Water Purifiers
 

Can anyone recommed a water purifier, must be compact and cope with water in Africa and hopefully have good filter life.

Got puritabs etc but they are disgusting.

Thanks

Julio

Most good outdoor shops have a selection of excellent filters of various sizes - talk to them. I use a Pur hiking type which I've found very good. Once when cleaning it, I mislaid an essential piece and on contacting Pur in the USA via the net, they sent me a whole new part. Great service.
Tim
'91GSPD

Im currently using a Katadyn combi hand filter , which so far has been very good. The filter is in two stages,actvated carbon, which lasts up to 6 months/200lits, and is only really for chemical and taste filtration,and a ceramic filter that lasts almost indefinately.The filter comes with a gauze for scrubbing the ceramic clean. This is one of the filters best features-i have seen cheaper paper filters that have to be cleaned in bleach-rather a hassle.Ive been living off this filter for 2 months now with no probs at all. Hope this is of help. Olly. (Z1100).

Katadyn also have a water-filter water bottle - for approx £35 GBP, refils cost £15. Filters last 100 ltrs. Just fill up like a cycling bottle and drink straight from the bottle. Holds 600ml. Claimed to kill bacteria, viruses & water borne disease carriers.

I will use normal non-iodine (slow but no taste) tablets (Boots) / bottled water where possible. You can remove the filter and use as a normal bottle. I will insert filter where necessary.

HTH
James

Katadyn also have a water-filter water bottle - for approx £35 GBP, refils cost £15. Filters last 100 ltrs. Just fill up like a cycling bottle and drink straight from the bottle. Holds 600ml. Claimed to kill bacteria, viruses & water borne disease carriers.

I will use normal non-iodine (slow but no taste) tablets (Boots) / bottled water where possible. You can remove the filter and use as a normal bottle. I will insert filter where necessary.

HTH
James

Katadyn Combi - not small but for a duo or group excellent capacity and field maintainable. ceramic and carbon beats common fibreglass options.

Thank you for posting some information rather than - “do your own research”. So it is a very fine filter - they call it a water purifier but it is essentially just a water filter. What is the life of the filter like - they must eventually clog up which is confirmed by the info you posted up. Some idea of the life - particularly the life in heavily contaminated - water would be useful.

For myself I am also interested in the amount of chemical that the filter passes as bacterial and virus are not the only thing to worry about.

I don’t drink water unless it has been boiled and had some dried leaves added to it when hot and the hot water is allowed to burst the cells in the Leave sufficiently for the contents to infuse into the water. I also like to add a little bovine lactation product.

The last time I had a bout of the runs was when, I am pretty sure, I didn’t wash my hands after touching money and then had a meal. The amount of bugs on the cash is notoriously high. I suppose I should take up money laundering to stop that happening again.

Oddly, I had been following this thread since it started and no posts have disappeared as far as I can tell.

"problematic" posts have been deleted, posters notified as appropriate to keep it on track and impersonal, this IS an Equipment REVIEW forum, so everyone's OPINIONS are okay, and not to be denigrated.
Jay_Benson - correct, NO posts had been deleted to the time of your posting, two have now been.

Two more posts removed which were responses to posts since removed by OP

@Jay_Benson: ha ha to money laundering

Slightly off topic but blushing teeth in tap water is one cause of illness. I travelled India many years ago with my ex wife. I was fine while she was constantly ill and it was the only thing that we did differently. I always brush my teeth using bottled water

Slightly Back on topic. What do you guys think of inline filters like Sawyer

I need to stop posting on this thread as whenever I do it gets shorter - I suspect within a couple of days we will be back to the original post only. I knew tyres and oil were contentious subjects but water purifiers? Really?

