[at-l] Water Filters

[hudsom at us.ibm.com (Mark Hudson)]

I've gone to Aqua Mira and have been happy with it. There are some things
that I picked up from this list, and if I was better at digging through the
archives I might actually be able to find them...

One was the guy who did his first spring weekend hike using last years
filter, filtered all his water, and got sick. Then he found the stuff that
had grown inside the filter while it was stored over the winter. The best
is to start the hiking season with a new filter element. Barring that, read
the instructions that come with the filter and find out how they recommend
cleaning and storing it.

The second one was the guy using a filter that everyone else didn't like
much (heavy, clogged fast, couldn't be cleaned) but shall remain nameless
since what happened could be a generic problem. He got lots of use out of
his filter, it pumped very easily, lots of water, no clogging, no problems.
If I recall correctly at least one manufacterer says that a filter can be
check by pumping water with food coloring through the filter, and if the
water comes out without the coloring the filter is OK. (If this isn't right
I'll take the blame). Needless to say, when he tried pumping food-dye
colored water through he found he wasn't filtering at all, somewhere along
the line his element had broken through. Again, check the instructions that
come with the filter...

And one of the bigger possible contamination problem is the threaded caps
on the drinking bottles, especially if you've been making Kool-Ade or
Gatorade in the bottle. Grunge builds up, and it doesn't do much good to
pump clean water into a dirty bottle. And since hygene has been kicked
around so much I won't start that...

skeeter