Whole House Filter

i like whole-house water filters. those big cartridge things. i can drink from any faucet. the shower doesn't smell like a high school gym shower right after the janitor has mopped with some industrial strength bleach product. an activated charcoal filter removes the chlorine taste and smell. how is that charcoal activated anyway?

the house we owned in santa cruz needed to have its galvanized water plumbing replaced. many pinhole leaks. i redid it in copper and changed the arrangement so that the outside taps and toilets got unfiltered water. everything else got filtered water. i put the filter in the cabinet with the water heater so it was easy to change. preparing for our big move to the northwest, we sold that house and rented for our last 10 months in santa cruz. our rental had a non-functioning water softener and i was able to plumb a filter into the softener plumbing. it was in the garage and easy to change the filter.

the public utility water we get here in the great northwest is way better from the tap, in terms of chlorine smell, than water from the tap in santa cruz. even so, there is a bit of smell and taste. i had intended to investigate the plumbing to see where i could put a filter. on a separate mission under the house, running a cat5 ethernet cable from here to there, i noticed a filter cartridge waaay over in a far corner. so i turned off the water supply, opened an outside tap, and crawled under with a bucket for the spillage. there was no filter cartridge in the casing. i put in a new one. aaahhh. no chlorine smell. not even when the toilet flushes.

this house has the most civilized crawl space i have ever worked in. flat ground covered with thick black plastic. three feet of clearance. no wires hanging down. water supply pipes right up against the floor joists and insulated. drain plumbing i can easily go over or under. (the santa cruz house had a place where i had to wriggle under a drain pipe to access some plumbing. i mean turn my head sideways wriggle). but really. what a place to put a filter! c'mon, i'll show ya.


but first, ya gotta dress for success
















then ya gotta crawl through this little doorway














see now. this isn't so bad. the filter is back there somewhere. let's go.

well, another foundation wall to clamber over. i see the blue filter casing waaay back there.

aahh. there it is. that wasn't so bad. well yes, i do have to bring a bucket to catch the water and haul it and the old, waterlogged, heavy filter back out. the blue line in the foreground is the aforementioned ethernet cable.

good for another 6 months.