I am horribly behind on posts, as I have done a lot of boat work in the last couple of months or so while at the same time failing to be motivated to write anything due to being dumped, turning 40 and then catching covid (or the ol’ triple threat as we call it in the blog writing business). So here is an easy one to catch up a bit with – water filtration.
On Gudge I used a 5 micron filter for the whole system, and then had a drinking water tap system that was filtered down to 0.3 micron. This worked well enough that I decided to redo it on Sooner. Until I got around to it, I was using a countertop water jug to filter the water – the water tanks on Sooner were probably pretty grungy and being Aluminium I couldn’t just chuck a bunch of bleach down there.
Sooner already came with a filter after the pump, so I put a 5 micron filter in it and called it a day. The drinking water system was a bit more tricky – on gudge I used a rainfresh 2 filter system which worked fine and used standard cartridges but was also pretty huge, and I didn’t have that much room beneath the sink.
After a ton of research and nearly buying a system that was advertised on Amazon (until I found out that it didn’t actually have any certifications re what it filtered out) I ended up getting the Aquasana AQ-5200 for several reasons. Firstly it had the most certifications, secondly it was pretty small, and thirdly the filters weren’t outrageous, even though they were proprietary.
Installing it was sort of easy, after the dance trying to find the right connectors to connect to the rest of the plumbing (I hate this so much and had forgotten how much time it took with Gudge).
There was already a hole for the tap
And then the unit just screwed into the wall, and after some weird hand contortions to get all the fittings secure, it was done (photo after the install as I forgot to take any during).
It didn’t even leak!
Of course, plumbing being plumbing it wasn’t that simple – it turns out the old water pump was only 25PSI which wasn’t enough to push water through the new filter!
So I had to go get a new 45PSI one, which I then switched out and then finally, finally I had filtered water on tap.
Hooray! Also I still really really hate plumbing!
Always good to hear from you. Keep up the posts…simple daily updates are better than monthly recaps. We’ve followed you for several years.
http://Www.Sailing4Smiles.com
Thanks guys… Much appreciated!
” the ol’ triple threat”….. yup, I hear ya. Blog posting has been uninspiring lately. I guess the fashion has passed to v-blogs. Whatever….but I still like yours!
Aluminum tanks…same here. So I never drink that water, wont even use it to boil rice or spaghetti. I carry drinking water in jugs. I’d love a system like yours but I don’t live aboard long enough to justify a filtration system ($$). Your new system looks great. I hope you’re lovin’ it. Cheers!
(I turned 62…don’t tell anyone!)
Yeah definitely most of the old blogs I used to read switched to video (which I don’t really like) – march of progress I guess!
Zoot is looking good btw!