Can you visually differentiate different rainwater filters?

I'm feeling a bit dumb, I took out my polyspun filters to give them a wash as I reckon I can get more life out of them and I thought I could differentiate them but once they were washed it turns out I couldn't . And I plan to wash them a bit more, this was just one run in the dishwasher!

One should be a 1 micron filter, one should be 5 microns (if I recall since buying them earlier this year) but they look very similar in structure, any way to tell them apart? Obviously they need to go in in the right order.



Also talking of the right order, this is before I washed them (flow is left to right in my system) the seller swore blind to me that the carbon filter should go BEFORE the fine (1 micron) filter, does that make any sense? I would've thought you want all the fines out BEFORE you do the carbon filtration...



Really happy with the system though, no UV lamp, I am not trying to make drinking water, but this basically eliminates all the smell issues we had with rainwater.

I have a bit of experience with rainwater.
Where are these filters installed and how big is the tank they are connected too.
I have never seen filters so dirty, something is not set up correctly.
Water from any system I have worked with often does not need filters and the water is clear.
Large tanks allow sediment to settle before it gets to any pump, in the case you have shown us, you have far to much material in the water.

John C Daley wrote:I have a bit of experience with rainwater.
Where are these filters installed and how big is the tank they are connected too.
I have never seen filters so dirty, something is not set up correctly.
Water from any system I have worked with often does not need filters and the water is clear.
Large tanks allow sediment to settle before it gets to any pump, in the case you have shown us, you have far to much material in the water.

So, the filters are installed after our house pump that lifts rainwater out of our storage tank and gives us about 2-3 bar (more than enough).

Thing is, we've struggled with filtering the rainwater from the roof, I can't seem to find a balance between getting rid of all the crap (moss and various other organic material up to and including dead lizards :D) and capturing sufficient water so inevitably we get a build-up of organic material in the water. I've posted about this here before and am still looking into some kind of slow sand filter that we could run the water through on a continuous basis to help ease the load on the filters.

Most of the crud you see on the filters I would say appeared within the first week, and it didn't get much worse after that, so I guess there was quite a bit of stuff in there initially (even though I'd been in the tank and emptied and cleaned it last autumn).

Our other source of water is a local (unreliable) well which has a lot of silt in it and I think that's another reason why the filters got dirty so quickly. However they seemed to be performing really well, the water feels really clean despite how grubby these look, and the pressure is good too.

As I say, I've struggled with keeping the rainwater tank clean and so far the filters have actually proven to be the best way to get cleanish water into the house.

Ok, I understand why the filters are so messed up now. I guess its a lesson for us all to clean out the system for a few minutes at the start.
I think I have read you posts, you are in Serbia, from memory, with the small bricked up below ground cistern.
Do you have any rain filtering equipment near the roof?

I went back to the post and see your cistern has a 7500L capacity.
Thats a good size to start with.
In Australia we have a system which draws the water to the pump from 200mm below the water surface.
It consists of suction pipe, sau 2-3M long attached to the existing water outlet, a float attached to the other end and a course screen at that end.
All water that enters the pump system is drawn away from the 'goopy' tank bottom.
It works a dream!

I am not familiar with water filters. However, the clean filter on the left appears to have more densly spaced fibers. I would guess it is the one to catch smaller particles.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:I am not familiar with water filters. However, the clean filter on the left appears to have more densly spaced fibers. I would guess it is the one to catch smaller particles.

Yes, now you mention it with the light at that angle I can see that, will try it - will soon find out if the last filter starts getting dirty before the first!

John C Daley wrote:Ok, I understand why the filters are so messed up now. I guess its a lesson for us all to clean out the system for a few minutes at the start.
I think I have read you posts, you are in Serbia, from memory, with the small bricked up below ground cistern.
Do you have any rain filtering equipment near the roof?

I went back to the post and see your cistern has a 7500L capacity.
Thats a good size to start with.
In Australia we have a system which draws the water to the pump from 200mm below the water surface.
It consists of suction pipe, sau 2-3M long attached to the existing water outlet, a float attached to the other end and a course screen at that end.
All water that enters the pump system is drawn away from the 'goopy' tank bottom.
It works a dream!

Yes, that was the post. The filtering happens with a coarse mesh "leaf-pooper" type filter, then a kind of first flush I constructed, and then a fine mesh filter - that's about the most I can do without restricting the flow of water when we have a big rain event (it never rains, it only pours round here in summer!) This is my very rough setup - actually I have refined it a little since I filmed this :D

Our pump inlet is submerged to about 10 cm off the bottom (I THINK, I can't remember without taking a look), which thinking about it is a bit low and could suck up sludge from the bottom, maybe I should hack off a few more cm, but then it runs dry quicker...

So your inlet is basically floating on the top, did I understand that right? Our inlet pipe is rigid so that would require some adaptations...

Based on my limited knownledge it's not a good idea to wash anyhting smaller than 5micron and resuse it.
Carbon filters are usually only 5microns, and so suspended particles that are smaller than that will go thru, but they are good in that they will adsorb dissolved ions like chlorine. So it makes sense that it goes between. I would not wash and use the 1micron filter or the carbon filter. They both should be replaced.

