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Rating: -
We are on our second one of these and our cats do totally love it. I have grown to hate it due to design flaws. My biggest gripe is that it is a nightmare to clean. The upper reservoir is deep with lots of nooks and crannies. cleaning with normal kitchen brushes or sponges is impossible. (a tootbrush helps) Even with the Drinkwell Cleaning Kit (set of bottle brushes) it's not easy and I can never get it completely clean. Which leads to my next complaint: it's not dishwasher safe. Granted the manual recommends hand washing but I put our first one in the dishwasher (because it was hard to clean) and it warped so badly the motor wouldn't fit anymore. My bad. They updated the motor mount in our new one and it's so tight that it's almost impossible to remove it. Don't bother getting the expanded reservoir, it will just supply stale, warm water that your cats won't drink, it's another part to clean and you will put off cleaning the fountain even longer, which means it will be even worse. Also don't bother with the grass garden, it grows, but is such a small amount that the cats will demolish it in one day and it makes the water even dirtier.
This is a great idea but poorly executed. I can't speak on the new deluxe models, they may have a better design. The cats love it, but they also love drinking out of our glasses when we aren't looking, so we just give them one of those, and they're dishwasher safe.
If you DO buy one or have one, some tips: a toothbrush really helps with cleaning. If it's noisy, stop it and pop the impeller in and out a few times because it gets air bubbles stuck in there, making it noisy. If you go on vacation UNPLUG UNIT!!!! otherwise it will run dry and burn up the motor. Do not put in dishwasher, or at least not the bottom half because it will warp the motor port.
Rating: -
We have 3 cats that love to drink out of the faucet. Since getting the drinkwell fountain, they're so happy with the constant flow the drinkwell gives them. We have to clean it every couple days because bits of food transfered from the cats sit in thebottom of the bowl...but we are saving so much water by not having the sink faucet on for 20 minutes a day to keep the cats happy.
If you have more then one cat, get the additional resevoir
Rating: -
I bought this for my cat because (1) he likes to drink out of water taps and I thought he'd like it; (2) I travel a lot and when I leave a bowl of standing water for him it is full of cat fur by the time I get home. The fur problem wasn't really solved with this, because the fur is still deposited in the water bowl and proceeds to clog the water in-take. Also, he doesn't seem to like the noise and only reluctantly sneaks over to the corner to drink out of it.
Rating: -
First of all, lemme say i have never written a bad review like this before and i don't do it lightly.
I wouldn't recommend buying this product at any price. It's basically defective by design.
Here's the issues:
1. They use a propeller type water pump which means it clogs easily and doesn't bleed the air out automatically. When air gets into a water pump system is "chatters" like garbage disposal. The loud sound makes it a poor choice if it's going to be in normal living quarters.
2. Because the propeller pump and setup clogs easily they had to make it easy to take apart for cleaning. The problem is that it also makes it leak easily. They also say in the instructions that not cleaning voids warranty. So you have to take it apart, put it back together AND THEN recheck, refit to prevent leaking each time you clean it.
3. The switch designed to control the speed of the water flow isn't a switch at all. It doesn't slow water pump, it bottlenecks the water intake. This bottleneck valve causes water turbulence which cause more air bubbles to get into system for more noise.
The price doesn't matter ... the only way this product is usable in a normal home room is if you remove water bottleneck valve completely. Then you should also replace the water pump with an inline pump. That's $40 bucks for a new pump plus all the time it's gonna take you to retrofit the new pump and line.
Basically doubling the price of this Drinkwell product.
i suppose if your going to put it in a basement or garage where leaking and noise don't matter, then this could work.
But a noisy and leaky pet bowl doesn't work in any normal home room.
Rating: -
This was a pain to clean and the motor gave out after 6 months. I would keep searching...
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