Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I found myself intrigued by the Sodastream when I saw it demonstrated at Costco. Almost bought it but I'm glad I didn't. The problem with the Sodastream is that the CO2 tank it uses cannot be refilled easily and you also cannot access the exchange system in most locations. The Primo Flavorstation is different. It uses a CO2 tank that is exactly the same size as a 20 ounce paintball tank. You can refill it at anyplace that sells paintball supplies or you can just take it to your local welding supply dealer and let them refill it for you. Dick's Sporting Goods is a good place to have it refilled and they sell additional tanks for under $30 (fill included). A fill costs four or five dollars. The claim with both of these systems is that they will save you money. I've done the math and the Sodastream doesn't come close to saving you money. The Flavorstation, on the other hand, saves you a lot of money. It comes with one bottle. My wife and I decided we needed four, so we bought three more. We also bought another CO2 tank because there is no real warning when you are going to run out. With the extra tank, we have plenty of time to refill the empty one. We also passed on the flavorings that are available from Primo mainly because we don't like artificial sugars and prefer to drink flavored carbonated water without any sugar. We found a company on the web called Fairie's Finest that sells flavorings that work perfectly. You put 3 or 4 drops in the bottle after you carbonate the water and it works great. They have 50 flavors including peach, root beer, cherry, and huckleberry. Because the flavors are so highly concentrated, the one ounce bottle will last a very long time. Adding sugar makes it taste like pop. We've had our Flavorstation for a couple of months now and we love it. We use it several times a day. It is a really cool device and it is great not having empty bottles and cans accumulating in our home. A big plus is that it is also good for the environment. I am hoping that Primo will achieve the kind of success that Sodastream already has. When we bought ours, it wasn't available on Amazon and, even though it was supposed to be available at Lowes, it wasn't. We ended up buying it from Primo directly and, with a coupon code we found online, the price was really good. That same code worked again when we purchased the three extra bottles. Btw, my research indicates that even thought Primo says you should only fill the tank with "food grade" CO2, there is no such thing as food grade CO2. CO2 is CO2 and it doesn't really matter where you buy it as long as it isn't some shady place. A lot of people use Dick's just because it is really convenient.