If you want to install a reverse osmosis water filter for your fridge but you don't want or need the included faucet. In this video, I'm gonna show you the step by step process I used to get everything installed, the mistakes that you need to avoid, and the things that you need to keep in mind. Most of the installation instructions are going to be similar to what you have in your manual already, but there are a couple of critical differences that you need to keep in mind. When you install one of these systems. You're required to purge the lines through the faucet that's installed at your sink before you run any water through your refrigerator. This is going to be the case when you first install the system, and it's going to be the case when you install or change any of the filters down the road.

So while this seems like a deal breaker of being able to install an RO system specifically for your fridge and not have the faucet, it turns out that's not the case. I ended up contacting the manufacturer in order to get some additional information on this because I didn't want to ruin my fridge, but I wanted to understand why you have to purge the water out of the faucet before you run the water through the refrigerator itself. It turns out the reason this is in the instructions is because if you have a refrigerator with a built in water filter, the excess carbon from the reverse osmosis system either when you're first setting up the system or when you're changing up the filters, that excess carbon that needs to purge out of the system is going to clog up the filter that's in the refrigerator. In my case, I wanted to be able to just remove the filter. But some refrigerators, if you don't have the filter installed, they actually will stop dispensing water. They'll stop dispensing ice. So you have to have a filter in place.

The alternative to this is you need to install a filter bypass plug or just a bypass plug. And if you have this installed in place of the filter that's in your refrigerator, it's going to continue to work and you're not going to have the problem of worrying about the excess carbon from the reverse osmosis system clogging up and ruining your refrigerator or messing something up. Now, these plugs vary depending on the make and the model of your refrigerator.

So what you'll need to do is you'll need to do a Google search and punch in the model and the make of your refrigerator, along with the words bypass plug or bypass filter to see what results come up. You might be able to purchase one of these at your local store, but odds are there are so many different types and varieties of these things, you'll probably have to order one online. I'll include a link in the description below to what I order for my refrigerator. And keep in mind, if you have the same brand, it can still vary. They make different styles depending on what different models, and even some refrigerators don't require a bypass plug.

Some will actually work without one, so you'll need to look up the model number information to understand exactly what's needed. In your case.

Once you have that figured out, the next big piece of the puzzle is determining where exactly you want to Mount or install the water filtration system. Now, you still might want to install it underneath the sink like you would normally, especially if the sink is close to the refrigerator. In my case, I have a basement and underneath the refrigerator isn't finished. So I decided to build a shelf to be able to hold the reverse osmosis filters and the extra tank that's included and get everything as close to the refrigerator as possible, but also still be able to access it whenever I need to and have it out of the way.

Now, if you choose to do this the same way I did, just make sure that the area that you're putting this in is easy to access and that the area isn't prone to freeze. Alternatively, you might be able to install this behind the refrigerator. If you have enough room, or if you have a cabinet that's next to it that you can use, you might be able to install it there as well. The key things here, you have to be able to have access to the water supply line to be able to get water into the reverse osmosis system, and you also have to have access to a drain and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. First, let's talk about the water supply.

So if you're not installing this underneath your sink, you're not going to be able to use the included adapter and the fitting that goes in between the water supply for the faucet in your sink and to be able to tap off of that to run the line to the reverse osmosis system. What you'll have to do is you'll have to tap into a cold water supply line that's in the location where your reverse osmosis system is being installed. Now, first and foremost, you need to make sure that you're tapping into a cold water supply line. If you tap into a hot water supply line, you're going to ruin your reverse osmosis system. They can't handle hot water and it will actually ruin the membrane.

If you have PEX lines in your house, it could be a really easy process of locating blue versus red lines. But if you have copper supply lines, or if you have PVC supply lines, you're going to have to take a little bit of extra time and do your due diligence to make sure you're actually tapping into a cold water supply. So in my case, I have PEX lines and I was able to locate the line that's going from the water supply all the way up to the fridge. All I had to do was cut this in half, and then I installed two quarter turn stop angle valves on both of the lines. The line that's coming from the water supply is going to feed into your reverse osmosis system.

And because I had access to the other half of the line that ran up to the fridge, I just connected the filtered water line that comes off of the reverse osmosis system into a new quarter turn valve that is installed on the new end of the refrigerator. At first, I was a little bit concerned about going from a quarter inch tube all the way up to a half inch and then back down to a quarter inch tube. I didn't want it to really affect the water pressure, so I did a little bit more research, and it turns out that since I only had about four or 5ft of tubing, it really wasn't going to affect the pressure that much. So I went ahead and just installed a quarter-turn valve on the end of that existing PEX line instead of replacing the entire line and running a new line up to the refrigerator. Now I could have absolutely gone ahead and ran new tubing from the reverse osmosis system all the way up to the refrigerator, but I didn't think it was necessary in my case.

