Water filter

[KK0G]

The Aquamira Frontier Pro looks interesting but unfortunately it only works as a straw or gravity feed, I'd much rather pump my bottles full of clean water and be on my way. I do like the price though.

[Joe]

I want to build a homemade Berkey, too, or at least have all the parts on hand in case it is needed.  I like the Berkey filters because they have activated charcoal in addition to the ceramic filter.  That may be useful if rainwater is collected from a composite roof, or for other chemical contamination of surface water.

Does anyone know if any of the backpacking filters come with charcoal?  It wouldn't be needed in a wilderness situation, but I would expect petroleum or ag. chemical contamination in any stream near humans...

The Katadyn Vario has active charcoal in main filter, the MSR Miniworks has carbon in main filter. Both perform the same the differance is cost, Katadyn runs about $45.00, MSR $40.00.

The Aquamira Frontier Pro looks interesting but unfortunately it only works as a straw or gravity feed, I'd much rather pump my bottles full of clean water and be on my way. I do like the price though.

My thought on it was to still fill my bladders with the Vario, but have the frontier pro hooked on to my feed line. Incase I have something growing in the system. It may seem redundant, but not knowing if or when I will be able to propperly clean my bladders it would be some added insurance.

[KK0G]

Well I just ordered an MSR Miniworks from Als Sports http://www.alssports.com/Product.aspx?pf_id=10126805, they were by far the cheapest I found at $63. They have free shipping on orders over $75 so I picked up a replacement element for $27 which was also the cheapest I found. This was considerably less money than anywhere else so I thought I'd pass it on if anyone else was interested.

[Joe]

Good find !!! At that price I might have to pick one up to keep in the truck.

Thank you for the link.

Joe

[KC9TNH]

Well I just ordered an MSR Miniworks from Als Sports http://www.alssports.com/Product.aspx?pf_id=10126805, they were by far the cheapest I found at $63. They have free shipping on orders over $75 so I picked up a replacement element for $27 which was also the cheapest I found. This was considerably less money than anywhere else so I thought I'd pass it on if anyone else was interested.

THAT was a great score. Nice job & thanks for sharing the link; time to pound that.
8)

[Quietus]

I've packed a "Sweetwater Guardian" filter and spare cartridge for about ten years.  MSR has apparently bought out Sweetwater, now it's called the MSR  Guardian.  Haven't needed to use it much.  I pack a couple of paper coffee filters and bread ties to secure a cut-down coffee filter to the intake head.  This, in order to help cut the need for filter replacement.
 
When the current easy times of internet ordering of such things comes to an end, it will be a good thing to be able to construct a larger water filter for personal and household use.  I imagine that plans for this are all around the internet.  I got mine in print prior to that from one of the paperback books that a guy named Don Paul wrote and published via primitive computer printing some time back.   (OMG, that's so '90s!)
 
His advice was for use with 55-gal drums, but the filter can be downsized considerably.  Five gallon buckets would work real fine.  Now, might be a handy time to plumb in a bucket lid for hose intake, and the bottom of the bucket for hose outlet.  Inside the bucket, is a multi-layered mix of coarse rock, smaller rock, gravel, and sand.  I'd be wanting to make the lowest layer out of smashed up charcoal briquettes, a bag of them would probably last the lifetime of the filter maker.  (As to that "lifetime" prediction, I think that other events other than water purification may intrude.)

[RadioRay]

For me - water purifiers for backpackers changed my world.  Suddenly, if it were something less than mud, I could convert it to good drinking water.  Previously you could boil it, making it dead water with all the same trash in it, but dead . . .   or USP iodine crystals, which also works well and I've never had a goiter, but was drinking chemically treated 'dead water'    :o    but the first time that we extracted water from green, last summer water that had mostly evaporated froma  low spot between peaks , viola! good , clean and SAFE water.


//Don Paul = good reads.  I probably still have some of his books.  It's not the technology he wrote about  at the time, but the thought process for 'Great Living in Grubby Times' that makes them a good read - even today. Some things are a little overboard, but then again, who wants to pay for 'under board' ?  ha ha//


73 de RadioRay ..._ ._

[Geek]

While the filters you all are discussing are fine for camping or short term use I am trying to prep for a long term bug in situation.  Assuming you have water and just need to make it safe, you need something very cheap to remove any impurities and something to kill any bacteria.  Coffee filters are extremely cheap, so storing a bunch of those is simple.  Boiling works for the bacteria, or if you want to go with our ancestors solution, drop a small amount of rum in the water.  It could be any kind of hard liquor, but rum is traditional.  About a shot per gallon works.

Each of our bug out bags has a flask for just this purpose.

[Mitch]

Just my opinion for a long term bug in situation:

For filtration look into 5 galIon bucket gravity filters (homebrew options).
For purification look into how to make bleach from pool Shock chemicals.

You can use the bleach to regularly refresh your substrates (deter crud growth) in the buckets.
You can easily stockpile this solution and not have to worry so much about the shelf life of bleach.
Reserve your activated Carbon and UV setups for getting ultra pure water for medical or occular use.

[Geek]

Dry pool chemicals, e.g. HTH store better than Clorox and have a higher concentration of chlorine.  Watch your concentrations but otherwise more effective than bleach.  Personally, I'd prefer to store Rum.

[gil]

A 50 gallon plastic barrel is also good to have to collect rain water...

I had nothing but rain water left on my last camping day, and it was more than welcome!
I would make sure mosquitoes can't lay eggs in it though...

Gil.

[KK0G]

Wow, that was pretty fast shipping, ordered it late Thursday night and it arrived today.......and it was free!

[Frosty]

Dry pool chemicals, e.g. HTH store better than Clorox and have a higher concentration of chlorine.  Watch your concentrations but otherwise more effective than bleach.  Personally, I'd prefer to store Rum.

Agreed - and both have other uses besides water purification so more bang for your buck too.  Another multi-use option is povidone-iodine (Betadine).  An antiseptic for wounds, can be used topically as a replacement for KI/KIO3 tablets to block intake of radioactive iodine, and for water purification.  2-page pdf with the bleach/betadine to water ratios:  www.getreadygear.com/pdfdocs/Water-Purification-And-Storage.pdf

[s2man]

Quietus, it sounds like you are describing a slow sand filter.  Slow is the key word.  Good bacteria colonize the sand and devour bad critters as they slowly pass by.  They must be kept full and it takes several days for the bacteria to colonize the substrate.  This requires a large filter to get a good throughput.  My Water Storage book says they produce 1/5 to 1/3 of a gallon per hour per sq ft of surface area.  Using the average of 1/4 gallon, a 5 -gallon bucket would produce 1.5 pints per hour and a 55-gallon drum would produce 2.75 qts per hour.

Don't forget the sari filter, folks.  Eight layers of linen.  Older is better as the broken fibers catch more stuff.  This is supposed to trap 98% of the critters.  If filtering our water becomes necessary, I plan to pre-filter with a sari (old bed sheet, I don't actually have a sari ;-) to reduce the biological and sediment load on the ceramic filters.

Best case scenario, I will still have 12V to run my marine water pump and use the RO filter. 

[gil]

My Water Storage

Hi, is this an actual book?

You guys are going to make me spend money again!  ::)

Gil.