At this entrance, we will deal with the waters of public networks of worse quality, which require pretreated water filtration. The most common problems of these waters are one of the following, and even the combination of several:
- Excess sediment from the malfunction of drinking water treatment plants. Especially aggravated on the rainy days, by clouding the water from the sources of supply.
- Excess dissolved minerals that can be embedded in appliances and fill purification systems.
- Bad flavours or smells, which can have several causes in their origin. In this problem, the usually applied solution is installing a purifier, one or more stages equipped with activated charcoal at the point of consumption.
In these cases, the water must be pretreated before use or its passage through a purifying system.
Preparation elements can be installed only to protect the purifier or at the facility’s entrance protecting all of it.
How to protect the entire house using water filtration.
As we have said, these filters allow us to use them for the whole house or as a pre-filter to protect and extend the life of purifying equipment. In this section, we will discuss general filtering for the entire installation.
When we install them at the installation entrance, their mission is to protect the devices connected to it as they are; heater, boiler, washing machine, dishwasher and any other appliance connected to the water network.
The most widespread applicable protections are against solid impurities and lime inlays.
Filtering of solid impurities.
The means of removing solid impurities is with the use of sediment filters. These filters are housed inside filter holders, such as those you can see in the image above. There are several sizes and models, choosing the one that best suits the flow rate to be treated and/or the space available to install it.
Inside is housed the filter cartridge, which can be of different degrees of filtration depending on the required protection. About the types of filter cartridges, you have extensive information at the entrance: sediment filters. For general use, a 50-micron coiled polypropylene wire cartridge is the most widely used.
Protection filtering in water with excess lime
In this case, we will refer to so-called polyphosphate filters or anti-inlays. They reduce the inlays produced by lime and other dissolved salts in all appliances connected to the installation. Especially all those where the water warms up. It is in them that the most damage produces the inlays, causing costly breakdowns.
This type of filter cartridge will be installed only to protect the devices connected to the installation. There are very economical models for that purpose (see image). In the case of mounting it at the installation’s general entrance, it is recommended to have reverse osmosis equipment for drinking water. This is motivated by drinking only water treated with such filters when polyphosphates are for food use. Even in compliance with the above, the dosed amount of polyphosphates may be higher than the recommended maximum.
Filter holder models with transparent housing allow you to control the dirt accumulated in the filter. When excessive, it tells us the need to change the filter. This change (at least annual) is not made just because of excess dirt. We must change them from time to time to avoid the retained particles’ possible rot causing bacterial contamination. This is especially serious in cases that are not used with chlorinated water from the mains.
Filter holders are available in three sizes; 5, 10 and 20 inches depending on the flow rate to be treated and the available space. The most commonly used size being 10 inches.
Like pretreating water for purifiers.
Preparation to protect purification equipment is necessary when the amount of unwanted elements causes purifiers to be affected.
In this part, when we refer to purifiers, we refer to reverse osmosis purification equipment. This equipment has requirements in terms of the quality of the water to be treated. If these requirements are not met, these systems may present problems that are avoidable to some extent by pretreating by proper water filtration.
As we said above, there are several water supply problems, which can occur together or separately. If we intend to avoid them, we can treat them specifically or together.
- With sediments, implement one or two sediment filters from the highest to the lowest degree of filtration—for example, first 5 microns and then 1 micron.
- Excess salts; polyphosphate filter, or KDF and activated charcoal. It will always be better, using both together. First, the KDF with activated charcoal, and as a second stage, the polyphosphates.
Even considering the above, it is ideal always to use a combination of several. They guarantee us a better pre-treatment for subsequent purification. Take as an example the following case: In tough waters of dry regions, the installation before the entry of the equipment two filters, one of charcoal grain and one of coal grain plus KDF, together with the increase of washing flushing, have proven to be effective. Extending the life of osmosis membranes that were previously filled in a short space of time.
In the following link, you will find all these types of filter cartridges and filter holders.