Whole house water filters

We're on city water, and they've had a few incidents recently with water supply being contaminated somehow. The most recent, they say, is manganese and iron, though they haven't provided any reports since 2018. 

It's annoying. We drink from a zero water pitcher and that's fine, but dishes, showers, laundry and the like all suffer anyway. I know TDS isn't the end all water quality metric, but the zero water does what it says and brings it right to zero when when it's ugly coming in. 

What's a decent NSF certified system to install for the whole house? Advertising literature seems like reading political campaign slogans. 

I just installed a whole house system this year, and did it the GRM way. I'm on county water from a surface river source, so the water is naturally soft, but it has bit of a chlorine smell/feel to it that is especially noticeable in the shower. Wife noticed her skin reacts to showers now, which clears up when we're out of town, so there's something in it. We came from the next county over which gets their water from the same source, but treats it differently I guess. I agree researching is such a crapshoot - way too much misinformation and sales pitches out there. The best thing to do is test your water, but I didn't bother. My next door neighbors got hustled into paying $7k for a system with a water softener, reverse osmosis, all that stuff that we probably don't need. My system was $700 all in.

I went with 2 stages of Pentair Pentek "Big Blue" housings and Pentair brand filters. First stage is 1 micron sediment DGD-2501-20 just for keeping the 2nd stage alive, and 2nd stage is a 0.5 micron FloPlus-20BB carbon block filter. Essentially a giant 20" x 4.5" fridge filter for the whole house. The carbon filter had good reviews for removing taste/smell issues with county/city water sources like mine. Not a good setup for a well. I installed a bypass loop and pressure gauges to see when it's time to change filters. There is about 1-2 PSI of drop across the whole thing with two sink taps wide open. We didn't notice any shower pressure change, but we the weird chemical feel and smell is completely gone, and wife's skin has cleared up. I think the tap tastes indistinguishable from the fridge filter now. It's be installed for about 3 months without issue so far. It even feeds the garden hose which as been great for washing cars.

In reply to maschinenbau :

I really like that and may attempt to replicate it. What's the purpose of the valve that points down between the filters?

( rightclicking/saving as) hmm, I may need to do some research here... 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

That's for relieving the pressure when doing a filter change. I catch it with a bucket, then pour the filter housing into the same bucket. I should have sweat in a short piece of pipe or hose connection because it sprays you bit, but it works. Some of the filter housings have built-in pressure relief buttons, but I read they can break and cause leaks. The bypass loop let you isolate the filters so you don't drain the whole house every time you swap filters, and if something goes wrong you can still feed the house with unfiltered water just like before.

maschinenbau said:

In reply to OHSCrifle :

That's for relieving the pressure when doing a filter change. I catch it with a bucket, then pour the filter housing into the same bucket. I should have sweat in a short piece of pipe or hose connection because it sprays you bit, but it works. Some of the filter housings have built-in pressure relief buttons, but I read they can break and cause leaks. The bypass loop let you isolate the filters so you don't drain the whole house every time you swap filters, and if something goes wrong you can still feed the house with unfiltered water just like before.

It's brilliant, thanks

My situation was a little different, hard water with iron. But what I did was get three quotes on system installations, picking their brains as they were putting them together, asking what everything was for and how it worked.  I then put my own system together based on that info.

If I can make one recommendation, when you choose filters/housings make sure you're not tied to using only their filters. On my first system I went with a local company's hardware because they had a great reputation, but quickly learned that I could only use their filters, which were not cheap.

In reply to maschinenbau :

How often do you have to change filters and do you know how many gallons a month you use? 

maschinenbau said:

I just installed a whole house system this year, and did it the GRM way. I'm on county water from a surface river source, so the water is naturally soft, but it has bit of a chlorine smell/feel to it that is especially noticeable in the shower. Wife noticed her skin reacts to showers now, which clears up when we're out of town, so there's something in it. We came from the next county over which gets their water from the same source, but treats it differently I guess. I agree researching is such a crapshoot - way too much misinformation and sales pitches out there. The best thing to do is test your water, but I didn't bother. My next door neighbors got hustled into paying $7k for a system with a water softener, reverse osmosis, all that stuff that we probably don't need. My system was $700 all in.

