Hi all,

I recently bought a Alex Duetto II and realized that where it was going to live in my house is next to my washer-dryer. So, I had water in and waste out...Bingo! I decided to plumb the sucker.

Here is how the filtration board turned out (its sitting behind my dryer). I think it turned out really nice and its practical with lots of shut offs and a water pressure regulator to boot.

Oh, the top line is an output for when I need to replace the filter cartridge. It goes to the waste drain pipe, same as the drip pan. I just shut off the line going to the machine and open up that line and all the carbon waste gets dumped.

I had fun designing it and implementing it.

Hope you all get some great ideas from it and set up your own.

Thanks to Tim at Chris Coffee for the tech help.

Feel free to ask questions,

Steve

If you shut off the line to the machine, how does it backflow through the cartridge to dump the carbon?

As I understand the photo, the inlet is the second line from the top on the right. The bottom line with the pressure regulator leads to the espresso machine. The top line is normally closed and is for purging the filter (or drawing from a bucket of descaler).

oh, that makes more sense...i was thinking the bottom line was the inlet:)

HB wrote:As I understand the photo, the inlet is the second line from the top on the right. The bottom line with the pressure regulator leads to the espresso machine. The top line is normally closed and is for purging the filter (or drawing from a bucket of descaler).

Yes, what he said!

Thanks so much for posting this picture - it is very helpful as I am about to embark upon the same process. Is that the John Guest pressure regulator you are using?

Its all John Guest from Chris Coffee...

I may be missing some common and unspoken assumptions about the best ordering of these components. I am implementing something similar to the above scheme in my basement, because I want filtered water in two widely separated locations in the kitchen overhead: an auxiliary faucet at the sink and an espresso machine on another wall, complicated by a side entry door between. I have installed a household-sized pressure reducing valve that reduces my supply from 90psi(6.2bar) to 50psi(3.4bar), and I anticipate adding another device (hopefully optimal for low-pressure, low-flow service) local to the filtering setup to step it down a bit more and dampen normal pressure surges from toilets, etc. Now to the sequencing issue. It's pretty clear that a simple sediment filter belongs in front of a carbon-block polishing stage to protect the latter. What's less clear is where the regulator belongs. I can see an argument for "protecting" it behind the filter stages, but I can also imagine a contrary argument for putting it in front to reduce the large number of lighter-duty connections (John Guest or whatever) exposed to full household pressure 24/7. And other factors may crop up, things which I can't imagine or test for yet, e.g. slow flow through the filters may require them to get full house pressure at their inlet. So where does the regulator belong, subject to what considerations?

Everyone who I spoke to and even the filtration literature all said to put the water pressure regulator after the filter. I thought it should go before as well and asked that same question...

What Steve said, plus my two cents...

genovese wrote:So where does the regulator belong, subject to what considerations?

I have precisely the layout you describe, i.e., a single water filter serving an espresso machine and a water tap. I put the pressure regulator between the espresso machine and the water filter, just as shown in the photo above. The water tap doesn't need a pressure regulator (the one servicing the whole house does that) and the related fittings don't need one either since they're spec'd at no less than 120 PSI. The line I described as the "purge line" could easily be run to a water tap; that's what I do and when replacing the water filter, I purge the carbon filter using the water tap into the sink.