Sediment filters are important parts of water treatment systems. Those systems can be a variety of things. Anytime we have water that has the potential to have dirt,debris,and fine particulate,we probably wanna sediment filter so that it doesn’t harm things downstream. We use them with reverse osmosis systems. We use them with just standard filtration units. We always use them with ultraviolet systems. Its design is to protect everything downstream from this particulate or sediment that’s in the water with the help ofcommercial water softener sizing and filtration system.
What is a sediment prefilter for house and commercial water softener?
That’s when we use that sediment filter in front of everything elseâ a pretreatment or protection for an RO system. In an RO system,the membrane is gonna reject,typically,any particulate anyway. Still,that water is going to drain goes through a little,tiny flow restrictor,so the sediment filter is really to protect that piece of equipment rather than the membrane. A sediment prefilter for a UV system allows us to grab particulate that gets down small enough that bacteria could be shadowed by it,or they can hide behind it as it travels through the UV,making it,basically,ineffective. Sediment prefilters are used frequently for protecting downstream appliances.
What do sediment filters remove?
Based on the filter’s micron rating,it’s going to remove anything that’s not liquid. It’s gonna remove dirt,debris,or any kind of solid particulate. It won’t remove things like dissolved solids,things that are in solution,and attached to the water molecule as a liquid.
What are the different types of sediment filters?
Sediment filters come in a variety of configurations. They come in pleated,which is all about the surface area because the fabric is pleated back and forth,back and forth. They come in a melt-blown or a spun type filter,which is leading us more to a depth gradients. The whole surface of a depth filter like this allows water to travel through the core,and because the inner core is slightly more dense than the outer,it’s gonna trap a finer and finer particulate as it travels into the filter. These are good when we have fairly fine-type particulate. We get down below 10 microns,for example. A pleated filter is really good for larger particulate.
And,as it loads up,the filter becomes more efficient because the dirt that it’s trapping becomes part of the filter. We have string-wound type filters,and these are not all the filter types for sediments,but these are the most commonly used. A string-wound works a lot like our melt-blown in the fact that,as they wrap the string. It could be cotton,it could be polypropylene,it could be polyester,as that string is wrapped on the core,they make a depth gradients,kind of like our melt blown,and the strings cause lots of different areas for the sediment to be trapped. These are pretty good when we’re looking at 20 to 30 microns,say,a prefilter on a well supply,it’s got a bit of oxidized iron. Some of the downsides to this style are that if it gets too loaded,the string can move and allow some of that debris to get back into the water supply. And then we have filters like this.
This is the screen for a spin-down,and it is designed to do the heavy lifting. This is one that’s designed to get the big chunks out. This sits in a housing that we can dump and blow down every so often to get that big debris to the drain. But they’re all doing the same thing: to collect particulate and solid debris from the water.
What’s the difference between a one-micron filter and a five-micron filter?
First,let’s talk about what a micron is. A micron is a unit of measure. To give you a point of reference,if we took a human hair and we cut it off and looked at the very end of it,in diameter,we would somewhere between 75 and 80 microns. When we’re talking one to five,we’re getting down to really,really small particulate. The difference between the two is they’re designed; the one is designed to capture smaller particulate than the five. But let’s throw another term into this conversation with nominal and absolute ratings when we talk about filters.
Most of the filters you see are gonna be a nominal rating. A nominal five micron,for example,means that the filter is designed to capture around five microns. As you can imagine,the difference between one and five is pretty small. But a nominal rating means about. It’s kind of going to be somewhere in the ballpark,so it’s possible that a five-micron particle could get through a five-micron nominally-rated filter. The absolute rating means that filter has to be very close to capturing everything bigger than what that micron rating is.
A one-micron absolute means that we better not see a whole lot of one-micron debris on the effluent or the outbound side.
How often should I change my sediment filter?
Many people like to put these filters in clear housings,and they see it getting dirty,they see that it’s collecting dirt,and when it gets pretty dirty,they figure it’s a great time to change the filter. The best time to change a sediment filter is based upon pressure drop. When the filter has captured enough debris that starts to alter the pressure and the flow through the filter,that’s the best time to change it because then you know you’ve maximized the holding capacity of the filter. If you don’t change it in time it’s gonna shut the water off because it will become so clogged with debris water won’t pass through.
In a lot of times,we watch how long it takes for the filter to get to that pressure drop and that we kind of put on our calendar as the frequency of replacement.
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