House water filter for outside hose use

After attending a intro to home brewing at my LHBS (Maryland Homebrew AKA MDHB) and seeing the instructor with a home-based water filter attached to a hose meant for drinking water, I decided to build something similar on my own today, as my brewing is set to move out of the kitchen to the patio this week.

I headed down to Home Depot and picked out a GE Household Water Filtration Unit model GXWH04F and some filters, along with some boat and camper hose. I ran home to test it out without even thinking about the mismatch between the female threading on the filter unit vs. the hose.

So began my adventure to the local non-Home Depot hardware store and you can see the damage in the picture. The threading on the filter in and out side is 3/4 pipe thread, hose end is 3/4 hose thread (go figure), pipe thread is not hose thread. The in side of the filter has a 3/4 male pipe to 3/4 male hose thread adapter. I then cut off the male end of the hose and replaced it with a female, so my hose is now female at both ends... there's a joke there somewhere. The out side of the filter has a 3/4 male pipe to 3/4 male pipe nipple attached to 3/4 to 3/4 shut off valve attached to 3/4 to 1/2 adapter attached to 1/2 male pipe to 1/2 male pipe nipple to a foot long stainless braid. I think I may have overcomplicated it, but I sure learned about pipe threading along the way and now outside brewing should be good with good water close by.

That's pretty interesting. Was there a specific reason why you were filtering your water? I don't know anything about water back east.

Nateo said:

That's pretty interesting. Was there a specific reason why you were filtering your water? I don't know anything about water back east.

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Chlorine or Chloramine or whatever it is that WSSC puts in my water. Out of the tap is not terrible but it's significantly better once passed through a filter.

Looks good. Keep in mind that the slower the flow the better it works. I have to run mine at ~1.5-2 gal/min in order to remove enough chlorine that I'm comfortable using it for brewing.

JuanMoore said:

Looks good. Keep in mind that the slower the flow the better it works. I have to run mine at ~1.5-2 gal/min in order to remove enough chlorine that I'm comfortable using it for brewing.

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Good reminder - this is meant for use as a whole house filter so I figured whatever pressure came out of the tap, it could handle. In that my output is a small stainless steel braid, I think 3/8 vs. the 3/4 input, the water comes out at a pretty high pressure regardless of how much I open the tap. The filter itself is rated for 40 - 125 psi.

heyjaffy said:

Chlorine or Chloramine or whatever it is that WSSC puts in my water. Out of the tap is not terrible but it's significantly better once passed through a filter.

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I'm in Gaithersburg, same water source (all of WSSC's water comes from either the Potomac of the Patauxent, whichever is closer to your location.) A couple years ago someone was getting rid of a water filter (uses these cartridges.) I've been using water from that as my brewwater and top off water for some time now and have had no problems. Before that, I would get the 5 gallon water jugs from home depot and use that, mainly because it was already measured to 5 gallons (although I would loose 1/2 gallon in steam)

BTW what "local non- home depot store" did you visit? I'm a handyman/contractor, let me know if you ever need anything or just want to swap some homebrews

TheBroonery said:

I'm in Gaithersburg, same water source (all of WSSC's water comes from either the Potomac of the Patauxent, whichever is closer to your location.) A couple years ago someone was getting rid of a water filter (uses these cartridges.) I've been using water from that as my brewwater and top off water for some time now and have had no problems. Before that, I would get the 5 gallon water jugs from home depot and use that, mainly because it was already measured to 5 gallons (although I would loose 1/2 gallon in steam)

BTW what "local non- home depot store" did you visit? I'm a handyman/contractor, let me know if you ever need anything or just want to swap some homebrews

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I failed to mention that I've since found that there are water filters targeted for RV/camping use that hook right up to a male hose end that would have saved me all of the adapter and hose cutting work. Does the filter you use hook up to a hose outside or is that your inside filter?

My local hardware store is Strosniders in downtown Silver Spring, which is affiliated with True Value. I wouldn't go there to purchase major building supplies, but for just about everything else, it's great.

I use a home water filter to filter out my liquor - we are working on using one for filtering beer post-secondary. The increase quality of the water aroma alone is worth it - and the filters are quite inexpensive.

heyjaffy said:

I failed to mention that I've since found that there are water filters targeted for RV/camping use that hook right up to a male hose end that would have saved me all of the adapter and hose cutting work. Does the filter you use hook up to a hose outside or is that your inside filter?

My local hardware store is Strosniders in downtown Silver Spring, which is affiliated with True Value. I wouldn't go there to purchase major building supplies, but for just about everything else, it's great.

