Free Flowing Water (Drinkwell Platinum Water Fountain)

Member Name: suz1584

Product:	Drinkwell Platinum Water Fountain
Date:	23/07/09 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fresh clean water for my cats

Disadvantages: They don't use it yet

I decided this time round I would spend my dooyoo earnings on something other than the wedding. To be honest I was getting bored of making a little extra cash and not being able to spend any of it. I will admit I love shopping and spending money so with the wedding coming up I've had to stop spending and start saving.

So looking through Amazon one day I came across the cat water fountain, not just one of them but several different products. I decided that with having 6 cats it would be good to get one to make sure the water is as fresh as possible for them throughout the day whilst we're at work.

Finally I found a way to justify me spending money. Now all I had to do was work out what one to buy. I looked at the reviews on Amazon for each product but to be honest the reviews were pretty limited so I was no further on. Then I decided to come and read some reviews on the trusty Dooyoo site. After looking through I decided that Drinkwell had the best options and that led me to buy the Drinkwell Platinum Water Fountain.

Why choose the Drinkwell Platinum Water Fountain?

Well there was so many to choose from and with reading reviews on Dooyoo I decided that the Drinkwell pet fountain would be the best choice for my lot. Looking on Amazon at the choices I then came across the new improved water fountain which is called Platinum Water Fountain.

My main reason for choosing this particular model was the reason that many people had said the Drinkwell Water Fountain was quiet and this one states that the motor is fully submerged making it extremely quiet. This had to be the case because I didn't want to buy something the cats would never go near because of the noise of it.

Falling Stream of Water - The water runs freely out of the top of the fountain almost like a running tap. My cats have never had the chance to drink from a tap but always been intrigued when I've had water running so I thought that they would adapt to this one a lot quicker than some of the other fountains. As well as the cats being able to drink from the constant flow of water there is also enough water at the bottom for the cats to drink from just like a normal cat bowl.

Size - This product looked quite small on Amazon which is just what I needed. Unfortunately it doesn't tell you what size it is and even now I have it at home I'm not sure of the sizes but I know it's small enough to go un-noticed by visitors but big enough for 3 of the cats to sit drinking water from it.

Also I chose this one is because I really liked how it looked and with it having neutral colours thought it would blend in instead of standing out too much. Ok this isn't a big issue but it did give me another positive to choose it over some other products.

What you need

Well obviously you will need to purchase the water fountain itself which is priced at £38.99 which is slightly more expensive than other similar products but it's also not the most expensive water fountain available as they range from about £15.00 - £55.00.

You will also require filters for this product to keep the flowing water clean and free of cat hairs floating at the bottom. You will need Drinkwell Replacement Carbon Filters. These are priced at £3.99 for a pack of 3 which I think is pretty reasonable as they do a fantastic job of keeping the water fresh and clean.

Only if required - I have bought a food mat which cost me £1 from Tesco. The reason for this is because I didn't really know what to expect from the fountain with constant free fall water I thought it would splash all over the place. Thankfully it doesn't splash at all and is actually easier to maintain than a bowl of water.

Receiving my product

Once ordering my fountain from Amazon I only had to wait two days for it to arrive as we did the express delivery because we were moving house and didn't want to have to come back for it. I'm quite impatient anyway so express delivery is always the best option for me.

Opening the box it came in I then was confronted with another large box which had a picture across the box of the fountain as well as the name of the fountain in big clear writing. As soon as I seen the box I knew it was the fountain for the cats.

Now to get it out of the box and set it up. I opened the box and the first thing I came across was a leaflet telling you to remove all the blue tape from the fountain before use. I'm not 100% sure why there was tape on it anyway but I'm assuming it was to hold everything in place in the box.

I the got the instruction manual out and started to read it as I didn't want to get anything wrong with doing it, I had read on Amazon that people found the setup of it quite tricky and I wanted to make completely sure I knew what I was doing. My partner then came in the house and looked at the fountain, took it all out of the box and he had it connected up, plugged in and ready to go within 5 minutes! So even though I didn't set it up I am assuming that it was easy enough to do with the short length of time James took to set it all up.

Now on with the cats drinking from it -

I was looking forward to this, for days I had imagined them tumbling into the house and playing with this new "toy" until they found out what it was for. I was so excited to see this but I knew that it may not go that way at all as some people had mentioned their cats took a while to get used to it.

One cat saunters in over to her food and takes on look at the fountain and walks off. Ok not what I really expected but there's still 5 cats to go.............But still none of the cats would go near the water fountain. I have now had it for a week now and they are still staying away from it but I am leaving it out for them to get used to and in time I'm sure they will become used to it and decide to use it.

Cleaning it -

I am quite lucky that I have not needed to clean this yet as my partner has done this and put in fresh water. He did advise me that it is very easy to clean and also really easy to change the filter on this. It only takes a couple of minutes and looking at the filter shows how well the product works as you can see all the dirt and cat hairs in it.

Other Information -

You will require this product to be near an electrical socket as it does need to be connected to the mains as this is what operates the product to have water constantly running and to filter it all.

It doesn't connect to your water. I first thought that this may need to be to contacted to your mains water to always have water but all you need is to fill up the water holder at the back of the unit which on this model holds over a gallon and a quarter (178 fluid ounces). I don't think my cats will need this topped up often when they do start using it because they all eat wet food so don't drink a lot of water.

Overall Opinion -

Ok my cats haven't used it yet but I'm optimistic that they will start to use it in time. We have just moved house so once they settle in properly it will become normal for them to see this with the flowing water.

It's very clean and splash free so even though I bought a mat to go under it I don't actually need one and I wouldn't recommend getting one unless your cats are messy. The other great thing about this product is how quiet it is and you don't even notice the product is on most of the time which is exactly what I wanted.

If you are looking for one of these I would recommend this one as it is such a great fountain and even if you buy one and that cats don't use at first just keep optimistic and I'm sure in their on time they will try it out.

Summary: We'll wait and see how they got on