Virgin Pure Home Water System II review: Filtered hot & chilled water at the touch of a button

Disclaimer: This post was written in collaboration with Virgin Pure. I was sent the Virgin Pure Home Water System II to review free of charge, but words and pictures are mine.

One aspect of moving to a new county that I didn’t really consider is that the water tastes wrong. I’m sure that whatever you grow up with becomes normal to you, but having moved to a very hard water area it is noticeable and I have found myself drinking less and less of it, which isn’t ideal. Even tea tastes a little bit off, which makes me very sad indeed!

The Virgin Pure Home Water System is a counter-top machine that is plumbed directly into your mains water to provide pure, filtered and chilled, ambient or hot water instantly – taking away the hard water taste. It prevents limescale which in this hard water area has already done for several kettles.

But how does it work, and is it any good?

Plumbing the Virgin Pure Home Water System II unit in

You can choose from four colours (we went with black, but you can get it in white, dark blue or ‘pebble’). A few days in advance, it will arrive through the post so you can make a decision on where to site it within reach of a plug socket and the water main. The water system measures 27cm wide and 36cm long, with a height of 37cm so it can fit under a cabinet, although you will need to be able to access the buttons to the top. There are air vents to the back of the unit so it needs to have some space (15cm or so) for air to circulate.

An installer will come to your house to install the Virgin Pure Home Water System II, which is included in the price of the unit. You’ll be given a two-hour slot the day before.

A small hole – the size of your pinky finger, if that – will be drilled in your worktop so you really need to know where you want it, as it will be tricky to move once installed.

I would advise that as soon as the unit arrives, you take it out of the box and try it in a bunch of different positions to decide what you’re happy with. It needs to be placed no more than 12 metres from a water main, and a 6mm flexible tube will need access so ideally you’ll have it on a worktop close-ish to your kitchen sink. We have a water pipe which goes under the worktop, behind the fridge and then connects to the pipes under the sink.

You’ll need to tidy out the under-sink cupboard so as not to delay the install. They say it could take an hour, but ours was really straightforward – the water was turned off, something unscrewed, a hole made in the worktop then everything put together again – and the installation was done in no time at all, with the flushing through of the system taking another 15 minutes or so.

The installer also left enough of the flexible tube so that re-siting within a few feet should be easy.

How does it work?

The Virgin Pure Home Water System II has a water filter for removing things like chlorine and microplastics, and a UV filter, which remove impurities from the water supply. These are accessed via the top of the unit. You need to change the water filter twice per year – if you opt for the Smart Service package, this arrives in the post so you don’t even have to remember to buy it.

The UV filter needs to be replaced annually.

Within the unit there are two tanks – a hot and a cold water tank. You preset the temperatures; the cold water tank chills water from 5-16 degrees so you can always have cold, filtered drinking water. The hot tank boils water periodically between 96-99 degrees so you can make hot drinks without boiling a kettle.

If you do not use hot water there is an energy saving mode which does not heat the water. There is also a sleep mode, which stops the water heating and cooling temporarily which you might want to do overnight. This is turned on and off easily via the menu buttons. If you are going to be away for some time, you could also switch it off at the wall to be sure.

Dispensing water

It’s so simple to use that even young kids will be able to get themselves water without drowning the kitchen.

To the top of the unit at the front, there are six buttons; four to dispense water, one to heat water quickly, and one menu button in the lower middle.

To dispense a glass or mug of water, simply press the correct ‘glass’ button – blue for cold, red for hot. Before use, you pre-set the quantities so that it always pours the correct amount. There’s a second blue ‘jug’ button which you can pre-set for a larger quantity of water. Obviously if you’re using a glass which has a larger or smaller capacity you can of course press the button again to dispense more, and to stop it early you just press the same button.

There is a child lock mode which will stop the hot water dispensing automatically, but rather you will have to confirm you want hot water by pressing the top blue button before it dispenses.

The middle button can be set to the ‘ambient’ temperature or any combination of hot and cold of your choosing.

The drip tray can be positioned in two places depending on the size of your most frequently used vessels.

