Inline gallon counter to track water filter replacement schedule

[Fr. John]

Anyone ever see an inline gallon counter? I just bought a softener and filter kit from Chris Coffee and was thinking it would be nice to have a simple volume counter to keep track of when things need to be changed.

[woodchuck]

Why just hook up a residential water meter - http://www.jerman.com/dljmeter.html.
Cheers
Ian

[Fr. John]

Thanks, but a bit overkill. I was hoping for something a bit less industrial.

[HB]

I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about what icky stuff is trapped by those filters, so I systematically replace them once a year. In any case, if you use it only for an espresso machine (and perhaps a small water tap), you'll never exceed the +500 gallon rating before the year is up.

[Fr. John]

I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about what icky stuff is trapped by those filters, so I systematically replace them once a year. In any case, if you use it only for an espresso machine (and perhaps a small water tap), you'll never exceed the +500 gallon rating before the year is up.

You are right on there re: the carbon filter. It's the softener I'm thinking about and at my water hardness level (8-8.5 gr) it will filter about 100 gallons (it's a 15,000 ppm filter). I surely don't want to exceed that amount and risk calcifying my boiler. I just thought it would be easy to find a small inline counter. Doesn't seem so easy though.

[Ken Fox]

Anyone ever see an inline gallon counter? I just bought a softener and filter kit from Chris Coffee and was thinking it would be nice to have a simple volume counter to keep track of when things need to be changed.

Chris has one he sells but unfortunately it is useless for low volume applications like a home espresso setup. If I remember right, the one I bought gave no indication of how many gallons passed through it until it started beeping, and the lowest number of gallons that it could be set to beep after was a couple of times the capacity of my softener cartridges. Chris let me return it, which I did.

If you are going to use a softener cartridge the best approach is to buy a jar of water hardness test strips; Mcmaster.com sells them in jars of 50 for less than $10 (I think it is something like $6 or $7). Estimate the amount of water you are running through the cartridge daily by taking the average amount of water you pull through the machine with each shot, and allow for any flushes before and after and also for regular backflushing. Divide the capacity of the cartridge in volume by the daily usage and you will get an idea of how many days, weeks, months each cartridge should last. Everytime you change a cartridge, take a test strip and confirm that you are getting soft water from the input to the machine (do not test the water that comes out of the machine, which may already have precipated scale in the boiler or on the heat exchanger and could therefore give a factitiously low reading). Then, make a notation on your calendar when you estimate that maybe 75 to 80% of the capacity of the cartridge is used up. From this point further, test the input water every week to be sure that you are still getting soft water and at the first hint of increasing hardness replace the cartridge.

Alternatively, consider softening the water in your entire house, which is what I've ended up doing. I'd already replaced a couple of faucet valves, a couple of toilet mechanisms, and was having scaling problems in showerheads and faucet aerators. If the water in your area is quite hard (mine is 11.5gpg) then what you are trying to prevent from happening inside your espresso machine is also happening in the plumbing throughout your house, and it isn't such a great thing and will cost you money over time. If you do soften the water in your whole house be sure to soften both the cold and hot water circuits, and try to exclude the outside water taps and any irrigation system you may have such as for your lawn and or trees from the softened water circulation. If your tap water tastes good, also consider having a tap put in before the softener, so that you can draw off drinking water into jugs. You don't want to drink a lot of softened water, which has a fair amount of sodium in it and generally tastes flat.

You could of course opt for a more complicated and expensive water treatment setup for your espresso machine but the benefits in taste and crema compared to cation softened water are not as great as some would insist.

ken

[darrylr]

A better way to monitor whether you need to replace a filter cartridge is to install pressure meters on the cartridge input and outlet lines. A new cartridge will show a few pounds of pressure drop across the cartridge. When the drop gets large you know the cartridge is spent and should be replaced. This is more accurate than a gallon counter because it tells you the actual condition of the filter, which over time is a function of both gallons used and water hardness. And, pressure meters are cheap and available at any hardware store.

Darryl

[Fr. John]

A better way to monitor whether you need to replace a filter cartridge is to install pressure meters on the cartridge input and outlet lines. A new cartridge will show a few pounds of pressure drop across the cartridge. When the drop gets large you know the cartridge is spent and should be replaced. This is more accurate than a gallon counter because it tells you the actual condition of the filter, which over time is a function of both gallons used and water hardness. And, pressure meters are cheap and available at any hardware store.

Darryl

An interesting idea. Why though would you need a pressure meter on the input side?

[jesawdy]

An interesting idea. Why though would you need a pressure meter on the input side?

I believe you would want to know the pressure differential across the cartridge. Just one on the outlet would show you a reading, and you may observe a change in "normal" but you would never know if it was because of the cartridge condition or because your inlet pressure decreased/increased as well.

-Jeff

[Psyd]

If you are going to use a softener cartridge the best approach is to buy a jar of water hardness test strips; Mcmaster.com sells them in jars of 50 for less than $10 (I think it is something like $6 or $7).

The local Culligan man here has a lil' bottle of test solution that comes in a lil' container. Fill the container to the line, add a drop of the solution, and shake. Suds means the water is soft, no suds means that its hard. I have no idea what it is, but the local espresso wrench suggests it, and it seems to be what they use. If any chemistry geeks out there know what it is, let me know!

[Ken Fox]

The local Culligan man here has a lil' bottle of test solution that comes in a lil' container. Fill the container to the line, add a drop of the solution, and shake. Suds means the water is soft, no suds means that its hard. I have no idea what it is, but the local espresso wrench suggests it, and it seems to be what they use. If any chemistry geeks out tehre kow what it is, let me know!

In at least some locations, Culligan recommends softening only the hot water side (that is what the location that services my area told me). I believe that is just plain DUMB, and obviously if you were to run your espresso machine off the cold side, which I'd assume you would, you'd be using unsoftened water.

The test strips I've used give a very clear idea of what level of hardness your water has (not "soft" vs. "hard"). I would not trust this Culligan test solution nor would I consider "soft" to be enough information; I want to know approximately the level of hardness in some sort of units I can understand. For those considering it, a TDS meter, available on ebay for cheap, would only be useful if you were testing untreated water; if you test your untreated hard water, then soften it, then retest, you will get almost the exact same reading because cation softened water has about the same total dissolved solids as the hard water that was used to make it.

Here is a link the test strips I have used, which I use much less often now that I have a regenerating salt-based whole house softener:

http://www.mcmaster.com/ go to page 562, and you will see item #11235T41 (you can search for that item number from the home page also). $6 for 50 strips. Mcmaster Carr has very reasonable shipping fees on small orders; it should not be difficult to find a few other things you can use and even if the order is only $30 or so, the shipping will be fairly reasonable.

ken