Getting non stop sparkling water at home made easy? Read and find out.
For many years I used a soda stream in order to make sparkling water. The problem was that the bottled didn’t hold the fizz. After going through several thousand glass bottles of Topo Chico, our local big box store converted to plastic. I do try and avoid bottled water in plastic bottles. UV breakdown and all. Then I found the “penguin” by soda stream. It used glass bottles and admittedly held the fizz just long enough to make it through a meal.
Recently while at a friends house, he asked “seltzer water?”. I said sure and he pushed a button on a small faucet on the sink. That got my attention. I have always thought about buying a fountain tap like the old tyme soda shops. I have a neighbor with one of those too, but the price is prohibitive and it requires a pro to install the carbonator compressor. Or so I thought.
My research began and while in France I found a small under sink unit for about $1500 USD. It looked cool and easy to install but only came in a 22O v format. When I returned from France, I went back to my neighbor and found out he had a zip fizz. Zip doesn’t sell to consumers so I found the Lilium faucet and the Grohe Blue. After looking at both of them, I purchased a Lilium Faucet by Liliumfaucet LLC direct from the website. I then found several identical looking products on Alibaba for half price. Too late Lillium had my money.
When the Lilium arrived, much like the review on their site, the quality looked good. I then realized many of the “reviews” weren’t installed and even the videos on the website didn’t cover installation. There is a reason for that. The faucet is just a hair larger than standard so it took some work to open up the hole on the sink. Then the next issue became apparent. On the website they show the included pipe on what appears to be a standard Kegco regulator. I bought what I thought was the same one. Nope. Pipe didn’t fit and it took some significant shopping and rigging to find all the right parts to get it connected. Once I did, no fizz.
I reached out to Lillium several times and got limited responses two, three and even four days later, not the 12 hours as the website says. Keep in mind there is a 30 day limit on returns and you pay the $300+ in return shipping. Once I figured that out, I knew my money was gone so I may as well figure this out and make this work or use it for target practice. There is zero help on their website, just great SEO optimized content about why home seltzer water is better.
After finally figuring out that the Lillum needs 70-75 psi for the input (The manual is in bar) I went back to Kegco and ordered a high pressure regulator. Hopefully that helps. With a commercial system like a Big Mac carbonator, the compressor does the work of shoving the bubbles into the water. Not so with Lilium apparently. So here I sit with no sparkling water and my wallet a whole lot lighter.
The Grohe also does the compression work but the filters and other long term costs push it higher than a zip fizz professionally installed. Now that Amazon sells the Big Mac carbonator, and there are smaller towers it looks like it might not cost that much more to do a complete DIY set up. Maybe I’ll try that outside at the pizza bar. I think it could be a cool thing to have beer in one tap and seltzer water in the other.
For now here is our recommendation for the best home seltzer (sparking or carbonated) water faucet.
1. Zip Fizz – $5000-9800 installed.
Why? It works
Con – Expensive, not DIY friendly.
2. DIY -McCann Big Mac System $900-$2000 in parts plus installation
Why? It works from what we see in beer brewing forums.
Con – You have to find all the parts yourself, but admittedly we wish we did this first.
3. Grohe Blue – $2799-3799 plus installation
Why? – It will work, but requires expensive filters
Con – Expensive to maintain and several users complain it eats CO2 quickly like a soda stream
4. Lilium Faucet ( Or cheaper Alibaba Version) $999 – $1689 plus installation
Why? – If you can get it to work, lowest cost premade product we found. DIY friendly, well almost, ok not really. If I get it to work, and they send me enough money I’ll fix the website and crappy instruction manual.
Con – So far it doesn’t work, CO2 requires special high pressure regulator to deliver 75psi., you need to make your own adapter to get the CO2 connected to the included non standard push pipe.
Update August 8, 2025. The new Kegco high pressure regulator arrived and the Lilium Faucet is set to 80PSI as they recommended. We still get water that is flat in just seconds. The Soda Stream beats the Lilium Faucet hands down. This is why I do this. So you don’t have to spend money on something that ends up in the dump. Waiting for Lilium to respond. For now I’ll go grab a Waterloo I guess.
