A talk with my plumber made me double-check my whole-house water filter plan

I was going over the final plumbing layout with my guy, Mike, last week for my build in Bend. I had picked a standard whole-house filter setup, the kind that goes right after the main shutoff. He just looked at it and said, 'You know, if you don't put a bypass loop around that thing, you're gonna be without water for a whole day when it clogs or you need to change the cartridge.' It hit different because he wasn't selling me anything, just stating a fact from twenty years of fixing other people's rushed jobs. I had totally missed that detail in all the planning. My plan would have meant shutting off water to the entire house for any simple filter maintenance. Now I'm adding a simple three-valve bypass so I can isolate the filter without cutting off supply. Has anyone else had a pro point out a small but critical flaw like that in their systems?

3 comments

3 Comments

caleb_thomas8524d ago

Learned that lesson after my own filter flooded the utility room.

blairtaylor24d ago

Add a drain valve on the filter side of that bypass loop. Lets you depressurize the housing before you open it. Stops a huge mess of old filter water from spraying everywhere when you swap cartridges.

irismartinez24d ago

Wish I had seen blairtaylor's advice about the drain valve a year ago. I made the same exact mess caleb_thomas85 described. Water shot straight up to the ceiling when I cracked that housing open. It took me an hour to clean up all the sludge and dirty water. Adding that valve is such a simple fix for a huge headache. I'm doing it on my setup this weekend for sure.