Big progress, delayed reporting

We have nasty water at our house. It's overchlorinated by about a billion. It tastes like Michael Phelps' nether regions (Don't ask how I know. Let's just say tuition isn't cheap and leave it at that.), and leaves nasty rust stains or something on everything. Super gross. So we wanted to install a whole house filter. This one, specifically:

It's already in my house, so it was the natural choice. My friends Isaac and Jordan came over to help, with Isaac doing the majority of the real plumbing work.

Here's Isaac turning off the water to prepare for the project.

We learned that the screwdriver in my "Free Multitool with Purchase" multitool is barely deserving of the name.

I hear that the first cut is the deepest.

We're installing a bypass into the system using ball valves and copper pipe instead of going with the plastic bypass that came in the box. Metal is better for this sort of thing, for sure.

Turning the corner. These are the input/output valves to close off the filter if we ever need to do maintenance on it.

We put the metal behind the pipes so we didn't burn the plastic covering the insulation any more than necessary. The gloves are spacers so the metal didn't touch the pipe and leach away the heat Isaac was trying to put on them.

Whee, soldering! This is my bane. I've never tried it on pipes, but any time I have to solder wires or anything together, a little part of me dies. I just can't make it work for some reason.

Everything's all soldered up now. Just have to connect it on down to the filter itself.

Those long pipes with the threads on the end are taking our water down into the vicinity of the filter. We were lucky in that we didn't need to mess with crossing our lines or anything. The input and output were already in the right configuration for the filter.

There she is, in pride of place. Or in the place of pride. In any event, she's in place and I'm proud.


I didn't get pictures, but I wrapped the threads and attached it up. We got it working and the water has improved significantly. It's still not as tasty as the bottled stuff, but it's actually drinkable now. I've taken to drinking from the faucet while Jenna still prefers the bottles. It's okay, though. She's small.

Also, this filter seems pretty awesome. Automatically back-flushes the filter on whatever schedule you set, so you never need to replace it. It's the Whirlpool Gold Whole House Filter, if you're interested. Thanks for reading!