How to choose the right hot and cold water dispenser?

Recently more & more Malaysian are looking for hot & cold water dispenser. And as a layman in the water filtration industry, there are a lot of questions from all the brands in the market, all claimed to be the best. So how do you compare? Where to start?

It is my main intention in this blog to provide more information so you can at least know what it is all about and make the right decision yourself. This blog will be more of a FAQ type from the question I received daily. So let’s start.

What is the difference between Hot & Cold water dispenser and Hot & Cold water purifier?

Overseas, Hot & Cold dispenser is categorized as a device that dispense water from bottles, it does not have any build in filters and are not connected to a water source. While Hot & Cold Purifier are a device that directly connected to a water source with build in filters to purify the water. But in Malaysia, we call them bottle type dispenser and direct piping dispenser.

Which type is the best Hot & Cold water dispenser?

There is NO individual brand that is absolutely the best in Malaysia market. You just need to look for, which is suitable you. Here are the guidelines you can use to find the suitable unit. Firstly, you must know the location that you intend to install the dispenser have a water source and power points or not? If no, you will have to use the bottle type dispenser. If yes, then you can choose a direct piping type.

What type of water to choose for drum/bottled type?

If it is bottled/drum type, I would highly recommend you to go for some well-known brand like Spritzer (I do not supply nor I am their agent/dealer) because they really care for the quality with pH around 7.3-7.7. Most drum type in Malaysian market are from R.O. water with the pH 5.5 – 6.5 or lower depending on how often they change their membrane and filters. Even the re-use drum/bottle’s cleanliness and hygiene is a question. There even have brands that clearly stated alkaline water/mineral water on the label for a better price (RM 6-8 for R.O./drum and RM 10-14 for alkaline/mineral), which are not true at all. You will know by using pH tester, it will turn out to be acidic.

How to choose a direct piping dispenser?

First, you need to choose a right dispenser (hardware), then only you decide on the water filters (consumables) that produce your desire water for drinking.

To choose a dispenser

What is the difference between Hot & Warm and Hot & Cold.

Hot & Warm is cheaper and are made with cheaper material without compressor to produce cold water.

Which to choose? “Hot, Warm, Cold” or “Hot & Cold”?

There are 2 types of design for hot warm cold, either with 3 manual taps type or a 1 digital tap type. For the 3 manual taps, mostly made in China and bulky in size. While the digital type looks modern and slim, but with the limitation of no water to drink during blackout (no electricity to dispense water). My personal opinion is to get 2 manual taps of Hot & Cold. You can always mix for the warm, or if you are not using the cold water, just switch the power off for cold water and use as warm water.

The dispensers in Malaysian market are made from which country?

Usually the dispensers in Malaysian market come from Taiwan, China, and Korea. For Taiwan made, they are famous for the large size Hot & Cold Stainless Steel Boilers. While China made comes with all different types of categories with a lower price, and usually are not so concern on the looks. And Korean made dispenser usually have better looking designs. However, it comes in 2 range of standards. A top quality type and a cheaper type. And the cheaper type even comes with refurbished /used. I would advise never to invest on refurbished. Why? Simple, even the new cheaper type dispenser already having lots of technical issues, used dispensers are worst.

To choose your ideal water type, you need to look into the filters available.

Type 1 – Alkaline type – Producing ideal drinking pH 8.0 - 9.0 and anti-oxidant properties.

Type 2 – UF type – Producing clean water up to 1 micron by using membrane.

Type 3 – Energy type – Producing mild alkaline with bio-energy quality

Type 4 – Reverse Osmosis type – Producing clean water up to 0.001 micron

Type 5 – Silver carbon type – Filters to remove chlorine, odor and color.

What is Nano type filters?

First of all, you need to know that Nano (symbol n) is a unit prefix meaning "one billionth". Used primarily with the metric system, which means it is a metric unit to measure size. And Nanotechnology ("Nanotech") is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. Which means the end results from Nanotech is way better than normal technology. However, a lot of products (not only filters) now in the market used “Nano” as a name for the sake to mislead as a high-tech product but mostly their product is not manufactured using Nonotech. So do ask them what Nanotech they used in their product.