Quooker water filter: does it remove PFAS?

Reading time: ~11 minutes

Does a Quooker have a water filter?

Yes, and that surprises a lot of people. Quooker's own service documentation states that every Quooker tank is fitted with an activated carbon filter, the HiTAC filter. So you already have one, even if you never bought one. That's the answer to the question we get asked most, and it's immediately the reason so much confusion exists.

The confusion isn't in the filter's existence, but in what it does and where it sits. At its core, a Quooker is a tap with a tank under your counter that supplies boiling water, and in some versions also chilled and sparkling water via the CUBE. The HiTAC filter sits inside that tank. Anything drawn via the tank meets the filter. Anything that comes directly from the household pipework, meaning your normal cold and hot tap water, doesn't pass by it.

That distinction is the whole story. At PureFilter, we see that customers with a Quooker almost always think their cold drinking water is filtered. In practice, most people drink exactly that unfiltered cold water, because you don't fill your glass with boiling water. Anyone who wants to know whether tap water is healthy should therefore look at the cold point of use, not the boiling water button.

What the HiTAC filter does, according to Quooker

It's fairer to let Quooker speak for itself here than to draw conclusions for them. The HiTAC filter's datasheet states that activated carbon improves water quality by reducing the following substances, to the extent they are present in the drinking water: unwanted taste, odour and colour compounds, chlorine and chlorine by-products, medicine and hormone residues, pesticide and herbicide residues, industrial residual contaminants including PFAS, and other micro-contaminants.

That's a serious list, and it's exactly the list you'd expect from activated carbon. Activated carbon works through adsorption: organic molecules stick to the enormous internal surface area of the carbon. That same principle is in our own filter, and it's the reason a water filter works the way it does. Anyone who wants to know exactly what each type of water filter is good at always runs into the same pattern with activated carbon: strong on organic substances, weak on limescale and minerals.

Quooker is clear about this too. The HiTAC filter is not a limescale filter. If you have hard water and are looking for a solution to scale buildup, this filter won't do anything for you. That requires a separate route, and that's exactly why we have a separate piece on filtering limescale out of your tap water.

There's also a practical point that's rarely mentioned. Quooker recommends a service once every five years, depending on the water hardness in your region, and sometimes replacing the HiTAC filter is all that's needed. Five years is a long time for a carbon filter. Activated carbon has a finite capacity: once the surface is full, it no longer adsorbs anything. A filter that sits in the tank for five years inevitably does less in year five than in month one.

So does that filter remove PFAS from your water?

Partly, and not where you need it. Quooker literally mentions PFAS in its datasheet, so the claim exists. What's missing is how much. There's no percentage, no inlet and outlet value, and no reference to a test under a recognised standard for PFAS reduction. "Reduces" is a direction, not a number.

Put that next to the figures that do exist. For twenty different PFAS, the legally permitted amount in Dutch drinking water is 100 nanograms per litre, and according to the RIVM, Dutch drinking water meets that. That same RIVM now recommends a much stricter guideline value of 4.4 nanograms per litre, expressed in PFOA equivalents, because PFAS can have adverse effects on the immune system even at very small amounts. The difference between those two figures is a factor of 23.

To know whether a filter takes you from 100 towards 4.4, you need a measured value. And that's where it falls short: NSF International states that a water filter must be able to bring PFAS down to below 20 nanograms per litre before it may carry a PFAS reduction claim, and that this claim is independently validated under NSF/ANSI 53 or NSF/ANSI 58, periodically retested and inspected annually at the factory. Without such validation, nobody, not even Quooker, knows what actually comes out of that filter in your kitchen.

Even more important is the point from the first paragraph. Even if the HiTAC filter bound PFAS effectively, it only filters the water that flows through the tank. Your cold drinking water doesn't flow through there. Put simply, the filter isn't positioned where you actually drink. Anyone who wants to get to grips with the technology can read our explanation of PFAS and forever chemicals and about the water filter against PFAS.

The misconception: boiling water doesn't dissolve PFAS

This is where things most often go wrong with a boiling water tap. Boiling water feels clean, so the idea that boiling makes your water safer is intuitive. For bacteria, that's true. For PFAS, it's false, and that's not a matter of interpretation.

In the event of a PFAS warning, NSF International explicitly advises against boiling your water, because boiling water that contains PFAS doesn't reduce the exposure risk. The reason is simple physics: PFAS molecules are extremely stable, don't evaporate at 100 degrees and don't break down. What does evaporate is the water. With less water left containing the same amount of PFAS, the concentration actually goes up.

That's why the combination "I have a Quooker, so my water is purified" doesn't hold up. A Quooker is a fantastic appliance for convenience, temperature and speed. It's not a purification system. For completeness: there's also a reason to be cautious about drinking warm tap water, and that's unrelated to PFAS.

Which Quooker filters exist, and what do they do?

