Primo Water Floor Model Water Cooler

Primo was very quick about shipping. I recieved my cooler in 4 days. The cooler is not heavy; easy to unpack. I was able to unload the cooler and set up quickly without any help. The cooler will fit in to any decor. It really has a nice sleek look. I was surprised to read the review of a noisy cooler. My cooler runs very quietly. Other than when we first started it up, we don't hear the compressor, no rattles. We have ours set up in the kitchen on a good thick vinyl floor. Perhaps there is enough cushion to keep any vibrations to a minimum. The safety button for the hot water is definitely a plus. Especially if you have small children. The hot water comes out nice & hot; makes a great & quick cup of tea or hot cocoa. I have to admit, I wish the cold water was colder. Using a good pH meter with temp guage, we are getting water temps of 58 - 60 degrees. Perhaps that is standard but I like my cold water colder. Still its nice to have a head start on a nice cold glass of lemonade. Dispense water, add lemonade mix or squeezed lemons...and throw in a few ice cubes. I didn't notice right a way, but a day after set up, I discovered my Primo cooler has a defect along the front right side. There is a slight gap where the right side does not line up & hook up with the front panel. The other/left side fits nice and snug to the front panel. I'm sure I could send it back, but I just don't have the time right now to pack & ship. Besides it works fine and I don't believe this causes any problems other than cosmetic appearance. Also, I enjoy Primo water and found it can be purchased at our K-mart at about $13 for water in the special primo jug.Bekka

Got this little unit for under 100 bucks at Lowe's and it works just fine. We don't use the hot water dispenser in any of the water coolers we have had, so no comment on the safety issue someone wrote up on. It is quiet, more than the new refrigerator we have, has a night light on it, and the water actually seems colder than the whirlpool model we previously had. Here are some things to consider when purchasing a water cooler. 1. place unit upright for at least 2hrs prior to turning it on. If you had this unit in a laying down position (which you will have to get it home), the oil in the compressor will not be where it needs to be for the unit to work right. You can actually damage the compressor with oil starvation by not doing this important step. 2. Look for simplicity. The more expensive unit we previously had developed problems in less than two years. It was a whirlpool that was just a tad bigger an heavier, the problem was that after any pwr interruptions it had to be manually turned back on by the touch pad press button. Now that doesn't seem to be a big deal for most people, but the water wont be cold unless you remember to turn it back on after a pwr outage, circuit breaker being turned off or even if the unit gets unplugged for some reason. Then for whatever reason it didn't want to respond to you pushing the on button on the pad press. Soooo after calling the customer service number on the unit, they told me to buy a new one. forget that noise. I ended up spending an hour or more with a volt meter and dis-assembled the unit to see if i could find the problem. after pulling wires off of the circuit board and re connecting them i pwred up the unit and got it to pwr up the compressor. I had to do this for two more years and finally that fix wouldn't work anymore. This Primo unit has 3 switches on the back, one for cold, one for hot and one for the night light. if a pwr outage occurs, when the pwr is restored, it kicks back on and cools or heats your water. Simplicity is best. 3. Top feeders are better than bottom feeders....this is more or less a true statement about anything in our world. The top feeder uses gravity to get every drop out of the water bottle, the in-cabinet types that you can store water jugs in the bottom shelf require a pump to "pump" water out and up. These pumps will fail long before the compressor does. I guarantee it. plus they don't remove all the water. 4. Bad taste from water..., if you are buying a primo sealed water container to place in your new water dispenser, the first thing you do is empty the container in the parking lot after spending 11-19 dollars on you new water bottle. The water that is used in these contains buffers for long term storage purposes and tastes like garbage. dump it out and refill from a culligan/primo water dispenser at Wal-mart or any other store that dispenses filtered water. The primo bottles will have a white plastic cap on the bottom of the bigger blue cap that allows you to turn it upside down without spilling it. Someone complained about not being able to keep water from spilling out when installing these, you simply have to remove the big water cap just before you refill (and the unit is empty of course), and shake out the smaller white plastic cap and pop it back on the bottom of the blue cap. The center probe on the water dispenser at home will pop this off when you place the water bottle on the top of the dispenser. Then drain out about 32 oz of water from your cold water side, and do the same with the hot water side, but wait for about an hour for it to cool and heat the water first. this will remove any residual tastes from the system. You only have to do this last step the very first time you use this unit. I think that covers it.

My family bought this item less than two years ago. Was working fine. Cold water sometimes not that great, but no problems in function. Unfortunately, I nearly had a house fire because of this machine. With no indication of a problem, the wires to the hot water tank overheated and burned causing a bright spark and smoke. I quickly unplugged the machine and probably saved my home and family. Had it been 2 hours later, the whole family would have been in bed and this could have burned the house down. There is NO circuit overload protection on this machine. If it overloads, it does NOT shut down. I would not recommend this to my worst enemy. There should not be a product for sale that is intended for continuous use that does not have overload protection.

and that should tell you a great deal. These are strictly hit or miss units: You may get a good one, you may get one that fails right out of the box, as I did, yesterday, with a non-functioning compressor My old hot/cold Primo lasted five years before it almost burned down my house. There are NO HIGH-END CUT-OFFS on these units. If the heater gets stuck in the "on" position, and here I mean stuck internally, not at the customer accessible switch, the unit heats up until you smell steam/smoke and then you must be there to unplug it. I will now only buy units with separate on/off switches for the heater and cooling coil. You've been warned. UPDATE: Went and returned the failed unit I bought, yesterday, and got the last unit they had left, at Lowes. Right off the bat I knew something was fishy: The unit I returned, that failed right out of the box, only had one strap around it and no promo stickers on the body of the unit. The unit I brought home had the aforementioned. I think the unit I got yesterday was a return. Nice going, Lowes! Anyway---I plugged today's unit in, turned on the cold water switch and it was very, very quiet. I was thinking I had another bum unit until---An hour later I pressed the cold water button and---Icy cold water! Yeah, way to go! I've upgraded my rating from two stars to four, not going the full five stars, just because of the failure of the company to install high-end cut-offs on the water heater. Since this unit has on/off switches for the hot and cold, the hot will stay off unless I need it, for some reason. With a microwave, I doubt I'll ever need it.