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No, the filter I have has a 1/2" MIP on the in side and something different (can't remember) on the out side. It was designed to go with some fancy european faucet, but I just got a standard filter faucet tap for the sink, installed a shutoff valve on the supply side, and had to use several adapters to get it all to work. I generally avoid Strosniders because based on my experience, their prices are usually about 150%-200% of what the same product costs at home depot or lowes. They are in a pretty high rent district and have had a strong following for several decades, which is great, and they're a good place to get household stuff, but from where I am in Gaithersburg, I'd be going out of my way to pay more by shopping there.

A few weeks ago I did similar, I wanted to filter the chlorine and chloramine out of my water before brewing.

Here's my setup

The below was found here: http://www.chloramine.org/chloraminefacts.htm

Chloramine Removal by Filtration:

Filtration for chloramine is very expensive compared to filtration for chlorine.
To remove chloramine, an extensive carbon filter (to remove the chlorine part of the chloramine molecule) followed by a reverse osmosis or cation filter (to remove the ammonia) is necessary.
There is NO certified showerhead filter to remove chloramine. The high flow rate and large volume of water passing through a showerhead renders the showerhead filter useless.
Sink water filters for chloramine handle low flow, cold water conditions only.
For high flow uses like showering and bathing, a whole house filtration system would be needed to effectively remove chloramine and ammonia.
A whole house filtration system could cost between $10,000 to $15,000 with $1,200 maintenance per year.
For a 5-unit apartment building, the cost could be as high as $80,000 to $120,000 plus yearly maintenance.
Even with a comprehensive filtration system, no filtration system engineer will guarantee complete removal of chloramine. Chlorine is by far easier to remove with inexpensive carbon filtration.

Catt22 said:

The below was found here: http://www.chloramine.org/chloraminefacts.htm

Chloramine Removal by Filtration:

Filtration for chloramine is very expensive compared to filtration for chlorine.
To remove chloramine, an extensive carbon filter (to remove the chlorine part of the chloramine molecule) followed by a reverse osmosis or cation filter (to remove the ammonia) is necessary.
There is NO certified showerhead filter to remove chloramine. The high flow rate and large volume of water passing through a showerhead renders the showerhead filter useless.
Sink water filters for chloramine handle low flow, cold water conditions only.
For high flow uses like showering and bathing, a whole house filtration system would be needed to effectively remove chloramine and ammonia.
A whole house filtration system could cost between $10,000 to $15,000 with $1,200 maintenance per year.
For a 5-unit apartment building, the cost could be as high as $80,000 to $120,000 plus yearly maintenance.
Even with a comprehensive filtration system, no filtration system engineer will guarantee complete removal of chloramine. Chlorine is by far easier to remove with inexpensive carbon filtration.

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Not sure what WSSC, the local water authority, puts in the water, chlorine or chloramine. I do know my water tastes better after running through a charcoal filter, and my beer tastes good.

heyjaffy said:

I do know my water tastes better after running through a charcoal filter, and my beer tastes good.

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My water tastes better post filter too, or at least it seems to. It could be an illusion I suppose. I run all of my water through carbon filter figuring it can do no harm.

I went with a KISS method for now and it is working...

I used a garden hose style RV Water line, bought a hose to sink adapter and added on a PUR filter. (I had the filter already) It is identical to the ones used on kitchen sinks. I would post a pic but I do not really need to do I? lol it is all of 3 parts...

I feel this is a simpler version of the same thing. I figured since I use it so very little it would be perfect and easy to store. It also tells me when I need to change the filter. It may or may not do much to my water but it makes me feel better. I still add in a camden tab anyways...lol.

Does anyone know how much pressure those RV style filters need to work? Could they work on a gravity-fed system?

I'm trying to put together some tanks for bulk water treatment and wondered if one of those would just pop on the end, or if I should put it on the front-end.

I know this is an old post, but FWIW..

I thought of doing this myself. My thought was to put a brita filter inside a PVC pipe and allow gravity to do its thing. However, as this would be painfully slow I did conceive an alternative with a closed system. If you have a sealed lid with a spigot, you could pressurize the system with CO2 to force feed the water through the filter. Now whether that reduces the filters efficiency... another question. In the end it sounded not worth the trouble so I'm going with Zamial's idea.

I'm not 100% sure about chloramine, but chlorine is a volatile and boiling water (especially for ~60 minutes) removes volatiles...chlorine actually starts coming out before even hitting boiling temps. So unless your topping up with lots of it, or have sediment in the water (like we do here in texas) you shouldnt have to worry about chlorine. Heavy metals like mercury and whatnot that are in water in trace amounts sometimes are a whole different story, but I'm not sure these filters address those.

Bumping a good info thread... Someone in my brewclub was asking about water filtration, and I use this same unit with a carbon filter.

It is still available today at Home Depot for $19

I have this fitting on the inlet


Since my potable water hose is only ever used with the filter, when I needed to replace the male end (high city water pressure) I converted the hsoe to have a female attachment at both ends.