The wonders of under the sink water filter systems when they get to be ten years old.

It has been pouring down rain all day. 

I have been working on our water filtration system. This is better than putting farm equipment away in the rain.  Or blowing leaves in the. rain. 

We have a five stage filtration system by by iSpring. It has its own pressure tank and it's own faucet. Our water is full of mud and who knows what else as we have a not super deep well located in a flood plain. The tank is not filling properly. I suspect a lack of pressure.

The lack of pressure is cause by two things. First we have smaller pipes in our house and share a well with the rest of the farm. Secondly, the primary filter keeps plugging. When I take it out it is covered in red clayish mud.

So I bought a pump to pressurize the filtration system. Of course I bought the wrong one. My plan was sound. I will spend a little more on quiet and shielded pump that has a pressure regulator and will activate the water shut off when the tank is full. It is also supposed to shut off if I loose water pressure. It cost $110.

I should have just bought a 110v diaphragm, on demand, RV pump for $65 delivered though Amazon. That just gets plumbed in before the filter system and when the pressure hits 45lbs it shuts off. I suspect that is what I am going to have to buy anyway.

I actually drove in to Lowe's mega hardware store to buy that very pump as I saw the it was listed on the Lowe's Website. It was not actually in stock. I couldn't read the fine print.

I really just need to buy a large single filter to get out the mud. One with an easy to find filter and a lot of capacity. However, water filter systems are one of the most popular scams in the book. I think they are all similar to the iSpring system but just have different labels and accordingly different prices based on the company who applies the labels and their particular scam.

This is nothing against iSpring. This is the system we have and the system works very well and was not crazy expensive when we purchased ours. I do think the reverse osmosis and charcoal filtered water does taste better.  I do wish I would have spent the extra $100 on a pump because of our lack of water pressure. Also because they have a very nicely put together system and I am terrible at doing neat and tidy plumbing or electrical jobs.

I just need to figure out a really big prefilter and write the filter number on the outside with a Sharpie so I can remember which filter to buy. This would save a lot as the best iSpring deal is on a bundle of five filters and the only filter that actually makes a difference in pressure is filter number one. I think I could easily cut my filter changes in half. 

Edit: I looked up the iSpring pump setup. They are also taking the water for the pump out of the primary filters so that wouldn't work any better than the set up I have. Mine has a gauge and pressure regulator.

Also, the booster pump came from Express Water Systems and I see that they are cheaper than iSpring and I think the filter system looks identical. Go figure...