Sediment Filter
A sediment filter is a mechanical filter that strains out sand, rust, silt, and other suspended particles before they reach fixtures or downstream treatment equipment.
A sediment filter works like a sieve. Water passes through a pleated or wound cartridge, or a backwashing media bed, and particles larger than the filter rating are trapped while clean water moves on. It targets the gritty, visible stuff such as sand from a well, rust flakes from old pipes, and silt after a water main is disturbed. Ratings are given in microns, with lower numbers catching finer particles.
Sediment filtration is usually the first stage in a treatment train. Placed where water enters the house or ahead of a softener or RO unit, it protects the more delicate and expensive equipment from clogging and abrasion. On a well, it is often the difference between clear water and cloudy or gritty water at the tap, and it is a common fix when brown or rusty water shows up.
Cartridge filters are simple to swap, while whole-house backwashing sediment systems clean themselves by reversing flow to flush the trapped grit to drain. Either way, a clogged filter chokes flow, so a drop in pressure across the house is often just a cartridge overdue for a change.
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- Water Softener : A water softener is a whole-house unit that removes the calcium and magnesium that make water hard, exchanging them for sodium so the water stops leaving scale and soap scum.
- Ion Exchange : Ion exchange is the process behind a water softener, where resin beads swap the calcium and magnesium ions in hard water for sodium or potassium ions.
- Salt Bridge : A salt bridge is a hard crust that forms across the salt in a softener’s brine tank, leaving an air gap below it so the salt no longer dissolves into the water and regeneration fails.