If you don't have PEX lines, if you have copper lines or PVC lines, then this process is going to be a little bit similar, although it's going to take you a little bit more time to cut through the lines and be able to install the adapters. Now, in any case, you can choose to do what I did, which is install some sharkbite or some push on fitting adapters, and those are going to be compatible with PEX, with PVC and with copper. So that's a really great option to be able to make these connections really quickly. If you have PEX, you can kind of maneuver the lines out of the way, and you're not going to have that much to worry about. But if you have rigid piping like PVC or copper, you're probably going to have to cut a section of pipe out so that way you can get the quarter turn valves installed on the ends so they don't interfere with each other.

In my case, the exact thing I used was a sharkbite half-inch angle stop. With quarter-inch compression outlet, you should be connecting to a half-inch line, but your compression outlet could be a little bit different depending on what reverse osmosis system you have. Most of them take quarter inch tubing, but some take three-eighths. You should be able to determine this by either looking for the manual or taking the tubing with you to the hardware store. When you're purchasing extra tubing to install this, it's important to mount this as close to the refrigerator as possible because you don't want a lot of pressure drop off.

These systems are pretty low pressure, especially the water coming out of them, which is why they have the extra tank installed next to them. These tanks are designed to add additional water pressure because the water that's filtering directly out of the system isn't going to be very much. It's just going to be mainly a trickle. The other critical thing you need is access to a drain. So if you're not familiar with how reverse osmosis water filter systems work, what happens is, as it filters the water, the clean water goes into a storage tank and it goes out to the faucet or into the fridge.

And then the dirty water, it actually discharges and it gets rid of. So in order to have a location for the bad water to go, you have to hook it up to a drain. Now if you're installing this underneath the sink, it's not a big deal. They include a saddle valve. With all of these installations, you just have to put this around the drain, drill a hole into the drain line itself, and then connect the tubing.

But if you're installing this in a different location, you're probably not going to have access to a drain line that's the correct size for the saddle valve that's included. The saddle valve that's included is designed for a one and a quarter inch drain line. In most cases, you're only going to find that underneath a sink. The smallest drain line you could hope to find other than underneath a sink is going to be about two inches. So you either need to make sure your saddle valve will fit up to a two inch line or you'll need to get a replacement.

Sometimes you can contact the manufacturer and they can supply you with an adjustable drain saddle. Or you can go online and look like on Amazon.com and purchase a drain saddle that is compatible up to a two inch drain. In my case, that's what I ended up doing is I went on Amazon.com and I purchased a kit. I'll include a link in the description below and you can go check out and see exactly what I used. In my case.

The other thing, knowing all the instructions I could find across all different manufacturers is that said, you need to install this drain saddle above a p-trap underneath your sink. Now that's fine if you're installing it underneath a sink, but if you're not, the chances of you being able to install this above a p-trap is pretty much zero. The way these saddles work is you have to drill a hole into the drain line and then you connect tubing from the Ro system discharge into that drain line. Now the two main concerns I had about this and installing it in a location that's not above a p-trap are 1) If there's any kind of a backflow issue or back pressure issue in the drain itself would dirty water have the chance of getting into the system? Because if it did then that's pretty much a deal breaker in and of itself.

And also since I'm tapping into a drain line that's after a p-trap would I have any issues with sewer gas coming back into the house wherever this is installed. So I contacted the manufacturer and asked these questions. They said the concerns I had about sewer gas and backflow weren't really an issue because the systems are pressurized. The reason everyone recommends installing these systems after the p-trap is because of noise. If you install the drain saddle after the p-trap you're going to have more noise in your drain line than you would if you installed it before but if you're installing this in a location like a basement it's not a big deal.

So that being the case I was able to hook up the discharge line from my reverse osmosis system to a two inch line that I had in the basement and I don't have anything to worry about other than some increased noise coming from the discharge line as the water filter system is purging the dirty water. So while there are some extra steps to getting this installed for your refrigerator only it really wasn't too bad. The hardest part was figuring out all the different things I needed to change in order to make this work. To make this easier for you I'm going to have a list of everything that I did in the description below as well as the link the different products I ended up using. Hopefully you found this information helpful if you did don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe to this channel if you haven't already and I will catch you in the next one.