You can fill around 60 cups of hot water and 45 glasses of cold before you need to wait for the machine to refill. It dispenses chilled water at around 2 litres per minute, and hot at around 1.3 litres a minute.

Pros and cons of the Virgin Pure Home Water System II

I thought I’d sum up some of the good and not so good points about the Virgin Pure Home Water System II. At the point of writing this, we’ve had the unit installed for approximately two weeks, however I will aim to keep this section updated with my thoughts as time goes on and we get a real sense of how much we use it.

Pros:

• It is very easy to set up and use. The children have no problem getting themselves a glass of water and thanks to the child lock I don’t have to worry about the younger ones having accidents with boiling water. My nine year old knows how it works and is able to make cups of tea etc much more safely than with a kettle.
• The water is really nice to drink. It tastes a lot better than the tap water here, and it’s chilled which everyone agrees is better. The tea tastes much more normal. Everyone is drinking more of it, and during the hot weather we’ve had recently it’s been a godsend.
• It’s very quiet, you barely notice it coming up to temperature. There is no noticeable hum and the beeps aren’t irritating (but can be turned off if desired).
• Cold water is always available and doesn’t have to take up space in the fridge, and it’s been a godsend in the recent hot weather.
• It’s perfect if you, like me, drink tea pretty much all day, one cup after the other. It has been lab tested and is up to 4 times as efficient as a kettle.
• You can turn it to sleep mode at night easily and it wakes up when a button is pressed the next day – my kids have taken to getting themselves water first thing, and they wake it up for my morning cuppa!
• The middle button which mixes hot and cold could potentially be used for making up baby bottles; there is no difference between this machine and a Perfect Prep except for the addition of UV filters. I know that they’re not necessarily recommended, and I have no personal experience of using these machines, but it’s something I thought was worth mentioning.

Cons:

• There is no option for filtered room temperature water (ie straight from mains but filtered) e.g. for filling the coffee machine. NB the middle button mixes chilled and hot water, so this is obviously not as efficient as water straight from the tap as the water has been pre-boiled and pre-chilled.
• Kids are now demanding ‘new’ water when theirs has been left out and got warm. At least the plants are happy…

Virgin Pure Home Water System II review

If you live in an area where the water isn’t nice to drink, then this machine will definitely improve your life. If your kettles get clogged with limescale, you can chuck it away! If you tend to drink a lot of bottled water, this could serve as a much more cost-effective replacement. And if you tend to put the kettle on, then wander away and forget about it and have to re-boil time and again before finally getting that cup of tea, then you will love it.

I am genuinely surprised at how much use we are all getting out of it.

How much does it cost?

You can get the Home Water System II on paid upfront or on a monthly subscription.

The best value package is the Smart Service which offers a discount of 45% compared to the pay as you go model. With this you receive all new filters delivered, all new UV lamps delivered, all descale kits delivered, a stainless steel bottle, repair or replace service and all reinstalls if you move

This can currently be paid upfront at a cost of £299.99 or monthly for £24.99, which is around costs £4.13 per week (around £215 per year).

Alternatively you can buy the unit upfront on pay as you go at the full cost of £539.99 and then buy the filters on pay-as-you-go; a filter for the Home Water System II costs £69.99, and a filter and UV pack is £139.99.

After the first year, you can choose whether to remain on the Smart Service subscription, or move to pay-as-you-go. Go to the Virgin Pure website for more details.

How does the Virgin Pure Home Water System II compare to a filter tap?

We actually have a Brita Filter tap installed which came with the house, so I feel like it is worth adding in here a brief comparison between the two systems. Different versions of the tap are available but ours is an older-style three way tap, with the filter under the sink which needs to be changed around every three months.

It removes chlorine and other substances from the water, and reduces limescale. It does not have UV clarification to remove bacteria. Obviously the main difference is that the filter tap comes out at room temperature and is not chilled. Nor can it provide hot water.

The tap needs to be replaced soon as it is old and leaks a lot and replacement parts are hard to come by. I think in all likelihood, we will probably keep the Virgin Pure Home Water System II and do away with the filter tap altogether.