Takes about 5 minutes

How to install your AQVO Shower Filter

No plumber. No tools in most cases. Nothing permanent — so it works just as well in a rental.

Your AQVO Shower Filter fits between your existing shower arm and your existing shower head. You keep the shower head you already have; the filter simply sits in line ahead of it.

Australian shower arms use a standard 1/2 inch connection, and so does the AQVO filter, at both the inlet and the outlet. If your shower head currently unscrews from the arm by hand, the filter will fit.

Because nothing is cut, drilled or permanently altered, this is not plumbing work — it is the same job as changing a shower head. If you rent, you can reverse it completely on the day you move out.

Before you start

Check your shower suits the filter

Connection	1/2 inch inlet and outlet
Water pressure	100–450 kPa
Water temperature	5–50 °C
Added length	152 mm between arm and head
Added weight	About 450 g

Most Australian mains-pressure homes sit comfortably inside these limits. Two situations worth checking:

Very high pressure. If your street pressure is above 450 kPa and your home has no pressure limiting valve, the filter is outside its rated range. A plumber can fit one — worth doing regardless, as high pressure is hard on every fitting in the house.

Gravity-fed or very low pressure. Below 100 kPa the flow through the filter will be disappointing. The filter isn’t the problem; there simply isn’t enough pressure to push water through the media.

On temperature: bathroom outlets in Australian homes are generally limited to 50 °C by a tempering valve, which is exactly the filter’s upper limit. If your shower runs hotter than that, the filter isn’t rated for it — and you have a scalding risk worth addressing anyway.

Fitting the filter

1. Turn the shower off and let it drain.Open the tap briefly to release any pressure held in the arm, then close it.
2. Unscrew your shower head.Turn it anticlockwise, looking at it from below. Most come off by hand. If yours is stiff, wrap a cloth around it before using multigrips — the cloth protects the chrome from tool marks.
3. Unwrap the filter and remove the protective plugs.There’s a blue plug in one end and a white plug in the other, fitted to protect the threads in transit. Both come out before the filter goes anywhere near the shower arm.
4. Check the washer.There’s a small rubber washer seated inside the shower head where it met the arm. If it’s cracked, flattened or perished, replace it — a two-dollar part from any hardware store, and the most common cause of a weeping joint.
5. Screw the filter onto the shower arm.The inlet is the end that threads onto the arm. Turn it clockwise by hand until it’s firm. Start it gently and make sure it turns freely for the first turn or two — if it binds immediately, back it off and start again. Cross-threading is the one mistake that’s genuinely hard to undo.
6. Screw your shower head onto the filter outlet.Washer in place, hand tight, same rule about starting the thread cleanly.
7. Run the shower for 20 to 40 seconds.Run it to drain, not over yourself. You may see fine dust or slight discolouration in the first flush — that’s loose media from manufacture, and it clears. This first flush matters: don’t skip it.
8. Check both joints.Dry them with a cloth and watch for 30 seconds. If a joint weeps, unscrew it, wrap three to four turns of thread seal tape clockwise around the male thread, and refit. Firm is enough — the housing is aluminium and the cartridge housing is ABS, and overtightening will damage them well before it fixes a leak.

That’s it. Your shower now runs through the filter.

If you have a handheld shower on a rail

Fit the filter at the wall outlet, before the hose — not between the hose and the handpiece.

The filter weighs about 450 g. On the end of a hose, that weight swings on the handpiece and loads the rail bracket, which is the weakest part of the assembly. At the wall outlet it’s carried by the plumbing, where it belongs.

Troubleshooting

Water weeps from a joint

Almost always the washer or thread engagement, not the filter. Undo it, check the washer is seated flat, add thread seal tape, refit hand tight.

Flow seems lower than before

Some drop is expected and normal — the water is now passing through filter media rather than straight down an open pipe. The filter is rated at 5–8 L/min. A large drop, or flow that falls away over months, means the cartridge is nearing the end of its life.

The joint won’t start threading

Stop and reset. Back it right off, look into the thread for grit or a displaced washer, and start again with light finger pressure. Never force it.

Fine grit in the first shower

Normal, and the reason for the first flush. If it persists past the first few minutes, contact us.

When to replace the cartridge

The cartridge is rated at 20,000 litres. For a couple showering daily that’s often around four to six months; a family of four will get through it faster, a single light user slower. Your actual timing depends on how much water you use and your local water conditions.

The signs it’s due: that swimming-pool smell returning in a hot shower, or skin and hair starting to feel the way they did before you fitted it.

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