Winterizing water filters for a cabin

[ACWxRADR]

I have a unique question here. I am installing three 10" x 54" water filter tanks with Fleck back-flush valves at my cabin. The media I am using will be Bear River zeolite (BRZ), Clack BIRM and Jacobi catalytic carbon in each of the tanks, in that order. One media per tank. Is there a way to put these filters into an idle status operation for winter? I have to shut the well down over winter so I cannot run these filters normally, with normal back-flushing operation. I have several thoughts on this, but I don't know which option would be better, if any.

One option that I am pondering is to reserve several drums of filtered, clean water and pump this water through each tank via the back-flush and rinse cycles to ensure the media in the tanks are as clean as possible. Then remove the Fleck back-flush valves and siphon out all the water with a pump and a hose placed down the riser tube to the distributor. I would let the tanks stand so that any residual water would gravity drain down out of the media and suck it out again and again until it is totally dry.

With the above practice, would there be any problem with the media "cementing" together over the winter and not performing well, or "channelizing" when I restart the system in spring?

Gordo

 

[ditttohead]

Your thoughts are good. You could sanitize your zeolite and Birm in the spring, but the jacobi carbon is a little more difficult. Have you ever tried to get chlorine all the way through a carbon bed? Draining and drying it should not hurt it at all. I would recommend regular culture tests for coliform/ecoli and maybe a UV light after the systems.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[ACWxRADR]

Your thoughts are good. You could sanitize your zeolite and Birm in the spring, but the jacobi carbon is a little more difficult. Have you ever tried to get chlorine all the way through a carbon bed? Draining and drying it should not hurt it at all. I would recommend regular culture tests for coliform/ecoli and maybe a UV light after the systems.

Dittohead,

I am glad to hear that you believe this option will work out ok. All other options would be much more involved and "iffy" if there were to be a power outage over winter. I did have one other step to add to the process I mentioned above that would follow the draining and drying. I thought to connect a low pressure air pump to force dry air through the media beds for a few days to basically remove any remaining water through evaporation.

Hadn't thought of sanitizing these filters with chlorine. The zeolite would be ok with this, but the BIRM would not handle it as the chlorine would strip the catalytic coating. The carbon media might be a hassle.

Gordo