Testing Water Filters

A water filter test by Project Farm,
So many were basically crap.
The man with the annoying voice but loads of good info reviews water filters.
All the Best,
Jeff

Thanks jeff51 :+1:
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I have watched several of his videos. One in particular on aluminum welding/brazing/soldering rods was in preparation for a new flashlight build. :wink: I think Hobart had the best and lowest melting point. HERE
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I’ve had the Brita Pitcher for 20 yrs. and it’s fine for my Miami municipal water supply.

For SHTF situations, it’s Sawyer filters and I live on a decent sized lake.

Chris

My head hurts after watching that video. He talks way too fast.

The activated charcoal filters are not meant to remove dissolved solids (often calcium and magnesium compounds that make water hard). So no surprise they didn’t so well there.
Activated charcoal is pretty good at removing heavy metals and taste/odour molecules. And chlorine.
These things adsorb or stick to carbon hence are removed.
You should only use them on water that is already microbiologically safe. No bacteria or other organisms in the water.

The RO filter did what its supposed to, removing everything. I would suggest still using microbiologically safe water becasue bacteria can feed on carbon and other organic components.

I like Project Farm reviews but like so many video reviews, an awful lot of viewing time could be saved by just writing down the conclusions in a few bullet points. I do have some interest in water filters and particularly would like a gravity filter in the Doulton/Berkey style, but unfortunately Berkey at least seems to be less great than it looks. Does he say anything about those?

Katadyn used to have something like that called the Ceradyn, but they discontinued it. I don’t know what if anything to infer from the discontinuance.

About 80% of people in the US get their water from some sort of municipal or public supply and almost all of it is chlorinated. So any of those filters are fine to remove the chlorine. Activated carbon will remove some heavy metals. For the 20% on private wells most of those filters probably are not a good idea and the fine print will caution you “Do not use this filter with water that is microbiologically unsafe”. As Bort said carbon is a breeding ground for bacteria. If you put even a little bit of bacteria into a carbon filter you get a lot out the other side. That doesn’t mean you can’t use them with a well but if you don’t have a reason for carbon then you probably shouldn not as there may not be any benefit. Total coliform bacteria is not necessarily harmful to most people. You need to know what is in the water that you want to remove before you can pick a filter. Don’t worry about TDS.

Home and away.

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The Sawyer is great for backpacking.

The Gravity Works carbon filter attached to the Sawyer filters out chemicals.

The Propur filters out everything. So far I’ve got 8 months on the Propur filter using tap water.

Both from Amazon.

I am afraid like all his videos, the results are highly misleading. This video equates PPM of dissolved solids with something you need to avoid. This is simply not true. Reverse Osmosis has the lowest PPM yet there are serious health issues with using it. Same applies to distilled water. Zero PPM but extremely unhealthy to drink. You need good dissolved solids in drinking water. Taking them out makes the water unhealthy. This video is not only misleading, it’s dangerous.

Meh, if you are missing essential nutrients from water, something is wrong with your diet ;).

Thats scare mongering, the alternative medicine crowd likes to whine about how you “need” the minerals in hard water but they are not a necessary nutrient. Also you don’t have to remove them either, they are safe to consume.

As long as your local tap water is safe to drink then your good to go. A big if in some areas.
The taste/odour concerns are a thing in many cities and an activated carbon filter that can remove these aesthetic complaints is great but not necessary from a safety perspective.

Guys, just like we all know the flashlight with the highest lumens is not always the best flashlight, can we agree that the water with the least amount of dissolved solids is not always the best water? Are we in agreement with this statement? Can we also agree that some dissolved solids are good for you and that removing them would be a bad thing? Can we agree on that statement?

No, i cannot agree on these things.

The minerals that cause hardness are not vital to humans (nor are they unique to hard water) and we don’t add them to the water in places that naturally have softer water becasue their citizens are not suffering from lack of hard water.

They may have some moderate benefits but even that is tenuous.

