Most people asking this question have already decided roughly what they want. What they have not decided is whether they want a stranger cutting into their kitchen plumbing on a Tuesday morning, and nobody publishes what the appointment actually involves.
So here it is, step by step, with real timings rather than reassuring ones — including the parts where the answer is that you should buy something different, or wait until you have checked one thing first.
How long it takes
These are the numbers we work to, and they are worth stating exactly because a lot of vague claims circulate.
- Every under-sink system: 20 to 45 minutes.
- Every counter-top system: 20 to 45 minutes.
- A full villa system: 3 to 4 hours.
- Adding a chiller: at least 2 hours on top.
Two things follow from that list. The first is that under-sink is not slower than counter-top in any way that matters — the difference between them is where the machine lives and whether you want the worktop free, not how long the appointment runs.
The second is that no domestic drinking system takes a day. If you are told to keep an afternoon free for an under-sink filter, ask why.
What actually happens: an under-sink system
The technician arrives with the machine, the fittings and the tools. Nothing needs to be ordered in afterwards and nothing gets left half-done.
1. Looking under the sink
First job is opening the cupboard and checking three things: that there is space for the unit, that the existing water feed is in reasonable condition, and where the drain connection sits. This takes two minutes and it is the point at which a problem, if there is one, gets found.
2. Taking the feed
Under your sink there is already an isolation valve — the small tap on the pipe feeding your mixer. The technician closes it, fits a connector that takes a branch off that feed, and reopens it. Your mixer tap carries on working exactly as before.
This matters more than it sounds, so to be explicit: the water connection is made at the existing valve and is fully reversible. Nothing is cut into the wall, nothing is permanently altered, and if you move out the system comes off and the original fitting goes back. That is the answer to the question tenants are usually too polite to ask.
3. The dedicated tap, and the hole
An under-sink system needs its own small tap on the sink or worktop, because filtered water is kept separate from the mixer. That tap needs a hole.
Check this before you order anything. A great many UAE kitchens already have a spare hole in the sink or worktop, capped with a small blanking disc or a chrome cover — put there for a soap dispenser or a second tap that was never fitted. Look behind the mixer and along the back edge of the sink. If there is one, the tap goes straight into it and nothing is drilled at all.
If there is no spare hole, one has to be made. In a stainless steel sink that is quick. In granite or quartz it is a slower and more careful job with a diamond core bit, done wet, and it is not reversible — the hole stays. If you rent and your landlord would object, say so before you buy: a counter-top system does the same filtration with no drilling at all, and it comes with you when you move. We would far rather sell you the counter-top than have that conversation afterwards.
4. Drain, flush and check
Systems that produce a reject stream need a drain connection, made on the waste pipe under the sink. The unit is then mounted, connected, and the system is flushed through — new filter media is always run to waste for the first few minutes so the first glass you drink is not the first water through the cartridges.
Then every joint is checked under pressure, the flow is run, and the technician shows you which cartridge is which and when they get changed. Filters are changed twice a year, roughly every six months, and every maintenance plan includes both of those visits.
5. Clearing up
Packaging goes with the technician. The cupboard gets put back the way it was found.
Counter-top systems
Same timing, less to it. The unit sits on the worktop, takes its feed from the same existing valve under the sink with the pipe run up through the back of the cupboard, and needs a power socket if it has a heater or a chiller in it. No dedicated tap, no hole, nothing drilled.
The trade-off is worktop space, and in a small apartment kitchen that is a real cost rather than a minor one. Go and stand in your kitchen and look at where it would actually go before deciding. The comparison table lists the footprint of each machine alongside everything else.
Villa systems
A whole-villa system is a different kind of job: 3 to 4 hours, and it is installed next to your water tank rather than in the kitchen, because the point is to treat the water entering the property rather than one outlet.
That work involves cutting into the incoming supply, mounting equipment, providing bypass valves so the property can be run without the system if it is ever serviced, and commissioning it. It is a plumbing job, and it needs somewhere sensible to put the equipment.
Which is why a villa system is never priced in advance. It depends on the tank, the existing plumbing, where there is physically space, and what the household actually needs. Two villas on the same street can want quite different things. Somebody comes out, looks at the property, and quotes afterwards. Anyone who gives you a villa price over the phone has not seen your tank.
One separate point that comes up on every villa visit: Dubai Municipality expects potable water storage tanks to be cleaned and disinfected by a Municipality-approved contractor at least twice a year. That is a different contractor and a different job from anything we do, and it is worth getting a date for.
If you want cold water
Adding a chiller adds at least two hours to the appointment, because the unit has to be positioned with proper ventilation, given power, plumbed and then left to pull down to temperature before anything useful comes out of it.
The reason to say that clearly is that people often assume a filter cools the water. It does not. Filtration does no cooling whatsoever. Water leaves a plain filter at tap temperature, and in a UAE summer tap temperature is warm — sometimes uncomfortably so. Cold water requires a machine with a chiller in it, and that is a different machine at a different price, not an accessory. The options are set out in how to get cold water in Dubai.
What you need to have ready
- The cupboard emptied. Cleaning products, bins and the spare bags all out before the technician arrives. This is the single biggest cause of an appointment running long.
- A power socket, if the machine has a heater, a chiller or a pump. Nearby, and not already taken by the waste disposal unit.
- Someone home who can make a decision. Not necessarily the owner, but someone who can say yes to where the tap goes. It is not a decision to make by phone from a meeting.
- Building access sorted, if you are in a tower. More below.
If you live in a tower
Apartment buildings in the UAE run their own rules, and they are the most common reason an installation gets moved rather than done.
Most buildings require a work permit or access approval from building management before a contractor may bring tools and equipment into a unit. Many require the service lift to be booked in advance, and some will not allow a contractor in outside set hours — often mid-morning to mid-afternoon on weekdays only, with nothing at weekends. Some ask for the contractor’s documents in advance.
None of that is difficult, but it takes a day or two rather than an hour, so start it when you order rather than the morning of the appointment. Ring building management, ask what they need, and get the date confirmed in writing.
What it costs, and what happens afterwards
Delivery and installation are both free, on everything. There is no call-out charge, no fitting fee and no delivery charge — the price on the product page is the price you pay, and every price already includes VAT.
After installation, the machine carries 12 months of warranty plus 12 months of maintenance. From year two, an active annual maintenance contract keeps the warranty alive, which is the part people miss: the plan is not only about filter changes, it is what keeps the machine covered.
Payment is by card — Visa or Mastercard — or bank transfer.
The short version
Under-sink and counter-top are 20 to 45 minutes, a villa system is 3 to 4 hours, and a chiller adds at least two more. The water connection is made at the valve already under your sink and is fully reversible. The only thing that is not reversible is a new tap hole, so check for a spare capped one first, and choose counter-top if drilling is a problem. In a tower, sort the building permit and the lift before anything else.
If you have not settled on a machine yet, everything is in the shop, with the timings above applying whichever one you choose.