ-5300+ Max Flow? My mind spiraled. Was it lead? Mercury? Primordial ooze? Our building was built in 1930, and I have no idea about the condition of the pipes.
Senior staff writer Tim Heffernan, who reviews water filters for Wirecutter, assured me that the color was, indeed, probably caused by rust particles from my building’s pipes.
Yet the filters were undoubtedly sifting out more than rust.
As Tim notes in our guide, buildings built before 1986 are more likely to have lead in the plumbing. And as underground pipes age, they can develop leaks that let in harmful pollutants from groundwater.
I love the AQ-5300+ Max Flow for many reasons—and the rust filtration is only the most visible.
Our pick
This under-sink system comes with some of the best certifications, a high flow rate, and a robust filter capacity, plus a prefilter to help with rusty sediment.
