Does anyone have experience with a good inline low pressure water filter?

I've seen them in walmart on water bottles, for $30 and figured if the water bottle company found them, maybe I could too.

I'd like to install it between. my foot pump and spigot.

Thanks!

We did exactly that a few months back. I went to Lowes and picked up a undersink filter system which has replacable filters (charcoal) the entire unit is about 2x2x12 inches. I mounted it between my foot pump and the spigot as you mentioned and it works fine except that I have a minor leak at one hose fitting when you pump hard. It did reduce the flow rate of the water but not enough to be a problem.
We were getting a plastic taste from the water but the filter cleared it up wonderfully.

Filtrete at Lowe's: 5.75" x 12.375" x 4.25" Advanced Water System for Faucets

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What the hell did I just do

I have the same filter, and ran it for years on Petrel with no issues. Mine was run with the pressure pump, not a foot pump, but there should be no issues.

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There is no better bilge pump than a scared sailor with a bucket.

Ok, so these filters work well with low pressure foot pumps? My main point in asking was with the low pressure situation.

We had a Culligan, like this one: Culligan IC-EZ-1 Icemaker Water Filter and Culligan ICEZ1 Refrigerator Filter 01019034



The Culligan worked well for a few gallons, then would be extremely hard to get any water flowing through after about a week. It would put a lot of unnecessary pressure on the foot pump valves and actually broke one of our foot pumps. Plus, it took you about 10 minutes to foot pump yourself a tall glass of water. Foot pumping pasta water amounts? Forget about it. Would take you all day.

The Lowes filter allows a good volume of water through?

Thanks for the suggestions!

I installed one of these inline systems for a separate cooking water faucet... I suppose you can drink from it too. The deal is getting the line done to the 1/8" or so line size and then up again to your faucet and of course you have to replace the filters and so forth. I forgot to remove mine this winter so far, and I might have a cracked housing to throw away. I won't know until it is in use again. You could mount them upside down I suppose so that they would drain when the pressure was removed.

The filter I mentioned does reduce the water flow, but nothing like what you suggest the Culligan unit does. The line size reduces from a 3/8" at pump (i believe) to a 1/4" at the filter. This reduces the flow some then having to push through any serious filter material will reduce the flow more. It may have reduced the flow by as much as 50%, but what do you expect for serious filtering.
You can pump a tall glass of water in about twice as many pumps as unfiltered.
You could split the line after the pump and add a second filter then re-join the line after the filters and this should keep the flow rate up close to normal.

I didn't feel the flow was reduced enough to be an issue.

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What the hell did I just do

Installed the filtrete today and it works well with the foot pump. Thanks for the help!

Glad to hear it's working for you in your application.
Our pump has not changed in operation since we put the filter in. It did reduce the flow but no enough to cause a problem.
Hope it continues to work for you and if the flow is not enough you can add a second filter in parallel. Just tee off before the filters and back together after the filters. The filter cartridge is available nation wide and a few extras would last for years of crusing.

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What the hell did I just do

Sully, is there any reason you couldn't use a gravity system for the prefilter. Gravity through pre-filter to smallish container with a foot pump. The bonus would be to know when you were low on water but still had a bit in reserve.

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Regards,

Maren

The sea is always beautiful, sometimes mysterious and, on occasions, frighteningly powerful.

Mainly, the reason we couldn't use a gravity system has to do with the extremely small space in a "land boat" and the fact that it bumps and jostles around in a way more extreme than even a catamaran bashing into the seas.

Normally, I'd do something like you suggest, but for this application, it's not ideal.