Sorry, zoulas, but not everyone's going to agree with those statements.

I am one of them.

Do some research on the subject if you don't believe Bort.

And Bort beat me to the punch again!

+1

Bort is sly :innocent:

The main benefit of filtering is taking out bacteria,sometimes viruses, and sometimes stuff like metals and volatiles. Dissolved solids sort of correlate with removing that stuff but the only way to know for sure is to test directly. If Project Farm only tested for dissolved solids, that’s not such a good test. NSF tests are apparently quite thorough. One of the red flags about Berkey is their refusal to undergo NSF testing. They answer with lame misdirection if you ask about it.

The problem here - and I generally like his work because it's fun if not accurate (he isn't always...) - is that he's just doing a random comparison, mixing filters with purifiers and just giving them a go with no real goal or education. I suppose it's useful to watch but in the end every person needs to assess their own needs and then get educated about it and go from there. When I saw him doing the dye, that just made me cringe and wonder why he was doing that at all.

Heavy metals and carbon....extremely limited and most won't do much at all because a) the carbon is loose and/or thin walled, and b) the dwell time is insufficient. Can be helpful if there are concerns with old copper lines that were sweated with lead solder, etc, but some of the more serious metal concerns really need an entirely different approach (selenium (not truly a metal), chromium, mercury...).

Most of these are only good for improving taste/odor or at least that's all they should be expected to do safely and reliably.

Getting into filters for microbiological/potable water is a whole other subject and there is a ton of misinformation out there, plus a vastly widened market that is mostly not regulated.

This is one of his videos where he misses the mark and shows that he doesn't always know the subjects he tackles...but I always admire his creativeness and methodology for layman testing. Does a good job there usually.

NSF is what's there but they have issues. They caught a ton of flak for it in the 80s and are still mostly based on the business side of things rather than the consumer side. Some of what they say (I assume they still say...did as of just a few years ago) goes against some standard lab procedures and definitions. One of them being the misuse of the term "absolute" with a great many media types/applications. Take NSF with a big grain of salt and apply it only to convenience filters for the home and look for additional sourcing when it comes to wells or waters that are not from municipal systems.

I’m going to say some things that may seem and are contradictory.There is a lot to consider with water filtration. I think that Project Farm does a really good job on most subjects. I don’t think he talks too fast and I don’t find his voice annoying. I think this video oversimplified things and is misleading to a lot of people. I think that my comments above and others here are oversimplifying things. Many people don’t know what contaminants may be in their water and do want a way to remove as many contaminants as possible. The Zero Water filter and the Berkey and some form of reverse osmosis probably are a good choice for “some” people with municipal water. Most people don’t know what to test for or how to go about testing in a cost-effective manner and it really isn’t practical for most people. Municipal suppliers are required by law to provide their test results to consumers but many don’t make it easy to find or understand and not all items are required to be tested for every year. Many water systems may have issues in some parts of their system versus other parts and they may have various wells or locations where they get water from that may supply different parts of their system. So the test results may not fully apply to the water that you are receiving. I suspect that 10 to 20% of people just find it easier to buy bottled water. And for some of them that might be their best choice. Bottled water is a another complicated subject. You should know where your water is coming from and have a rough idea of what is in it. The bottom line is I would recommend at least trying to remove the chlorine from most municipal water. Most of the above is related to water in the US. I know some places in Europe are getting away from chlorine. I don’t know too much about other parts of the world other than a lot of places in India have a lot of arsenic.

Just letting the water sit in open air for an hour lets most of the chlorine boil off. I used to have a recipe for making bottled water at home. You fill the bottle with tap water, then wait overnight before putting the cap on. Leaving the cap off overnight lets the chlorine escape so the water tastes better.

The absence of something in the water is never a bad thing. You obviously want less of what can harm you. Less of what benefits you doesn’t mean it’s harmful. Consider what dissolved solids are missing from bottled water… and the argument is immediately destroyed.