Whole house filters

I have a blue whole house canister type filter for removing sediment and rust among a few other things. I have a surface well also. After a month or so I start to notice a pressure drop and that tells me it time to change it, this starts to get expensive when I need to change 12 a year. Is there something else I can use to pre filter the water before it goes in to my active carbon filter.

Thanks

The most common characteristic is that whole house filters are too small. If you are using something like a 10" long, 2.5" diameter cartridge, it is too small.

Doubling the size of the filter will increase the change interval by a factor of 3 or 4, and will cut your cost by 30 to 50 percent.

I have installed many filters as part of systems to meet the EPA Surface Water Treatment Rule. The usual flow rate is about 0.4 gallons per minute through a 10" equivalent string wound filter cartridge. At that flow rate each cartridge typically processes 15,000 gallons of water from a good quality pond, which is much worse than well water. Typical cost is about $0.30 per 1000 gallons of water, or about $30 per year for a typical household.

It is probably impractical to install enough small housings to get your flow rate down to 0.4 GPM per cartridge. I have recently started to use the Harmsco PolyPleat filters because it is possible to put more area in a smaller housing. Scroll down at the following link and find the PP-BB-20-1 for a 1 micron absolute filter (probably better than you need). http://www.harmsco.com/uploads/pdf/harmsco_polypleat_catalog.pdf

Also look at other cartridges (less expensive) which probably will meet your sediment removal requirements. Carbon filters are also shown a this link. http://www.harmsco.com/pdf/IP_CalypsoBlue_FINAL_040904.pdf

I would select those that go in the 20" long "Big Blue" housing.

There are others here who will recommend backwashable filters. They don't remove as much as the cartridge filters and are more expensive to install. You get to pick which will best meet your needs. Send me a Private Message here if you want to find a source for the cartridge filters.

https://www.shop.uswatersystems.com/displayProductDocument.hg?productId=38

Take a look at this site. The $39.95 "sale" price for the 4.5 x 20" housing is reasonable. You can get 1" or 3/4" fittings to fit your current piping. You should have pressure gauges on both ends of the filter train and between the filters in the train.

There are differences of opinion among members of this forum about putting filters before or after the pressure tank. I prefer before if you have a jet pump and watch the pressure gauges, so it doesn't affect your distribution pressure. If you have a submersible pump you need relief valves and controls so you don't blow up the filter housing.

You can roam around the site and get sediment and carbon cartridges to fit that large housing. I would put a very good sediment filter ahead of the carbon filter. What are you trying to remove with the activated carbon filter? Are you chlorinating the water?

I have no idea about how real the micron performance compares to the label on the box, but you will probably not get into trouble with them.