Brian Whatcott wrote in
:

On Wed, 4 Jun 2008 23:59:58 -0700 (PDT), Bil
wrote:

On Jun 5, 2:12*pm, Herodotus wrote:

Further, I have had an activated charcoal filter for drinkable water
using the cartridge disposable household plumbing in-line filter for
years but have no idea as to how often one should change them.

Activated charcoal filters remove chemicals, including chlorine, by
adsorbing them onto sites on the surface of the charcoal. The number
of such sites on any one filter is limited, so the filter has a
limited life.

When using an AC filter to rid drinking water of chemicals causing
offensive tastes and smells, you'll know (by taste and smell) when to
change the filter.

For removing chlorine from town water such that the filtered water can
then be used to flush RO membranes, the story is more complicated.

Other than testing the level of free chlorine in the filtered water
(pool stores sell test kits for chlorine), I know of no way of testing
the effectiveness of an AC filter at removing chlorine.
///
Bil

Useful looking response. About checking for chlorine, off the top, it
seems to me that a total dissolved solids - TDS meter which measures
water conductivity, would provide a fair indication. They can be
bought under $30.

Brian W

How would a TDS meter tell you if the water had chlorine or not? You have
no idea what the TDS of the water is. It might be interesting to compare
the TDS of the tank vs the TDS output of the water which has passed through
the carbon filter, but I'm not sure that would tell you much.

I use a carbon filter in the fresh water flush feed to my watermaker and
have had no problems.

-- Geoff
www.GeoffSchultz.org