Well water - clogged screens on faucets and hot water heater

[thatguy]

Whole house filters are cheap, especially if you are handy enough to install it yourself. There are different levels of filter efficiencies. so just pick a lower level one.

I would recommend using the BIG BLUE filters, they take approx. 4" x 10" filter and wont clog as fast as a the standard 2 x 10" filters..

I got a gang of 3 connected together with a mounting bracket from Replacement Water Filters | Reverse Osmosis | Big Blue Water Filters | for what i thought was a very reasonable price.. I am using a 50, 20 and 5 grain WASHABLE filters which are much cheaper in the long run than buying the disposable filters..

Brian

 

[Soundguy]

are your 3 in parallel for flow or series for extra filtration?

 

[thatguy]

are your 3 in parallel for flow or series for extra filtration?

Mine are in series..

Here is pretty much what mine look like, including the pressure gauges.. I installed mine myself, but had to borrow some PEX installation tools to get it done.. currently the first filter catches the majority of the 'stuff'

Whole House - Triple 10" Big Blue - 1" Ports - Ball Valves, Gauges



brian

 

[Soundguy]

i considered using 3 as well.. first 2 in paralel and the 3rd in sereis. that way as the first ones plugged.. I did not loose flow so much.. but still having a downstream filter to catch some leftovers.

looks good, thanks for shareing..

 

[thatguy]

i considered using 3 as well.. first 2 in paralel and the 3rd in sereis. that way as the first ones plugged.. I did not loose flow so much.. but still having a downstream filter to catch some leftovers.

looks good, thanks for shareing..

I wish i had installed a bypass incase something went bad with the filters.. have the parallel filter would be even better option

IF you decide to use H2O filters and dont see what you really want/need - email them and they will put together custom package for you, thats what they did for me

Brian

 

[RobertN]

With my wifes landscape company, I have seen this not only in the house, but it can clog drip irrigation emitters. always run a filter for that too...

Amazing some times, how even city water can have a lot of sediment, as well as, well water.

 

[Lineman North Florida]

The last few years it seems all the faucets are getting plugged up and the inlet screen on the tankless water heater gets clogged up in just 3 or 4 weeks and I am constantly having to clean them. The washing machine gets to where no water will flow into it. I have to pull the hoses off and clean the input screens quite often. What I clean out of the filters is white, almost like cotton or cotton thread. The water is pretty soft and otherwise is fine.

I really don't want the expense of a whole house filter, but would like some kind of pre screen for the whole house, so all I have to do is clean that out and not everything else in the house. I see where you can get #140 mesh inline filters with 1.5" inlets for only about $60 and they claim anywere from 25 to 60 gpm. I am willing to invest more than that for a whole house solution, but really don't need the filter to take out microbles or anything really small.

Any ideas?

Turn your tank around, otherwords plumb the inlet side down low and the outlet side up high, I had the exact same problems that you described and an old well and pump man told me to do what I described and I have not had any more problems since all the sediment, sand etc falls to the bottom of the tank well below the outlet hole. Good luck, Charlie.

 

[Travelover]

When I bought my house there was a new whole house cartridge filter installed (suspicious). It turned out that the screen in the well had failed and it was pumping sand. The filter would clog up every week or so. I ended up getting a new well drilled. I hope your problem is simpler.

 

[Xfaxman]

I have the same problem, haven't solved it yet. It is a bacteria that grows in moving water. I don't know if there is a filter that will keep the bacteria trapped in the filter.

Google, "biofilm slime"

Biofilm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wipe out the 10 worst germ hot spots - Health - Infectious diseases | NBC News

This is what it looks like after it dries out. The round plastic filter was removed from the cold water inlet on the washing machine after I added a second hose screen.

View attachment 310406 View attachment 310407 View attachment 310408

Here is an iPhone pic of my water heater screen. That white stuff is what I am talking about.

View attachment 310425

Turn your tank around, otherwords plumb the inlet side down low and the outlet side up high, I had the exact same problems that you described and an old well and pump man told me to do what I described and I have not had any more problems since all the sediment, sand etc falls to the bottom of the tank well below the outlet hole. Good luck, Charlie.

Our problem isn't sediment, sand, etc, that will fall to the bottom of the tank. I don't have a large pressure tank, mine is in the well casing. 99 percent on my water bypasses the pressure tank through a cycle stop constant pressure valve. The pump only runs fast enough to supply the demand.

Read about it here: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/271589-water-well-pump-monitor-3.html

I don't have any problem on the hot water screen at the sink in the bathroom, so I think the heat kills the bacteria. The cold water side plugs up solid in a couple of weeks. The screens are in the flexible hoses at the faucet.

 

[Alan L.]

Hardly any hot water pressure at all so I changed out the screen and it was totally clogged. The picture is what I got out of the screen. It is now dry, feels like a combination of lint and thread. Hope its not the innards of the pump.