How to Know When It’s Time to Change Your Refrigerator Filter

If you depend on your fridge to supply you with cold water and ice, the water filter in it must be changed timely, given that failure to do so could lead to waterborne infections. To keep that from happening, let’s take a look through the various signs which should warn you that it is time to change your refrigerator filter.

High Quantity of Black Flecks

Water filtered by a carbon filter may have a few black flecks in it from time to time. If the quantity of black flecks seems higher than usual though, it is time to change the filter as soon as possible. This indicates that the carbon mesh is coming off.

Color in Your Water

Properly filtered water should look completely clear and transparent when held up to the light. If it instead shows a reddish, yellowish, or grayish tint, it could be indicative of excess iron, sulfur or dust particles in your refrigerator’s water. This means that the fridge no longer has working filters in it, and changing them out is essential.

Cloudy Water

Seeing murkiness in your refrigerator water is even worse than seeing flakes or color in it. It most likely indicates that the filter is not working at all, or it has become a source of contaminants itself. Cloudy water can be directly indicative of infected water. In any case, it is a clear sign that your refrigerator needs a filter change.

Do be sure to only replace your refrigerator filter with the right replacements, because the fridge’s model and the new filter must be compatible. For example, Whirlpool fridges compatible with the EveryDrop EDR2RXD1 will not be able to utilize the EveryDrop EDR1RXD1 ice and water filter.

Bad Taste

If the water from your fridge is not tasteless or if it tastes bad, that means the filter is not working as it should. Keep in mind that this might occur even when the water appears clear to the eye. Admittedly, water is not always tasteless, but the main idea is to note a deviation from how the water and the ice usually tastes.

Bad Smell

Bad smell is an immediate indication of infected water, and under no circumstances should you drink/use smelly water or ice. Change the filters immediately to see if the smell subsides.

Chemical Smell

To avoid ingesting unfiltered, chemically contaminated water and ice from your fridge, take note of the following:

• Rotten egg smell: sulfur and sulfur bacteria
• Acrid smell: bleach and heavy metals

A change of filter should see the problem disappear, but you might want to opt for a water and ice filter that can actively filter out chemical contaminants.

Long Term Usage

If it has been more than 6 months – 1 year since you last changed the refrigerator filters, then it’s time for a filter-change, irrespective of whether any of the signs are present yet or not.
Finally, the most common and the most obvious sign that it is indeed time to change your fridge’s filter is when the “Change Filter” light comes on. It does not get more straightforward than that!