Main Water Filtration Replacement is about how this Architectural company identified, analyzed and acted to replace a custom house’s main drinking water filter equipment. BECAUSE THE WATER IN THIS HOUSE STOPPED.
Above is the finished new replacement. It is a HALO 5 silver tank unit, along with the simple original Pre-filter, Post filter and final UV Filter (which has an ultra-violet light that kills viruses. Nothing wrong with the pre, post and UV filters.
Below is the original main filter: a large blue Aquasana:
Unfortunately, the Architect’s Plumber said this old unit (in the center) wasn’t created to easily swap out the interior media material. When the overall unit goes bad, that’s it. It must be replaced. So the investment in this unit is simply discarded and lost. There goes several thousand dollars, including the original labor to install it. And unlike the Aquasana marketing images, this unit is extremely heavy when you are replacing it, because it is full of water.
CRISIS CAUSED BY ORIGINAL BLUE MAIN FILTER:
The water in the house STOPPED FLOWING.
There must be some element inside the old blue Aquasana unit that turns off the water after the 6 year point or quantity of gallons at that point. Even though their marketing materials imply 10 years and a million gallons. NOT A USER FRIENDLY OCCURRENCE.
Now then: imagine that you are in your house and all of a sudden, your water shuts off. You run around wondering what has happened to your well, or to the community water source or other mechanical sources. You are very concerned and can’t tell what the real problem is, until you get a Plumber into your house to help you solve the problem. And here’s what happened:
The original Aquasana main filter shut down the water flow in this house. The family had next to no water for a 4 day period while they waited for their Plumber to come to their house. No longer a big fan of Aquasana for this reason.
It took the licensed Plumber about 3 minutes to figure out what the problem was: little to no water was flowing through the 6 year old big blue main house Aquasana water filter. What a way to discover that’s how that unit operated. As if the manufacturer couldn’t have instead of had a light that comes on warning you? Rather than shutting down your main water flow? Very irritating. And very inconvenient.
Fortunately, the Architect’s Plumber was able to secure a HALO 5 water filter fairly quickly. Not cheap: $4,100 with labor, installed. And it has backwashing, for a few minutes once a week in the middle of the night. Aquasana’s literature implies that this is not desirable. YES IT IS. The Architect’s Plumber said this backwashing does a great job of cleaning the filter media automatically. What a smart sub-system to have in place in the Halo filter unit. Instead of your family drinking water that is continuously run through old impurities stuck inside the main filter tank, those impurities are washed out once a week. Part of the reason the HALO 5 unit is WORTH the price. It is better. And healthier. 10 year warranty, AND the filtration media can be changed out. You don’t have to throw away the original equipment. Now that makes a lot more sense.
The Architect installed a quick outside offset drain for the backwashing function (above). The Architect took the backwash line from through the wall and extended it about 8 feet beyond the foundation wall line (to avoid undermining the footings of the house) and into a catch basin from which the backwashed water can gradually flow across grass and into the ground. Once again: only once a week and perhaps 5 or 6 gallons of water. Not much, but effective at cleaning the new main filter of contaminants.
Message display head unit of new HALO 5 unit (above).
Close-up of main HALO 5 unit (below):
Halo 5 Five stage water filtration unit. Architect/Owner feels much better to have this type of unit than the old one. So if you are going to have a house built, you may want to consider this newer type of backwash unit with replaceable filter media. In the long run, a better solution.
HIGHER WATER PRESSURE: just one of the improvements made by this new backwashed water filter. Perhaps 1/3 greater water pressure at all fixtures, including the showers. Because there is not much of any contaminants remaining in the main filter any more. It gets washed away once a week.
And hopefully no catastrophic loss of water flow in a few years.
WHAT TO DO IN A CRISIS WHEN YOUR WATER STOPS FLOWING.