I have used various filters and the in line is good but I like my Katydin water bottle. Just don't freeze it as it breaks the ceramic. Filter life depends upon the water being used. Dirty water clogs them up faster

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

I was given a Lifestraw drinking bottle for Christmas by my son, who's in the army and has cause to look into products like this. It has a 2-stage filter that's good for something like 100 gallons. I'll road test it next year when I'm off to Siberia, Mongolia and the Silk Road.

www.vestergaard.com/our-products/lifestraw

www.facebook.com/motosunburn

I used a Lifestraw drinking exclusively local running/river water in Nepal for several weeks without problems, even when it got frozen overnight which is a big no-no according to the manufacturer. Still though that's just one man's report and I know nothing about African water.

I'd say it's an option worth researching though :)

I have life straw, cathadyn and Sawyer and never had to use any on a motorcycle ride. I've gone from Cape Town to Nairobi, as well as from morocco to guinea bissau. Been to egypt, Tunis, and more. I've never experienced problems buying bottled water. Wherever there is fuel where is water - just about allways I usually carry quite a bit just in case it would be a problem, it never has. I don't think I will carry a water filter again other than for hiking and I don't have a motorized mule to carry 5he water for me. Maybe I would bring be if I expected to linger for longer periods off the beaten track. But I get bored easily and hardly ever linger in one place more than a couple of days - which means riding and gas stations.

Maybe I will carry a small Sawyer for emergencies, but that's about it. Space and weight is a concern, and this is something I can shave off.

Oddly enough, Norway where tap water is awesome, a bottle of water at a gas station can cost $2. So in some places it might make sense money wise. Then again, places where bottled water is expensive, the tap water is usually fine. Strange but true.

The Cathadyn is good because it attached to a målene and purified a lot ow water quickly, but it is large and heavy

The life straw is primitive and quite large.

The Sawyer is tiny and has lots of accessories for different applications - wether to drink right from the source or wanting to purify unto a container.

They all purify well, though cathadyn and Sawyer are too of the line. Get a Sawyer, if any.

Been using a Platypus gravity feed for more than a decade now: 3 liters at a time almost effortlessly. A carbon add-on section helps clean up odors and taste, and the main filter takes out everything larger than, say, a single COVID particle.

Ok, that was a joke. Portable filters don't, as far as I know, work against viruses, heavy metals, or natural toxics like arsenic. In most areas those are not what I'm worried about; I just filter vast amounts of tap water.

I really don't like buying single-use water bottles. At 3 liters per day, that adds up to hundreds per trip, which preys on my admittedly-porous conscience.

Mark

Ultraviolet light......from a steripen. Especially if you're mostly purifying hotel water. 90 seconds and you have a liter of drinkable water. Another 90 seconds and you have a liter for the road tomorrow.

My memory is that it kills bacteria (99.99%) outright, and disrupts the DNA/RNA of virus so they can't reproduce.

Steripen is light, small, effective and quick. Without the contamination problems of cleaning a filter. If your source of water is from a river and there is a lot of stuff floating around in it, a filter is probably a better choice, although you can filter out a lot of gunk through a bandanna and then use the steripen on it.

....................shu

Ooops....
 

Oh dear....
Here we go again. Mark do please offer accurate information especially when it comes to safety and water safety which is, IMHO paramount to well being.
It is all about nanometers and the Lifesaver membranes have a pore size of approximately 15 nanometers or 0.015 microns
For information, please read here:
https://iconlifesaver.com/news/how-t...-water-filter/
Thank you.

How is Mark's comment not accurate? Even the link you gave says the same thing:

'A portable water filter only removes bacteria and protozoa, but NOT virus, which are far smaller.'

If he'd said portable water purifiers (and Lifesaver are big on distinguishing between filter and purifier) don't remove viruses that might have been different.

