Water Filters

Great info, Thanks!

Amazon will probably not be the place to get a good price on this. The cartridge is a standard "A1". The first vendor that came up for me using "A1 water filter" is dyersonline.com for $38.97. The 3M cartridge is marketed as an RV filter and for that reason will likely cost more.

Going by specs, there is nothing unique about this filter. I would contact one of the major online water filter cartridge vendors and see if they can cross-reference it to another quick-change cartridge or perhaps replace all of it with another brand/model.

It could make sense to replace with another type cartridge that is more commonplace and uses a 10" whole house housing. There are a lot of filters with similar specs. to the 3M or better. For example, one that comes to mind is the Pentek Floplus-10 which is a "combo" filter with carbon block, sediment filtration and a 0.5 micron inner core. This can be found online for $15-20. Another advantage of a 10" cartridge is longer life.

You should have no trouble installing a 10" housing under the kitchen sink. I installed 3 of them under our kitchen sink (TT) at the rear and they don't interfere with use of the shelf space and you can't tell they are there.

A couple of good online filter vendors:

filtersfast.com
waterfilters.net

I found the filters not necessary.

We have an EverPure under sink as std equipment. Replacement elements are available at efilters online @ $38. They have an extensive selection.

Jim

I presently don't have any filters on my RV system but I do use a whole house filter in my S&B. It is a GE large filter and two types of filters are available, sediment and charcoal. Either one is fairly inexpensive and they both do a good job for the iron/calcium rich well water in the house. My only gripe is that the O-ring for the canister elongates after time and needs replacing. The O-rings are readily available. This filter is sold at Home Depot.

Lots of good information at this site in addition to the products they sell: Good Info

I use two filters, the first is a 1 micron particulate filter and the second is a 1 micron charcoal. Depending on the site I'm on and the water source my particulate filter lasts anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months. The 2 weeks is from a county water system in Florida. The water tastes fine, it just has a lot of particulate matter in it.

Someone on a forum recently told me if I switched to a 5 micron filter it would last longer. I resisted responding that if I didn't have a filter at all it would never need placing. Oh well. Filters for my system are not expensive and 1 micron makes me feel better.

bukhrn wrote:
Be careful when buying "replacement" filters,& read Carefully, I use the one that comes with my MH, yes @ $32. I feel they are expensive, but when checking into "replacements" I found that mine filters down to .5 Microns at a specific flow reduction, the best replacement I found, was a 5 Microns and nearly a third more reduction.
I'm not an expert, but it just seems to me that 4.5 microns is a big difference, so I'll just suck it up & buy the one that came with it & is recommended by the Manufacturer.

I agree but there is a big difference between $35 for your replacement and $77 for mine!

Be careful when buying "replacement" filters,& read Carefully, I use the one that comes with my MH, yes @ $32. I feel they are expensive, but when checking into "replacements" I found that mine filters down to .5 Microns at a specific flow reduction, the best replacement I found, was a 5 Microns and nearly a third more reduction.
I'm not an expert, but it just seems to me that 4.5 microns is a big difference, so I'll just suck it up & buy the one that came with it & is recommended by the Manufacturer.

dapperdan wrote:
This will be an interesting thread to follow. We just purchased a different fifth wheel last season which has a whole house filter in it. I did almost the same as you, I pulled out the filter BUT I did save it when I winterized. If the one I need is real expensive I'll be going back to using the blue in-line filters from Walmart. I think they were $17 a piece.

Dan

X2! I'm bypassing the whole house unit, and going back to the Wal*Mart blue bombs!

I had a Culligan system in a previous TT and the filters were impossible to find the next year when I went to replace it. It seems like the filter system manufacturers sell you a system and then change them the next year so you have to buy a whole new system.

PS I also saved the filter from last year but I don't want to reuse it as I don't know how old it is.