Viqua D4 Premium Review

🧾 Overview

The Viqua D4 Premium is one of the best UV water filters for removing bacteria. This whole home system is installed at a home’s POE and ensures high flow rates of up to 12 GPM. It’s relatively simple to install and requires very little maintenance. A single UV lamp lasts for up to a year, and the control head will keep you updated with the status of the system in real time. 

💡 Features

UV housing/sleeve

The UV quartz sleeve houses the lamp and protects it from air and water flow. The sleeve also prevents the lamp from breaking or leaking, and ensures it isn’t exposed to temperature fluctuations and other hazards. 

UV lamp

The UV lamp itself is where the water treatment takes place. It has a lifespan of 9,000 hours, or roughly 1 year. 

Interactive LCD display

When you need to check the intensity of the UV lamp, find out how long the lamp has before it needs replacing, or troubleshoot an issue, you can do so with one glance at the LCD display. It connects to the lamp and gives real-time information, 24 hours a day.

Connections & fittings

Everything you need for installation comes with the Viqua model D4. You’ll have to connect it up to electricity and your water line for it to run, and the supplies you need come included.

🚦 Performance

When it comes to performance, the Viqua D4 Premium is pretty much a standard example of what to expect from a UV lamp. While it doesn’t do anything out-of-the-box that makes it a completely innovative upgrade of its competitors, it’s certainly got plenty of features to boast about. 

A typical UV lamp lasts for around 10,000 hours, and this one lasts for 9,000 hours, which isn’t bad at all – especially as the D4 is smaller than most other UV lamps. It has a maximum flow rate of 12 GPM, and, considering most average homes have a 7 GPM flow rate, you certainly won’t notice a difference in the intensity of your showers after installing the Viqua model D4. 

Comparing the efficiency of the Viqua model D4’s performance with an alternative bacteria filter, like a reverse osmosis system, the Viqua is much more eco-friendly. It doesn’t waste water during UV treatment, and it uses minimal electricity to run. It’s also much speedier than multiple stages of filtration – water only needs to pass through the UV lamp, which takes seconds.

🔧 Installation & Maintenance

The Viqua D4 Premium is one of the easiest of Viqua’s products to install, as there aren’t multiple filter stages to worry about – you’re just installing a single UV lamp. The advantage of that is that you only need to worry about connecting the water line to either side of the system, then connecting it to an electricity supply – and the job’s done. 

The most challenging part of installation is slotting the UV lamp in the sleeve, because the lamp is incredibly delicate and easy to smash. The instructions for this stage of installation are clear, however, and there are plenty of videos online for if you prefer to have visual guidance.

It should take about 20 to 30 minutes to install the system. The best way to mount the light is vertically, though unlike some UV lights, the Viqua D4 can be installed horizontally if your vertical space is limited. 

Once you’ve finished installation, you’ll only need to replace the UV lamp once every year or so – you simply remove the old lamp and fit the new one following the same process as your original fitting. You also need to clean the quartz sleeve every 12 months or so, and it’s easy enough to do this when you’re changing your UV lamp.

📝 Filter Info

The UV lamp itself is 52 cm x 10 cm in size and has a 50-watt power consumption. It uses a process called UV disinfection, which inactivates harmful contaminants, killing them and making them unable to reproduce. Namely, this process eliminates bacteria, protozoa and viruses from water.

When water passes through the Viqua D4, it’s exposed to the UV light, which sterilizes it. Water never stops inside the UV light – instead, when you turn on a faucet or a water-based appliance, water will flow through the UV light before passing through your plumbing as it usually does. The light is separated from the water to prevent it from cooling, as it operates best at a temperature of around 40 degrees Celsius.

🔔 Pros & Cons

❔ Frequently Asked Questions

Are there any optional extras that come with the Viqua D4?

There’s one optional accessory that you can buy alongside the Viqua model D4, and that’s a Solenoid valve, which is designed to stop the flow of water through the chamber if UV performance ever falls below a safe level. This is an extra well worth considering if you know your water bacteria levels are too dangerous for drinking without sufficient treatment.

Can you install this UV lamp alongside other filters?

Yes, and Viqua sells other filters that you can install before the lamp if you’re keen to filter more than just microorganisms from your water. Whole home water filters, iron filters and water softeners are other options you can consider for installation alongside the Viqua D4. You don’t have to install everything at the same time, either – you can just install any new water treatment systems you buy whenever you buy them.

Where can I use the Viqua D4 Premium?

The D4 is designed for installation in homes and cottages – it’s also available wholesale for OEM applications. It’s predominantly used to treat well water, but you can also use it as a precautionary measure against bacteria in city water.

Related: Check out our top picks for UV purification systems in 2023 – click here

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