Water filters for outdoor use can be expensive. I have seen them for anything between £30.00 and £70.00. So I put my expensive governement paid for university education - and city & guilds plumbing - to work:
Question: What is a water filter?
Answer: A tube with a filter media inside.
Question: Ok, so what is the filter media?
Answer: In the best case ceramic or carbon.
Question: Can you get all these pieces separately and put them together?
Answer: yes.
It is not really difficult. I looked around my garage and found some old water waste pipe that I could use as filter tube. For the connections I went to the builder market and for the activated carbon I went to the pet store and bought a huge pack of carbon for fish tank water filters.
Some plumbing pipe, some pipe connectors, pipe glue, carbon for fish tank filter, a ladies sock, some oven filter. Everything from the garage or builders store.
Putting together the pipe. 40mm ABS reducing down to 21mm. Pipe solvent for the permanent fixings and a compression joint to allow for easy dis-assembly.
Cutting the plastic to fit in the connector and putting some holes in it. Also, cutting the carbon oven filter to fit the connector. This will act as a pre-filter to collect large particulate matter - insects and plant matter. I used the oven filter because I could not find the poyester wadding I thought I had.
Pre-filter assembled in the connector.
Short top tube put in to hold pre-filter parts in place.
The new, clean ladies nylon sock in the lower filter tube.
Using a paper funnel to pour the carbon into the ladies sock.
Tie the sock closed, use a bow so that you can open it later when the carbon needs changing...........or use another sock.
All put together.
The whole project cost me around £7.00 and it is just as functional as a filter that would have cost around £50.00. Also, my pack of carbon has enough carbon in it to change the carbon in the filter 4 times – buying new carbon for an exoensive filter is also expensive – I saw one recently where the filter unit was £30.00 and one new carbon filter element £20.00.
How long does the carbon last? Well this carbon was for a fish tank and the instructions said to change the carbon once a month with the fish tank filter working full-time. So it should be more than useful for a week or two.
Hope its useful.
Question: What is a water filter?
Answer: A tube with a filter media inside.
Question: Ok, so what is the filter media?
Answer: In the best case ceramic or carbon.
Question: Can you get all these pieces separately and put them together?
Answer: yes.
It is not really difficult. I looked around my garage and found some old water waste pipe that I could use as filter tube. For the connections I went to the builder market and for the activated carbon I went to the pet store and bought a huge pack of carbon for fish tank water filters.
Some plumbing pipe, some pipe connectors, pipe glue, carbon for fish tank filter, a ladies sock, some oven filter. Everything from the garage or builders store.
Putting together the pipe. 40mm ABS reducing down to 21mm. Pipe solvent for the permanent fixings and a compression joint to allow for easy dis-assembly.
Cutting the plastic to fit in the connector and putting some holes in it. Also, cutting the carbon oven filter to fit the connector. This will act as a pre-filter to collect large particulate matter - insects and plant matter. I used the oven filter because I could not find the poyester wadding I thought I had.
Pre-filter assembled in the connector.
Short top tube put in to hold pre-filter parts in place.
The new, clean ladies nylon sock in the lower filter tube.
Using a paper funnel to pour the carbon into the ladies sock.
Tie the sock closed, use a bow so that you can open it later when the carbon needs changing...........or use another sock.
All put together.
The whole project cost me around £7.00 and it is just as functional as a filter that would have cost around £50.00. Also, my pack of carbon has enough carbon in it to change the carbon in the filter 4 times – buying new carbon for an exoensive filter is also expensive – I saw one recently where the filter unit was £30.00 and one new carbon filter element £20.00.
How long does the carbon last? Well this carbon was for a fish tank and the instructions said to change the carbon once a month with the fish tank filter working full-time. So it should be more than useful for a week or two.
Hope its useful.