Anyone any ideas / info on whether out on the road (as opposed to on a company's marketing page) waterborne viral infections are a bigger hazard than bacteria / protozoa.

to answer your question B-O-B
 

SOME portable filters DO filter out viruses.
(Marks' platypus does not)

IconLifesaver produce various filters based on the same membrane tech. principle; some are huge (and often seen where humanitarian aid is taking place after a disaster event worldwide) others are small handheld bottles. They also have jerrycans, cubes etc.
If anyone is interested in actual facts (rather than sales & marketing blurb) they can go to their site to get information and seek proof of claims.
For me, water safety is a number 1 priority.
Horses for courses and to each his/her own.
www.iconlifesaver.com
Solid reliable kit but don't take my word for it!
I use the smaller Lifesaver Liberty bottle, its larger cousin the Lifesaver bottle and their jerrycan for good trusted reasons.
Of course where yiu collect your water from will make a huge difference. I avoid anywhere near heavy industry and farms.

Enjoy!

Sawyer 0.1 micron...

Northern Africa more than 90% of the water is ok, with 60% in sub saharan Africa, with DR Congo being the worst. Few filters can take out viruses. As a traveler with money, you have options that locals don't. Learn about your local water sources, and act accordingly. I get that the cost of bottled water can rack up, and that purifying your own is atteactive. But, if you only buy bottled water where the source is highly questionable??

Ionization and UV, I know little about - but a few seconds of a portable UV light? Even boiling doesn't necessarilykill off everything. Chemical treatments such as Iodine and Chlorine, left long enough, are quite effective - if you can muster the taste.

I myself buy bottled water if at all worried. Which includes just about all of sub saharan Africa. Yes it costs money.

Beer works well also :)

Thanks for the reply. I don't doubt that filtration technology capable of removing virus sized particles from water exists and is in widespread use. It's just that on their website Lifesaver made the distinction between 'filters' - capable of removing bacteria and protozoa but not viruses, and 'purifiers' which, due to their smaller pore size, can remove them. They may all work by the process of filtration but if Lifesaver themselves distinguish between the two capabilities by using different nouns then, by their own terminology, 'filters' don't remove viruses. To remove those you need their 'purifier'. It may work by filtration but they've chosen not to call it that. It may just be marketing but that's the face they've chosen to present.

I'm also a little doubtful about that. Maybe if the UV source was intense enough but then it would be a health hazzard in its own right - "I'll just have a look at it to check it works before I point it at the bottle ..." Maybe the answer is to leave your bottle next to someone arc welding bicycle frames for a while. There's no shortage of workshops doing that in Africa.

If I may just add a bit.
B-O-B the Lifesaver kit does both.
They do say that to maximise the life of their filters, that you should use the cleanest water possible and if there is a lot of debris to filter it out. Makes sense, same reason people use fuel sock filters in their petrol tanks. If it doesn't go in, less chance of clogging up the works.

I have used and still have, the UV steripen 'freedom' and haved used it with micropure forte tablets (Troclosene sodium 103mg/g and Silver chloride 2.8mg/g). It is the lightest kit I have found and used without any problems. It is micro usb rechargeable; its down side (for me) is that it does not remove any debris hence the need to make a filter of some sort to remove those. The UV light on/off is controlled by the steripen and you use it in a glass swirling the water until the UV goes out. I always did it twice.
What with the arrival of IconLifesaver products, it is now redundant as is my ceramic Katadyn. (Both available for purchase at silly prices!)

There is alas a world wide scam about refilling water bottles with water of unknown origin from a possibly risky source, recapping these with that trusted 'rip off seal' and selling them at some 90% ish profit margin to unsuspecting tourists. Good for business but not so good if its you who drinks it...
Because of this, the massive plastic waste problem and the amazing efficiency of the Lifesaver equipment I've chosen their products for years now and have never fallen ill despite taking water from places I'd rather not 'P' in!!!

For (my) peace of mind, the Lifesaver does it all without chemicals or fuss. The activated replaceable charcoal filters also add another barrier.

p.s The Iconlifesaver smallest Liberty bottle has an advantage over the larger bottle in that you can pump up the unknown water directly into the filter without having to open the rear of the bottle.