Fresh water system filter

[Steve]

My boat has a GE Smart Water double element under the galley sink, it is tapped into the coldwater line using an icemaker perforating needle valve.
It discharges through it's own spigot at the sink. Even with a brand new set of cartridges the flow is very slow, probably a combination of the small tubing and hole into the cold water pipe and relatively low boat water PSI.
I'd be interested to hear what others have done. Maybe just filter water in the galley. Maybe a "whole house" filter for all the water on board, piped to the outlet of the pump in the ER in my case.
It would be easy for me to mount a "whole house" type filter on the supply side of the pump where an inline strainer is now, but I don't know if the pump could draw through it, anyone doing that? I won't be easy, space wise, to mount a filter inline from the outlet of the pump.
Thanks for experiences, sugestions and comments

 

[mbevins]

My boat has a GE Smart Water double element under the galley sink, it is tapped into the coldwater line using an icemaker perforating needle valve.
It discharges through it's own spigot at the sink. Even with a brand new set of cartridges the flow is very slow, probably a combination of the small tubing and hole into the cold water pipe and relatively low boat water PSI.
I'd be interested to hear what others have done. Maybe just filter water in the galley. Maybe a "whole house" filter for all the water on board, piped to the outlet of the pump in the ER in my case.
It would be easy for me to mount a "whole house" type filter on the supply side of the pump where an inline strainer is now, but I don't know if the pump could draw through it, anyone doing that? I won't be easy, space wise, to mount a filter inline from the outlet of the pump.
Thanks for experiences, sugestions and comments

We just put it inline with the cold water supply to the galley sink tap.

 

[jleonard]

I have a 10 micron sediment filter between the tank and the pump.
And I have a double filter that sounds similar to yours Td off the galley cold water feeding a separate faucet. Sounds like your set up except I have a T and a shut off valve under the sink not a needle valve and it works fine.
At the end of the season (a New England season) my sediment filter is pretty plugged.

 

[sunchaser]

I have no filter at all. Waiting for the sky to fall, it hasn't yet. Drain and flush the tanks every spring and no grit of note shows up in the bilge. Come to think of it, I don't have a filter on my house incoming either.

 

[rwidman]

My boat has a GE Smart Water double element under the galley sink, it is tapped into the coldwater line using an icemaker perforating needle valve.
It discharges through it's own spigot at the sink. Even with a brand new set of cartridges the flow is very slow, probably a combination of the small tubing and hole into the cold water pipe and relatively low boat water PSI.
I'd be interested to hear what others have done. Maybe just filter water in the galley. Maybe a "whole house" filter for all the water on board, piped to the outlet of the pump in the ER in my case.
It would be easy for me to mount a "whole house" type filter on the supply side of the pump where an inline strainer is now, but I don't know if the pump could draw through it, anyone doing that? I won't be easy, space wise, to mount a filter inline from the outlet of the pump.
Thanks for experiences, sugestions and comments

Before you start adding or modifying things, why not hook your existing filter up correctly? Use a proper "T" and proper tubing. My bet is it will work just fine if you do.

 

[caltexflanc]

You don't want a dense filter on the supply/suction side of the pump, it has to be on the output pressure or the pump will be stressed and underperform. The PO of my boat had installed a Watts whole house filter system on the pressure side, and I removed it anyway as it seemed like overkill; put my Watercounter in line there instead. I used a softener/filter system (usually but not always) when filling the tanks. Ann is a bottled water drinker no matter what the source it seems, so a non-issue for her. We had a Brita pitcher too, which works great.

Those little drinking water taps like you GE are notorious for low pressure even in household applications.

 

[ranger58sb]

My boat has a GE Smart Water double element under the galley sink, it is tapped into the coldwater line using an icemaker perforating needle valve.
It discharges through it's own spigot at the sink. Even with a brand new set of cartridges the flow is very slow, probably a combination of the small tubing and hole into the cold water pipe and relatively low boat water PSI.
I'd be interested to hear what others have done. Maybe just filter water in the galley. Maybe a "whole house" filter for all the water on board, piped to the outlet of the pump in the ER in my case.

We currently use two sediment filters in line as we fill our tanks: the first is a dual-gradient 25/1-micron element in a Big Blue filter housing, and the second is a .5-micron carbon block element in a GE SmartWater housing. And then we almost always only use water from the tanks, so it gets cycled frequently.

Works fine; we're usually on well-water supplies, so I think it helps. That said, I also think it's overkill since some (much) of our consumption is about washing dishes, showers, flushes, etc.

I'm intending to instead mount a drinking water faucet with the carbon block element right at the galley sink, and just tap that into the existing cold water line. Then I can eliminate the second filter element during the tank-filling process.

Our easiest installation -- if using the GE SmartWater product -- would be to use adapters to connect the housing to the internal 1/2" PEX cold water tubing that feeds our galley faucet. Probably SharkBite, or maybe Flair-It fittings since that latter is the OEM system the boat manufacturer used.

As someone else mentioned, I'd suggest you bag that needle valve thing, and use full-flow tubing/connectors to attach the filter system. The carbon block element we use-- although this so far has been at our dock water pressure -- doesn't really reduce flow all that much. (Although our dockwater pressure isn't much to write home about in the first place. We usually get bslightly etter pressure from our onboard freshwater pump.)

-Chris

 

[SOJOURN4]

Had a similar issue with pressure - found the factory filter clogged.
I check it on a regular basis now.
Might be worth a look
Good Luck