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Loohan

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Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

DIY gravity water filter

There is a type of filter called Zerowater which removes all dissolved solids from water. Like fluoride for instance, although i have not tested it on fluoridated water.
But you only need to buy the cartridge, really, and not the pricey plastic pitcher.
There are 2 filters available from the company, plus cheaper knockoffs. What you want is the bigger, more expensive cartridges. It can be confusing because vendor descriptions are unclear. What you want is sold in a pack of 2 by itself. You want ZeroWater Pitcher Filter Cartridge -ZR -01 which costs around $30/pair. The cheaper cartridges have a very short life span.
This is what you want:

I happened to already have a TDS (total dissolved solids) meter which i bought for $10 online a couple years ago. With this i measured that the water i bring from the bakery (after it has gone through a cheap whole-house chlorine/VOC reduction meter) has 125 ppm and the water at home (rain/spring water pumped out of a pond) is 75 ppm.
The filter does work; finished water reads 000.

I found a plastic jar that has an opening the same size as the cartridge diameter, cut off the bottom, and slid it onto the cartridge. But actually even this is not necessary if you feed it a slow drip. But it acts as a splash guard, plus one could fill it partially if one was not feeding from a slow tap.

I prefer to use a glass jar instead of a plastic pitcher. This one is not ideal, and i will be on the lookout at secondhand stores for a larger capacity container with a slightly larger opening.

My right-side cold line has a dedicated VOC-removing in-line undersink filter of high quality. (I almost never turn on the water heater that is on the left hand line. I normally use the left tap for cold washing.)
The more slowly the water runs through a carbon block filter, the better it works. So i drip water slowly into the ZW filter, which means it also travels slowly through the VOC pre-filter. Water drips so slowly that the plastic guard i put on the ZW cartridge is not really needed. (The white object above the filter is just the back of the label that is on the plastic jar.)

So now i have all the 0-TDS filtered water i want for cooking and drinking. Personally i am leery of drinking de-mineralized water as such, but i usually drink TEA, either white tea or various herb teas. I drink quite a lot of tea in recent years. Healthy teas full of mineral salts.
Yes, i have read that due to osmotic pressure, the body cannot assimilate water that has dissolved solids, as from herb teas in it, and one should drink only plain water. However, although that sounds pretty darn scientific, it does not seem to bear out in my own experience.
I heat the water to boiling for a little while to inhibit pathogens since i don't use chlorine. Then make tea.

Note that this ZW filter by itself is not designed to remove anything but dissolved solids. I would not run chlorine water into it.

Loohan

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Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

Re: DIY gravity water filter

Initially i had in mind doing something like this with it:

http://all-about-water-filters.com/grav … #tab-con-1
except of course this cartridge would be pointing down. If you don't have filtered water on tap, you will have to do something similar. Or figure out another way to drip clean water in.

One could also make one of the rigs like in this pic to filter municipal water. Cartridges are sold for DIYers various places online. These will not remove much fluoride, but maybe if you slow it down enough somehow, like a slow drip, it will get a lot. And/or you could set the ZW cartridge under its tap.
Only problem is, even food-grade buckets will seep some chemicals. Which is why the lower bucket, at least, should ideally be of something inert.

(Article mentions Berkey and Doulton filters. Berkey is repticlone and Doulton is Egyptoid.)

Loohan

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Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

Re: DIY gravity water filter

Well, it isn't working out trying to filter my tap water, as it contains too much sulfur from the seasonal ponds. I didn't realize how bad it was until, for the first time, i tried adding a few drops of food-grade peroxide to a jar of filtered water last night.
This morning i opened the jar to make tea, and apparently the oxygen had liberated a bunch of sulfur. It reeked! I brought it to a racing boil, but that just stunk up the place. So i poured the scalding water on some weeds i want to get rid of.
Too much sulfur is hard on the kidneys.

So what i need to do is capture rainwater (or bring home partly-filtered water from work) and run it through something that will filter it thoroughly.
Doing some superficial surfing, it appears that Berkey (repticlones) and Doulton (Egyptoids) get their cartridges made by AquaCera, which feels like a human company. Even their stainless containers might be from the same source.
Aquacera sells cartridges in several grades:
http://www.aquacera.com/ceramic-filters.html
with CeraMetix being the best. Note that it is supposed to remove most fluoride (not a big concern in my situation) as well as other baddies.
In the US you can order 3 postpaid for $60
https://www.filtersfast.com/p-CeraPlus- … gJ2Z_D_BwE
which i just did. I plan to get a food-grade bucket, drill 3 holes... I will need to come up with a non-plastic bottom container of some sort.

