Brio Self-Cleaning Bottleless Water Cooler

Brio Self Cleaning Bottleless Water Cooler Dispenser
I love this thing! But it took me a few tries, and thanks to Amazon return policy they were very helpful. I’m writing this after a month of daily use. Yeah a bit wordy, but if youre looking to chose, hope this helps.

1. The first Brio cooler I ordered was the cooler heater pump where you put the 5 GAL bottle in the bottom. My sweetheart freaked when she got home. Knowing that I would not go out regularly to refill the big bottles. I didn’t even open it and returned it the next day. One down…

2. Next I ordered that “Brio Commercial Grade Bottleless Ultra Safe Reverse Osmosis ” machine. This has 4 filters, one is a Reverse Osmosis canister. Did the whole install, ran the tubes, paid an extra $20 for longer 1/4″ tubing to get it to the end of the counter. All except for the RO drain tube which is supposed to tap right into the sink drain. I wanted to see how much water came out since someone mentioned it in a review. I ran the drain tube to some large buckets. A LOT comes out. It actually flushes 4 GALLONS water down the drain for each 1 GALLON consumed. So we would pay for 5 Gal to get 1. In drought stricken and expensive CA water country, that is a deal breaker. For a day, It did make nice clean water cool / hot though. Just a waste of water down the drain. It was weird seing how much water flushed after just getting a few cups of water. So, nope.
So I buttoned it up, emptied the filters, and returned it. Two down.

3. Now this awesome machine. Fortunately I had all the water tubing lines already tapped to the cold water under the sink from the previous install a few days earlier. I performed the flushing procedure of each filter (10 min each – which fed the garden BTW).

NOTE: On the flushing cap, there is a directional arrow, use that. The manual shows backwards. Interns are not known for attention to detail.

The installation was super easy to set up. Perhaps 1 1/2 hr if I count the install of the cold water tap, dress the tubing lines, and water flushing the filters (that’s 45 min total itself). Flushed he chambers, flipped on the Hot and Cold power switches. Gave it another 45 to hr. Done.

TASTE:
At first, there was a bit of a tap water after taste. I flushed the chambers out a few times. But after about 2 weeks, that aftertaste went away. It was a bit like tap water after taste, not bad, but I powered through it. Life. Some reviewers complained about that. But it is totally gone now. The taste from any chamber is clean crisp water. It has gone through a few of the UV cleaning cycles too, I presume that is helping.

TEMPS:
Cold comes out at 43 deg F brrrr…
HOT 179 Deg F
Room temp.. I don’t care… 70 ish… but its next to the cold tank so, its water, I’m not that picky.
Regarding the hot, at that 179 deg temp, its hot, but not coffee (190 – 208) or barely tea brewing hot. So I turned it off. I use a separate 1.75 L hot water carafe to heat water to a specific temp for coffee or tea, or boil anyway. In our application, its not boiling, so I see no need to use power for something I would barely use. I still use the hot water chamber to fill my carafe for hot water, even though it is not hot. The reason is to continuously flush the chamber with new water. I alternate between that and the room temp chambers for coffee water.
But the cool is amazing. I fill a glass milk bottle carafe and keep at my table for always a cool drink. I use this multiple times a day, especially after garden work. And every morning. Perfect! Great taste!

DISPENSER AREA:
Two comments, dispenser area size, and area height.
The dispenser cavity height size is tall enough to get my milk bottle carafe under it, but not the hot water carafe. Thats still better than the RO machine. So, to fill the hot water carafe, or soup pot, I have to fill my milk bottle which is about 1 L, twice. Where would i be without that old milk bottle i found at some garage sale for a buck? The actual shelf depth is anemic in size also. It’s like 3 inches. Cant rest a tumbler securely on it. Perhaps a good thing, else Id forget and leave it there an end up looking all over the house for it. That happens, don’t ask. So I hold whatever I’m filling. It would be nice to be lazy though. What if I had only one arm? Some people do. Brio designers need a little more education in consistency and industrial design.
The drip tray is ok. There’s a thin stainless steel cover over a removable plastic drip tray that you can remove for cleaning. that whole part feels like really cheap manufacturing. So I’m gentle. On the right side of the drip tray there is a round hole with a little red float to indicate if the drip tray has too much water in it, you know because the shelf itself is too small, so they put a float in it instead of making it a bit bigger. Me sarcastic? I filled the drip tray with water to see how it looks, like a little hemorrhoid peaking through the hole. Well ok then. Note taken. It never fills up.

The dispenser cavity area bottom height is about 22″ off the floor. Ok, but rather a bit low height. Great if youre in a wheel chair. So there is that. However, my family and guests don’t deserve to see my plumbers crack trauma every time I go for water. It would have been nice if they offered a matching drawer stand like they do for front loading washers and dryers. One could put replacement filters and the like in it, while raising the whole unit up so the fill area is at counter top level. I’d pay for that and would love the added height. I wanted the dispenser area to be around that of the kitchen counter height. Why not? That would only make sense.

The solution, a wire shelf on wheels…
I have a few heavy duty chrome wire shelving for kitchens since I have no pantry. They look great (see one in the first pic) and are very functional, east to clean, strong etc. So I looked around the mothership Amazon and found this cheap little “heavy duty” wire rack on wheels for $37. Could life get much better? I had a coupon so got it for like $11. Awesome! Free delivery, 2 days. Yayy! Its in the photos. This raised the dispenser area level up a bit higher than the counter level, so that’s perfectly workable. I could have adjusted the height better but, it goes against me doing things over. Plus it has shelves for replacement filters etc. At the time I only have doggie treats in the shelves and as you can see, SOMEONE discovered them! But the wires on this wire shelf were very flimsy, awful cheap construction. The whole dispenser was rocking. I can bend this with my bare hands. So I went to TAP plastics and had a 1/4″ poly shelf thing cut to fit the shelf to distribute the weight and placed it under the cooler. See the second pic with the big watery eyes. (Yes he got a treat for the shameless posing). The poly plastic shelf cover made it good and sturdy but cost more than the shelf ($45). Lesson there, cheap is not necessarily less expensive, and “heavy duty” on Amazon is definitelya relative term. But it works and its at the right height, so it stays till I decide on a better idea.

So now I’m happily hydrated. Cheers. Drink up! Buy this now.