If you have rinsed out these filters before I would just buy a new set of all 3 filters.

S Bengi wrote:Based on my limited knownledge it's not a good idea to wash anyhting smaller than 5micron and resuse it.
Carbon filters are usually only 5microns, and so suspended particles that are smaller than that will go thru, but they are good in that they will adsorb dissolved ions like chlorine. So it makes sense that it goes between. I would not wash and use the 1micron filter or the carbon filter. They both should be replaced.

If you have rinsed out these filters before I would just buy a new set of all 3 filters.

Honestly you're probably right, they aren't really expensive, it was just I didn't feel like I had got all that much use out of them, I put them in in spring of this year and they got dirty really quickly. But yeah, maybe I'll just cough up for new ones.

Disc filters may be a better product, they are coloured for different # microns and simply wash clean.
Here is an explanation

Mark, you may be able to install fittings to you rigid pipe that allow a floating flexible inlet.
Also, you may need to clean the tank bottom with a suction trash pump.

I also collect rainwater, and use similar filters.

1.) At the beginning of a downpour, I first flush the roof & gutters before taking-on water. There is almost always dust and dirt accumulation from dry spells & wind.

2.) I wrap my filters with disposable coffee filters, secured with rubber bands. That alone cut my filter purchase by two thirds.   (wet the water filter first, then begin wrapping - the coffee filters easily stick in place making it easy to apply the rubber bands)

Eugene Kenny wrote:I also collect rainwater, and use similar filters.

1.) At the beginning of a downpour, I first flush the roof & gutters before taking-on water. There is almost always dust and dirt accumulation from dry spells & wind.

2.) I wrap my filters with disposable coffee filters, secured with rubber bands. That alone cut my filter purchase by two thirds.   (wet the water filter first, then begin wrapping - the coffee filters easily stick in place making it easy to apply the rubber bands)

Oh, cool idea about the coffee filters, don't they disintegrate though?

I do have a first flush which SEEMS to work but I can't really figure out how well it's a actually working. Pretty sure it's mostly fine stuff that gets through though, because that's what gets trapped in my final pre-filter (women's tights over the spout, lol). I think it takes quite a while for everything to get washed down, maybe the capacity isn't big enough but I don't have any more room to make it taller, plus I feel like I would lose a lot of water in those short downpours.

What order do you filter in, any thoughts about that carbon filter needing to be in between the coarse and the fine filters like I was told?

John C Daley wrote:Disc filters may be a better product, they are coloured for different # microns and simply wash clean.
Here is an explanation

These look really cool but I haven't seen them sold in my part of the world and I have already invested in the existing system. However there are some interesting centrifugal-type systems for removing debris which I would like to investigate, possibly they can be implemented using something home-made.

I change the COFFEE filters often, so no problems w/degradation - if they start coming apart, just hold them under running water and they rinse right off.  

I pull from two corrugated roofs - 192sf & 64sf.

3/4" CPVC excessively from gutter to filters. I fabbed all elbows with double 45's (instead of 90's) to reduce resistance, and made sure ALL plumbing was sloped to the storage tank to minimize trapping contaminates, and eliminate freezing. At first, I wasn't sure if 3/4" could handle the potential volume, but it's adequate... providing I keep the filters reasonably clean.  

I installed a simple sediment trap below the gutter. Just a simple 'T' fitting with a 6"x 3/4" vertical pipe pointed downward. Threaded on the end for a cap for draining.

I filter BEFORE the storage tank. Makes no sense to me to capture and store heavily contaminated water.

I don't use a carbon filter, but like you, I use a 5 micron & 1 micron.

     

John C Daley wrote:Mark, you may be able to install fittings to you rigid pipe that allow a floating flexible inlet.
Also, you may need to clean the tank bottom with a suction trash pump.

Actually, that's a good idea, why not just run a flexible pipe off the rigid downpipe and rig it to float at or near the top (not right at the top as there is crud there too). I do want to get a bilge pump for emptying the tank (it doesn't have a floor-level outlet which makes fully emptying it and cleaning it a real PITA - I didn't build the thing :/) but there was also the suggestion of permanently circulating the water in the tank through some kind of sand filter (solar-powered, hopefully), so it can be kept clean that way throughout the year. Haven't quite found the parts I want for that yet, like a suitable low-flow solar-powered pump with a few metres of lift...

I think that a spindown pre-filter will help you alot. It's about 50microns and doesn't need to be replaced.
https://www.amazon.com/iSpring-Flushable-Prefilter-Filtration-WSP50/dp/B072YVNRZN?th=1
Let me know what you think of it

List of pre-filters
1) First flush
2) When taking water from the tank it would be good if there was a screen there
3) Instead of pulling water from the bottom of the tank where there is alot of gunk it would be nice if there was a floating tube pulling water from the middle of the water column.
4) Wasable Spin-down filter

S Benji, have you seen the disc filters I detail in the video above, they are amazing.