At home our 4 stage under bench filter is not cheap. But probably worth taking into consideration is the life of a filter.

Our filter says to replace the filter after 2000 litres of water from a clean supply. ie good town water. If the water is of poorer quality replace it more often.

$140 each time!

Also it takes 3 minutes to fill a 5 litre container! I fill quite a few of these when we head off to the bush.

We regularly pump water from creeks and the like.
We don't filter it on the way into our tanks, but that could be done with a 10" 5um sediment filter.
We chlorinate all water we put into the tanks with sodium hypochlorite. That is important. That kills most biological contaminates and is what is done to all town water.
Then after the pump and immediately before the taps the water goes through a twin 10" filter. The first element is a 5um sediment filter and the second is a 0.5um or 1 um active carbon/silver element. The active carbon will remove any remaining biological contaminants and many chemical contaminants including any remaining chlorine.
This process produces water that is totally safe for drinking, but it is important to keep the chlorine levels maintained as it naturally breaks down quite quickly.

The twin 10" filter housings are available for about $60, the replacement sediment filters are about $10 and the replacement carbon/silver filters are about $35 and both are widely available. They are much cheaper than the BEST brand and style and have greater filtering capacity.

If possible, avoid cloudy water. The filters above will make it clear and safe for drinking, but the sediment removed will use up the capacity of the filter elements much more quickly.

If you can not avoid it, it is possible to settle out the cloudy material by adding a tiny amount of alum to a bucket full and letting it stand for a while. We carry a small amount of alum for this purpose.
Cheers,
Peter

-- Edited by Peter_n_Margaret on Friday 29th of March 2019 09:36:04 AM

I know of one outback situation that pumps raw river water through a reasonably course screen into one of two 150,000 litre tanks supplying a pub/fuel station/general store complex. The newly filled tank is treated with Alum and left sit for a couple of days. The Alum treated tank contents are then pumped from a suspended pick up into the other tank and treated with a measured amount of Sodium Hypochlorite. The water from the supply tank is then used in the same manner as town water would be used.

Complex owner is often amused by travellers sneaking water containers into the showers to get a bit of free water for their RV tanks.

The settling tank is siphoned out maybe once a month. Operator drops an electric outboard into the tank to create a vortex then puts the siphon pick up into the centre of the tank and on the bottom of the tank. Method seems to work very well and the settled contents end up as new top soil in the local vegie garden.

Iza

Few year back saw an older couple living the dream in a very old van with a portable solar desal setup .Going to be hard to explain but he could do about 30 ltrs per day was bout the size of a solar panel worked I guess on a similar theory dirty water in the top which ran down the solar heated panel which caused condensation on to the thick plastic top and then collected the remaining dirty water and residue was returned to the source, He claimed he could turn salt into fresh water and had got it from a mob in Adelaide

Yuglamron wrote:

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I concur with all you say about filters etc but I'm not sure about the adding of   the deflocculent Alum to clear cloudy water.

It has been linked to Alzheimers and the jury is still out on that one.

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 https://www.hunterwater.com.au/Resources/Documents/Fact-Sheets/Water-Quality/ALUM-IN-DRINKING-WATER_MAR2011.pdf

Cheers,

Peter

Whenarewethere wrote:

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Some or the softest & nicest water I had was in Sydney off the roof straight out of a 10,000 litre rain water tank, with bit of possum & bird poo from the roof. Never got sick.

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Humans become accustomed to their water supply.

What does not make you sick today can make someone else very ill. People who travel to places like India know this very well, but it also applies particularly to water from untreated sources as we travel within Australia.

The other thing that can catch travellers out even in Australia is filling tanks from treated town water supplies from a tap in a pipe that does not get used regularly. The water that sits in a pipe for a week can grow biological contaminants after the chlorine has broken down which only takes a few days at most.

So, if you are in the habit of not treating your drinking water, fill from a source that is well used.

ps..EDIT.. softness or hardness is no indication of the biological safety or otherwise of water. It is related to the minerals dissolved in it and they are mostly (but not always) harmless.

Cheers,

Peter

-- Edited by Peter_n_Margaret on Friday 29th of March 2019 02:48:22 PM

Whenarewethere wrote:

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Some or the softest & nicest water I had was in Sydney off the roof straight out of a 10,000 litre rain water tank, with bit of possum & bird poo from the roof. Never got sick.

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 We rely on tank water where we live. There is no town water. We always take a 100litre bladder filled with our water for drinking. Rain water is the sweetest most thirst quenching water you can drink. It is natural and contains all the trace elements and nutrients you need and all for free.

If you think about where we drank from before modern civilisation then filtered rainwater is a pretty good compromise I reckon.

 

Frank

Chlorination and microfiltration only take minutes and that is better treatment than happens with town water.
Reverse osmosis is effective but it is also slow and requires considerable power.
Cheers,
Peter

Ours is filtered and boiled for Atleast 3 minutes. Then stored in fridge after cooling
for drinking .,
.

peter n margaret

any chances of some photos of your set up.

Greg.

It a great idea Peter and you have control so thar river water for a shower won't mix i with the drinking supply.

I have similar with a charcoal filter under the sink to a drinking tap that can get a kettle under. It is a bit slow as it is a fine filter but works well. These days twin filters can be purchased cheaper than what I installed.

-- Edited by dieseltojo on Monday 1st of April 2019 12:08:14 PM