Water Filtration Suggestions

Discussion in 'Off Grid Living' started by BenP, Apr 13, 2018.


  1. BenP

    BenP Monkey++

    I put in a cistern and pump to use water from my roof and started looking at water filtration systems on ebay/amazon, it seems like there are tons of them. Anyone have any suggestions on a reliable setup?
     
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  2. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Check thru SM for water treatment discussions There are too many to find and list for you. As poor as the search function is, it will pop up a lot of leads.
     
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  3. Asia-Off-Grid

    Asia-Off-Grid RIP 11-8-2018

    Water filtration for drinking & cooking only? If so, a typical system like THIS, may work for you. That multi stage water filtration system appears to be rated up to 75 gallons per day. It also has a number of high rated reviews.

    Just out of curiosity here, how many square feet (or square meters) is your roof (rainwater collection area)?
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2018
  4. Yard Dart

    Yard Dart Vigilant Monkey Moderator

    Take a squint at the below links as well as a forum search.
     
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  5. duane

    duane Monkey+++

    Cisterns are nice, but if there is any way you can get a well in, shallow is preferred, and if you plan on staying in your present location, do so. Wood heat, chimney, greenhouse, productive garden, hand pump well, solar, hand and garden tools, you will figure it all out soon enough, are relatively inexpensive and easy to do now and you have the time to work out any problems. Once TSHTF, most will not be available and many cases simple mistakes can kill you. A chimney fire after TSHTF will destroy almost all your preps and the fire department will not be there to save you, nor will the Red Cross show up to make short term housing arrangements. I used to believe that it was simple to filter rain water, but I have read that there are getting to be more and more viruses in the bird, bat, squirrel, and other rodent droppings as well as chemicals and such, some of which can pass thru fairly fine filters or require charcoal or reverse osmosis to remove. In an emergency I would tolerate a straw type or ceramic type filter, used a simple sand filter for my greenhouse water before I connected to well, but given a choice and the availability of uncontaminated ground water, not a given anymore, I would invest in a well. YMMV.
    In most cases rain water is the best you can find for gardens and plants, least amount of minerals and no chlorine etc. Also can significantly reduce your water and sewer bill as in most urban areas, your sewer bill is based on your water usage and thus you pay for sewer for your garden water as well.
     
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2018
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  6. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    More and more municipalities are regulating diversion (collection) of rain water. Check into it without drawing attention to yourself if you live in such a county or city. I think they are merely envious of lost revenue. Place your collection barrels or cistern somewhere you can camouflage it with a lean to house add on or shed to enclose your water storage and run gutters and downspout down to feed it out of sight and out of mind (back or side of house away from observation). a good privacy fence might be a good idea as well. A small trash water pump can be used to get any pressure you may need for other than simple gravity feed water flow.
     
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  7. Cruisin Sloth

    Cruisin Sloth Special & Slow

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  8. hot diggity

    hot diggity Monkey+++ Site Supporter+++

    Wow, this brings back memories. Grandpa T. had a cistern under the screened porch off the kitchen. It was fed from the metal roof and gutter system, but had a manual diverter valve that allowed the rain water to flow out into the yard until all the pollen, bird droppings and other debris had been rinsed off the roof. After a good amount of rain had fallen, and usually when Hee Haw was interrupted by a commercial announcement, Grandpa would step off the porch and flip the diverter valve to direct the water through the charcoal filter and into the cistern.

    I have nothing on that scale now, but I have an enormous Big Berkey system that will remove the color and flavor from coffee and Koolaid. I wouldn't thing twice about pouring pond water into the top and drinking what came out the bottom.
     
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  9. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    I suggest you look in the Off-Grid forum... My system is in there, with Pictures, and Arrows, and a Paragraph explaining the whole System....
     
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  10. BenP

    BenP Monkey++

    I did dig through the old forum messages and found some good information. Looks like a 5 micron filter + a charcoal filter + a UV sterilizer seem to be pretty standard. I am looking for a good size sterilizer that will run on DC now. The house is all solar powered right now, I have all DC lighting in case we use too much battery power and the inverter shuts down we can still keep the lights on, I would like the water sterilizer to keep functioning in that case as well. I think I want a system large enough to allow showers as well as drinking, I could bypass the filter for the toilet but it does not use much water anyway. I think i will use the filter setup all the time even with the water we purchase just to work out any problems. We do not have good pressure from the water company line, I doubt it is 30 psi, we are up on a hill and probably have 1000ft of waterline between us and the water company line at the road. I buried the cistern behind the house and the gutter downspouts will look normal but we are out in the country on a farm with little interference from local government. We have water from the water company but not sewer, we have our own septic system. I will try to dig a well but most people around here say they hit salt water back when they were digging wells, strange for being 500+ miles from the ocean. We have a good pond nearby I could also use if needed. Roof is only 2000 sqft. but we have a big barn with a waterline connected to it so I will probably put gutters on it and a water tank/pump to push water to the house when I get time.
     