I understand this filter does not reduce TDS much. I can always run some through my TDS filter if i want. I might not want to.

Loohan

Administrator

Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

Re: DIY gravity water filter

I ordered the filters from the link above but what they sent was not the CeraMetix but the cheaper cartridges. I am still sorting it out with the co.

Loohan

Administrator

Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

Re: DIY gravity water filter

Do not buy from filtersfast. Sleaze. They refuse to refund my money (except for the 1 broken one) because i used the filters before noticing they were the wrong ones.
The CeraPlus cartridges they substituted do not, according to mfr, remove chloramines and VOCs. Even rainwater will have rocket fuel, pesticides, etc. so these are of little value to me.
I have started a dispute with paypal as well as whined to the mfr.

Real Cerametix costs $39 ppd on eBay, and i have ordered one.

[Edit Oct 4, 2018: only today, after 4.5 months of blasting, was i able to light filtersfast up as (doomed) Egyptoids. They never refunded or replied again but i got a refund after the response date elapsed. I find again and again that Egyptoids i do business with thinking they are humans are arrogant as hell ripoff artists. They may not always deliberately rip you off at the start, but if they send you the wrong item, or a defective item, they are unlikely to pay return postage even if you do get a refund for the item. And sometimes they just blow off honoring warranties.]

Loohan

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Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

Re: DIY gravity water filter

This is what i made with the wrong cartridges:

Food-grade bucket.
One of the "candles" arrived in pieces, and they refunded for that. I made this with the other 2 cartridges.
The bottom? I bought an old 2-gallon(?) enameled tea kettle at an antique store. Not real cheap at $39.50 but it is sturdy enough to hold the bucket even full.
It does not have a tap but does have a spout. I can pour the water into jars etc, then cover the kettle with a plastic bag to keep foreign objects out of the spout.
I have this in my shower stall as it can get to be a splattery scene. And i don't use the stall in the summer.
I will also re-name this thread as it has strayed form the original title.

Loohan

Administrator

Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

Re: DIY gravity water filter

You will note that i have the bucket filled with 5 gallons despite the fact that the kettle only holds maybe 2. The flow will shut off by itself when the water level reaches the bottom of the cartridges.

One thing i have never like about this type of cartridge which all the better gravity filters use, is they are tall and narrow; 2" diameter and 7" tall. Some types are even taller. So the bottom of the filter gets the most use.
In fact i once emailed filter mfr AquaRain about this (i get they are Egyptoids too BTW):

I don't understand why the cartridges are so tall. Seems that the lowest parts of the cartridge would do most of the work, and get clogged faster, while the upper part remains clean. If the carbon column extends all the way up in these, the carbon at the top would still be fairly new by the time the lowest got worn out.

To which i got the reply:

Thank you for contacting AquaRain!  Our ceramic filter elements are about 7 ¾.   Water enters into the complete whole length.  Although the bottom will do “more of the work” the complete filter contributes and also helps the flow rate of the filtration.  This is especially helpful when kept full while using during an emergency.  As to our carbon, we use the very highest grade of silver infused nut-shell GRANULATED activated carbon inside our ceramic cartridges and with 11 minutes of mean contact time, you will get full benefit from the carbon’s life.

I hope this has answered your question.

Well, no, it didn't answer my question or make any real sense to me.
But obviously with such cartridges it "is especially helpful when kept full while using" as the Egyptoid lady said. What a mealy-mouthed substitute for admitting they should be shorter and wider.

Loohan

Administrator

Registered: 2014-10-31

Posts: 32,762

Re: DIY gravity water filter

Actually, AquaCera is an Egyptoid company too, i just realized after blasting some more.
I received the CeraMetix cartridge but it is mostly hollow. I have not used it yet. It feels/sounds like it is 1/3 full of loose granules which knock around if you shake the dry cartridge. I do not know if i received a defective unit or if this is normal for such an expensive and highly rated cartridge. And the manufacturer will not reply to questions about that, so i just emailed the vendor.
Right now it is looking like it may be another dubious overpriced product from another dubious company.