Pre-filter ... Worth The Money Or Not

[q95]

I have seen, at my dealer, a neat idea. Its a "filter" that fits on the end of the garden hose. Has all the nice marketing stuff about cutting down on post-fill chemicals.

I live in the city, so its not overly harsh metals like a well may be. But, I'm sure its not good quality spring water either.

Has anyone tried a "pre-filter" (goes on the end of a garden hose) and found the post-fill chemical balancing is easier with it, than without ?

Here is one place that shows the product, this one is $49 and can be used multiple times. I've see others from $39 down to $19. Just a reference: http://www.pacificsands.biz/html/spa_pre-filter.html

Here is a $19 variety: http://www.hottubworks.com/cgi-bin/commerc...p;preadd=action

Let me know if its worked for you ! I need to refill later this week and may get one, if there is good feedback here.

[AlphaChaotic]

You know, we sell a very similar product at the pool store at which I work. Although I've never first-hand experienced its use on a spa, I've seen its advantages in the pool market. We're located in Southern Louisiana and have a lot of rural outlying areas surrounding us from which a lot of our customers hail and more often than not, these rural customers are operating on a well-based system. We use the filter to remove the copper and iron present in their water. I suppose its always a good idea to use these but I tend to get conflicting information at times: Some customers will come in having used the filter, and true to its marketing campaign, there will be no copper or iron present or if it is, it will be significantly below .5 ppm. So based on that information, again, I would say the product is true to its marketed purpose. Yet at the same time, I see customers come in, again on well water, and having not used the filter, still be at no or very low ppm for copper or iron. Still in all, I usually tend, even in this instance, to have the customer go on and treat with a metal sequesterant if only to protect them from those times when they need to refill and by doing so may stand at risk to introduce additional contaminants / metals into their pool water. It comes down to this I suppose: If you have really hard water in which you know metals will be present, why not use the filter? Of course, you'll want to follow up with the use of a metal sequesterant to seal the deal to make sure your water doesn't go disco when you add sanitizing chemicals to the water. Getting back to your question though: I do think the filter would be worth the cost to remove any organic contaminants to the water prior to having to treat chemically.

Ashley

[Vermonter]

I have seen, at my dealer, a neat idea. Its a "filter" that fits on the end of the garden hose. Has all the nice marketing stuff about cutting down on post-fill chemicals.

I live in the city, so its not overly harsh metals like a well may be. But, I'm sure its not good quality spring water either.

Has anyone tried a "pre-filter" (goes on the end of a garden hose) and found the post-fill chemical balancing is easier with it, than without ?

Here is one place that shows the product, this one is $49 and can be used multiple times. I've see others from $39 down to $19. Just a reference: http://www.pacificsands.biz/html/spa_pre-filter.html

Here is a $19 variety: http://www.hottubworks.com/cgi-bin/commerc...p;preadd=action

Let me know if its worked for you ! I need to refill later this week and may get one, if there is good feedback here.

I use one, and my Fe and Cu tests are negative, however, I'm not sure if there is any in my water to begin with. I've asked on this forum, and have been told that they are effective, however the useful life varies from model to model. I think they are worth the cost... be aware that it will take longer to fill your tub, due to the filter's restriction of water flow.

[Hillbilly Hot Tub]

I have seen, at my dealer, a neat idea. Its a "filter" that fits on the end of the garden hose. Has all the nice marketing stuff about cutting down on post-fill chemicals.

I live in the city, so its not overly harsh metals like a well may be. But, I'm sure its not good quality spring water either.

Has anyone tried a "pre-filter" (goes on the end of a garden hose) and found the post-fill chemical balancing is easier with it, than without ?

Here is one place that shows the product, this one is $49 and can be used multiple times. I've see others from $39 down to $19. Just a reference: http://www.pacificsands.biz/html/spa_pre-filter.html

Here is a $19 variety: http://www.hottubworks.com/cgi-bin/commerc...p;preadd=action

Let me know if its worked for you ! I need to refill later this week and may get one, if there is good feedback here.

I use one, and my Fe and Cu tests are negative, however, I'm not sure if there is any in my water to begin with. I've asked on this forum, and have been told that they are effective, however the useful life varies from model to model. I think they are worth the cost... be aware that it will take longer to fill your tub, due to the filter's restriction of water flow.

We sell them to our customers that are using well water. In this area they are needed to remove the metals and such that are in wells. People on city/town water that tests ok (town sends reports yearly) we don't push them to. Some people on town water use them anyway because they feel safer using them and it always seems to start them with perfectly balanced water which makes their start up easy for them.

They are worth the money for sure if you have poor starting water. if you water is good, they are a bit costly, I would stick with the lower priced one.

We were sent a new one from a company called micropure that we have not tried yet. It does not add any chemicals, just filters the water through carbon. They state it will remove metals so I am going to try it on my customer with the worst water in the area (comes out dark orange from the tap after going through a softning system!) to test out how well it really works. I guess these retail for about 15-20 bucks. We will see how it performs this fall when i start up their tub!

[Chris W]

I've been using a cheapy that is just a small depth filter cartridge. I don't believe my source water has any issues, but the filter was cheap and it certainly doesn't hurt anything. I've used it for 1 fill and a bunch of top-off and it shows no signs of significant restriction yet. The ones with carbon probably provide more substantial filtering. I tried to win a whole case of them on e-bay, but got outbid

Chris W