I went with 2 stages of Pentair Pentek "Big Blue" housings and Pentair brand filters. First stage is 1 micron sediment DGD-2501-20 just for keeping the 2nd stage alive, and 2nd stage is a 0.5 micron FloPlus-20BB carbon block filter. Essentially a giant 20" x 4.5" fridge filter for the whole house. The carbon filter had good reviews for removing taste/smell issues with county/city water sources like mine. Not a good setup for a well. I installed a bypass loop and pressure gauges to see when it's time to change filters. There is about 1-2 PSI of drop across the whole thing with two sink taps wide open. We didn't notice any shower pressure change, but we the weird chemical feel and smell is completely gone, and wife's skin has cleared up. I think the tap tastes indistinguishable from the fridge filter now. It's be installed for about 3 months without issue so far. It even feeds the garden hose which as been great for washing cars.

I did exactly this. Thanks.

In reply to Slippery :

I've only had it a few months so I'm still on the first filters. I plan to change them once a year or if the pressure drop becomes noticeable. I don't know how much water we use, but its only two of us in the house. I read a lot of experiences from other 2-person households who get by just fine with 10" housings, but you might as well go 20" if you can fit them.

I went with the Pentek style housings because they are somewhat universal, and tons of other filter brands fit inside them. I can also experiment with different filter types. But so far we're satisfied with this first setup as a taste/odor fixer. 

Some other tips for assembly - notice how I used shark-bite elbow fittings. That was so I could solder in the upper section, screw the NPT fittings into the housings, then snap the lower assembly into place at once. The shark-bites allow some play in them in case your lengths are slightly off, and the lower assembly can drop out if something plastic breaks. I suppose you could use all shark-bite fittings instead of sweating all the other joints, but I like really like sweating copper and it's cheaper.

Very nice system you designed there.

I find that a washable/cleanable filter as the "first line of defense" is a much more economical option than a "throw-away" cartridge filter. I've used this LAKOS unit in several houses and works great. The filter screen is available from 70 microns to 600 microns and I use the 150 micron screen here at our house. When pressure begins to drop, it only takes a minute to swap out to a second element(I keep 2 at all times) or to clean out the one you remove. But its a buy it once and you're done. I try to clean the screen once a month. 
 

I also have a 4"x10" sediment and a 4"x20" carbon filter before the UV light. There's a small water treatment plane in our basement, but living in the woods, we have a 700' well and do get some sulfur odor at different times of the year. The carbon filter alleviates 99% of the smell.

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

That's a pretty sweet setup. Love the distribution manifold! I sure hope I'm not getting 70+ micron sediment in my county water, but you never know...

I'm planning on doing some cleanup on my water softener bypass - no leaks but maybe in the future?  I love the pressure gauges.

I would love to get a whole house filtration setup, but with a slab house, I have no idea how that would even work or where the equipment would go.

z31maniac said:

I would love to get a whole house filtration setup, but with a slab house, I have no idea how that would even work or where the equipment would go.

Where does your water come in? It's probably near the water heater. Put this thing there.

tuna55 said:

z31maniac said:

I would love to get a whole house filtration setup, but with a slab house, I have no idea how that would even work or where the equipment would go.

Where does your water come in? It's probably near the water heater. Put this thing there.

I'm sure you're right, however, I don't know if there is enough room in the utility closet in the garage for one. It has the water heater and the interior HVAC stuff and it's pretty tight in there. 

I guess I can always call someone out to give a quote, but I don't like to waste people's time when I know I'm not ready to do anything. 

Hey this thing is going in the crawlspace, and though I live in SC and though the crawlspace is obviously pretty warm compared to outside, most of the copper stuff is insulated down there. How do I insulate the filter housings themselves? Do I not worry about it?

In reply to tuna55 :

I live in GA and my pipes are also in a crawlspace, but mine is closed off pretty good, with vents sealed with plastic sheet and gasketing on the crawlspace door. I just moved in January though, so I hope it doesn't freeze down there. I know a lot of pipes in GA busted during last December's big freeze.

Well it is installed, and it honestly wasn't that bad, but I just needed to have enough time to fix it if something went terribly wrong after I was done. Honestly, the TDS doesn't measure any better than it did before, so I'm a bit worried that I've done something wrong in terms of putting the filter elements in their housings.

I didn't do any testing before or after, I just know that the water tastes and smells better and wife is happier with her skin now. 

I think both filters had rubber seals on each end. I don't recall anything unusual about installing them.

I read the title as Waffle House water filters. I heart Waffle House.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

I read the title as Waffle House water filters. I heart Waffle House.

Its true, he does. Even has the secret handshake down.