My Simple FREE Homemade Sand & Gravel Rain Water Filter

I made a very simple rain water filter for my tiny house water supply by using a flower pot, some gravel and some sand. So far it is working nicely.

Read the full blog post here:
http://www.thedoityourselfworld.com/blog/?p=1890

I used a simple flower pot because it is tapered and will fit into the top of the water tank I am using without falling in.

I put a bit of window screen in the bottom of the flower pot to hold the gravel in place. Next came a thick layer of pea gravel from the local creek. I washed this before using it of course.

The layer of gravel covered the screen completely.

Then I put a bit of sand into the flower pot. About half an inch to an inch thick layer of sand should do fine. Too much and your filter will be too slow. Too little and it will just filter down into the gravel and be gone.

I tried a flush test using a bucket of water to see how well the new rain water filter will flow. It works nicely but it does back up some if I pour the water too fast. A torrential downpour will overflow the filter.

I will be experimenting with different filter media soon and see what I can come up with. I will let you know what I learn through experimenting.

I put the flower pot water filter on top of my off grid rain water harvesting tank and then connected the tiny house down spouts to the filter.

It had been raining all day so the water immediately started to flow into my rain water cistern.

I came back a while later and had collected about 30 gallons of clean water. The filter was doing its job and no sand went through either. Success.

You can see particles of debris on top of the flower pot rain water filter so it is certainly doing its job.

Stay tuned for more updates as I experiment with different materials for filtering the rain water.

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Troy
The Do It Yourself World
The Off Grid Project