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  11. Asia-Off-Grid

    Asia-Off-Grid RIP 11-8-2018

    Do you have much land above the structure? If so, why not buy a poly tank, say 1,000 gallons, and let the water pressure slowly fill it say, when you aren't there, or throughout the night? You could gravity feed it back to the home / cabin. Depending on how much higher up it is above the home / cabin, it could provide a fair amount of water pressure for you. Just a thought there.

    NOTE: I would not mix "city" water and rainwater in the same storage tank / cistern.

    Brother, that is 185 square meters. Unless you have very little rain throughout the year, that should be more than enough rainwater catchment area to keep your water storage cistern / tank filled. Do you have an idea of the annual rainfall for your area, throughout the year?
     
  12. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    @BenP If you gound the post of my Water System, it shows a 12Vdc UV Sterilizer... Ours only runs when the Pump runs...
     
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  13. Asia-Off-Grid

    Asia-Off-Grid RIP 11-8-2018

    I have to admit, Bruce, I have tried to look for it and have yet to find it.

    THIS LINK shows all your topics. I went back as far as page 5, anyway. I'm getting tired now, as it is getting late. So, I may have just overlooked it, unless it was from some time back?
     
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  14. BenP

    BenP Monkey++

    We get about 47 inches of rain per year.
     
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  15. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Check my arithmetic, but that looks to be someplace around 65000 gallons per year, or averaged out, about 175 gpd. Not enough for a family of four with active kids, but more than adequate for two. It matters how the rainfall is spread thru the year, if it all comes in (say) January, you'll need some storage ---
     
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  16. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    @Asia-Off-Grid . Look @ “My Roof Rainwater Collection System” Thread hete on the Monkey
     
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  17. BenP

    BenP Monkey++

    What brand is it? I don't see many 12vdc on ebay.
     
  18. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    I am traveling down in the Flatlands this month, and right now we a in Austin Texas.... So the answer to the Brand will have to wait till I get back on May 3rd...
     
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  19. Asia-Off-Grid

    Asia-Off-Grid RIP 11-8-2018

    Cool. Hopefully that rain is spread out through the year, so you can limit the onsite storage you need at any given time.

    To calculate the rainfall you can collect, basically, you get .62 gallons per square foot of roof (catchment surface), per inch of rain. So, 1,000 square feet would get you 620 gallons, 2,000 square feet, 1240 gallons. (This is SO much more simple when dealing with metrics. For every 1 millimeter of rain, you can collect 1 liter of rainwater for every 1 square meter of roof (catchment surface). See what I mean?) Of course, there are losses to be considered. AND, if you do not already have one, you should seriously consider installing a "first flush diverter" to separate the initial runoff after a dry spell. This will allow bird droppings, dust, dirt, etc., that has made its way to your roof, during the most recent dry spell. Once the first flush diverter fills, the water following that will be cleaner, and then allowed to continue on to your catchment tanks.

    Also, Ben, here are some of the Rainwater Harvesting resources I have compiled, the files I felt the most useful to share anyway, for others starting rainwater harvesting and storage. I hope they benefit you: CLICK HERE to load the OneDrive storage folder. In fact, please feel free to download any / all resources you feel would benefit you.

    As a side note, I would suggest reading the Texas and Virginia pdf files, both located in the "eBooks & Resources" folder. You may also bookmark the first link I posted above, if you wish. Upon coming across any further files I feel are of importance, I will add them to the folder.

    That's what I got, as well, using a coefficient of 1.0. I also agree with ghrit, regarding monthly estimates for maximum storage capacity. You don't want X thousand gallons wasted, due to overflowing tanks. Later in the year you may be a bit light on rain, and with low / empty storage tanks.

    Found it! It's RIGHT HERE, thanks!

    Ben, here is a 12vdc unit. 2gpm flow rate. I'm sure it will not be cheap. But, if you pipe water through it that has been filtered to just a few microns, it will do its job for you. The smaller the particles your filtering system remove from the rainwater, the better your UV light will remove any further bacteria.

    Here are some videos that may also interest you:
    Scott Hunt's (Engineer775) Rainwater Harvesting Project (Pickens, South Carolina)


    Living On 9" Of Rain Per Year, by Billy Kniffen (Menard County, Central Texas)


    Joe's Rainwater Harvesting System, ~12" Per Year (Sahuarita, Arizona)
     
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  20. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Ok, 12 VDC Ballasts for a T5 Tube that fits in our UV is made by "Thin-Lite" and run about @20US I have had to
    buy a replacement about every 10 Years.... and I replace the UV Tube Every 5 Years or so...
     
    BenP likes this.
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