# Swap Sage Bes875uk water filter for older model?



## M1k3 (Apr 24, 2021)

Hi, I was wondering if someone would be able to help me answer this.

I have the Sage Bes875uk and like most, I'm not a fan of the claroswiss water filter, both for cost and environmental reasons.

I wanted to use the old style charcoal filter but they will not fit in my model.

After much reading I can't seem to find a solution however I wondered if I purchased the ses870 (I think that the model that uses them) water tank, would that work? So would it fit my machine and the older style charcoal filters?

Thanks in advance

Mike


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## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Best bet is to contact sage and ask.

A charcoal filter won't do anything to help reduce or prevent scaling though. If you want a charcoal filter you can just get a stick of activated carbon and leave it in the reservoir. Something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/FLUFFY-HEDGEHOG-STOPPER-doorstop-wedge/dp/B0061R8WYC/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=activated+carbon+stick&qid=1619291154&sr=8-3 will probably be a lot cheaper than buying little filters.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

The early filter did have some resin in. Not much so capacity very limited. The Amazon equivalent of the old filter was pure charcoal as far as I am aware.

I live in very soft water area and the BE still needed regular descaling with the old filter. The Sage ones, that how I know they had resin in them. Scale and espresso machines just don't mix. It levels build up the problem becomes more apparent sooner on thermo machines. It's just more insidious on boiler machines but still causes grief.

The filter has a capacity of 40L which actually for that sort of thing isn't bad. The life will depend on the water so some one could run a drop off, let it cool and run a hardness test on it to see how it's going. Some of the machines now have descale indication built in despite the filter. They will still all need descaling,

The alternatives are *certain *but not any brand of bottled water. Distilled water. A descale now and again would still be a good idea on bottled. And lastly RO water etc that has been rehardened with certain soluble compounds.

Bottled water appears to be the cheapest option and some soften their drinking water etc anyway. Ordinary pore over filters do not soften. Some under sink one may. Those probably work out cheaper per gallon.

It's very apparent that a lot of Sage buyers are completely unaware that scale causes problems on espresso machines and seem reluctant to do it even though it's easy on all of their machines,


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