Quooker supplies several filters, and they don't all do the same thing. That's useful to know before you order anything, because the names are similar but the functions aren't.

What's in which filter?

Two things stand out in that table. The hollow-fibre filters work on particle size, and PFAS aren't particles but dissolved molecules that pass straight through such a membrane. And the only filters that can act on PFAS are the carbon filters, precisely the filters for which no figure has been published.

What's actually needed to tackle PFAS

Three conditions, and all three need to be met. If one is missing, the result is unknown.

The first is location. The filter needs to sit on the cold water line, ahead of the point where you draw water. If it's positioned after that point or only inside the tank, it doesn't treat the water you drink. The second is technology. PFAS are dissolved, so you need adsorption or a membrane under pressure, not a strainer and not a sediment filter. The third is evidence. Without an independently validated reduction claim, you're buying an expectation.

The PureFilter Mineral+ is explicit on all three points. It goes on the cold water line under your counter, uses a multi-stage build-up with a carbon block, and is NSF-certified under 42, 53, 61 and 372. It filters more than 100 contaminants, including PFAS, microplastics, heavy metals such as lead and copper, fluoride, nitrates, medicine residues and chlorine. We deliberately don't publish a removal percentage, for the same reason we call Quooker out on it: a figure without published test conditions says nothing.

What the Mineral+ also does, and almost no other filter does, is remineralise. As a final step, Swedish Mineral Rock™ adds magnesium, calcium and potassium back in. The order is the point: purify first, then remineralise. That avoids the taste problem people know from reverse osmosis, where almost everything is removed, including the minerals. Anyone weighing up the taste side will find the nuance in our piece on what the healthiest water filter is.

Combining a water filter and a Quooker

You don't have to choose, and that's the good news. An under-counter filter is fitted on the cold water supply, so ahead of the Quooker. That gives the tank cleaner supply water and gives your cold tap filtered water. You can't place a filter after it: our filters aren't made for hot or boiling water and would become unusable as a result.

Installation takes 5 to 10 minutes and no plumber is needed. You'll need a pair of water pump pliers, and a 3/8 connection is included as standard. If your tap or Quooker supply has a different size, you'll need a reducing piece, so measure that before you start. The step-by-step route is in our guide to installing a water filter yourself, and we discuss the broader choice between setups on the page about the Quooker water filter.

When replacing it, you no longer need those pliers. You swap the filter cartridge with the key supplied with the water filter, which makes the annual maintenance a job of a few minutes. That's a fundamental difference from a tank that requires a service visit.

What does it cost, side by side?

The cost question comes up in search results just as often as the filter question, so here are the figures we can substantiate.

Converted, a replacement filter for a household of 1 to 3 people works out at about €0.18 per day. For 4 to 6 people, a filter lasts about half a year, which comes to about €0.36 per day. Set that against a euro or more per day for bottled water, and the sums are quickly made. The lifespan depends on household size, so never ask "how long does it last" without that number attached.

Anyone who prefers to survey the whole field before buying anything can head to our filters for the kitchen or the comparison at the best water filter under the counter.

What to watch out for

A few things, to be honest, aren't reasons to panic, and we don't want to leave them out.

• Dutch drinking water meets the statutory PFAS standard, so this is a choice to lower your total intake, not an emergency measure.
• According to the RIVM, food contributes roughly three times as much PFAS as drinking water, so filtering is part of the picture, not the whole picture.
• Sixty percent of our drinking water comes from groundwater, which contains less PFAS than drinking water made from surface water, so your starting position depends on your region.
• Placing a filter ahead of the Quooker requires space in the kitchen cabinet, where the tank is already located.
• A carbon filter that's left in place too long does less than a new filter, regardless of the brand.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

The question of whether a Quooker water filter removes PFAS from your water has an honest answer in two parts. Yes, the HiTAC filter is activated carbon and Quooker lists PFAS among the substances it reduces. And no, that doesn't help your cold drinking water, because that water doesn't pass through the tank, and there's no published figure or recognised certification against which you can measure the performance.

The figures in perspective: 100 nanograms per litre is the statutory standard, and Dutch drinking water meets it; 4.4 nanograms per litre is the RIVM's stricter recommendation; and below 20 nanograms per litre is what NSF requires before a filter may carry a PFAS claim. Only that last figure comes from a test protocol, and that's precisely why it's the only figure you can base a decision on.

In practical terms, it comes down to this: a Quooker and a water filter aren't competitors but successive steps. The filter goes ahead of it, on the cold water line, in 5 to 10 minutes and without a plumber. The PureFilter Mineral+ costs €149.00 including the first filter and €65.00 per year for 1 to 3 people, is NSF-certified under 42, 53, 61 and 372, filters more than 100 substances and remineralises as a final step. With 40 days free returns and a 5-year warranty, you can find out for yourself whether the difference is noticeable in your glass.