Carbon filter question

[JoeHoffman]

Hoping someone can give me an educated answer on this. I use an activated carbon filter designed for whole house use just in my garage brewery. The filter cartridges are labeled as 3 month or 6 month life span depending on price. I only use the filtered water when collecting brewing liqueur. So by the time three months comes around I may have only ran 30 to 50 gallons through the thing. The question is this. Should I be changing the filter at the monthly time frame suggested or is the manufacturer assuming a certain number of gallons the average household consumes in three months and in my case there is much more life left in that filter?

 

[JoeHoffman]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1474134176.297650.jpg

 

[day_trippr]

I'm sure the recommended replacement interval is based on some statistically-derived throughput volume (derated just to boost sales, of course) but without knowing the math you're kinda stuck.

But we can try our own math and see where it leads.

The average USA household is currently just over 2.5 persons.
Average daily water all-uses per person in the USA is between 80-100 gallons (appalling, but there we are). Let's use 90 gallons.

So, monthly flow through a whole-house filter should be in the vicinity of 2.5 * 90 * 30 or 6750 gallons, with quarterly volume of 20250 gallons and semi-annual volume of 40500 gallons.

Assuming your water doesn't have some serious solids or a huge chlorine issue that might plug up filters or use up the activated charcoal and dramatically shorten the lifespan, clearly 40K gallons would cover a couple thousand home breweries for those 3 or 6 months - or one home brewery forever.

I would change yearly, just out of GPs...

Cheers!

 

[Hammy71]

I change mine yearly. As day tripper stated....the usage is nil compared to normal residential use.