DIY Rainwater Filter System

DIY biological rainwater drinking water filter. This filter is made very easily, you need gravel, sand, and charcoal. This is a biological and mechanical filter, in the first month the water will be cleaned mechanically, later, when the microorganisms multiply, it will work biologically as well.

0:00 plan
0:29 biofilter gravel
1:07 biofilter base
1:35 barrel drilling
2:25 fitting the connections
5:02 connect inside the barrel
6:20 water flow
7:14 biofilter material
7:44 biofilter material installation 1
10:45 how to clean sand
11:58 biofilter material installation 2
13:46 water into the biofilter
14:39 bio filter leaking
15:00 lowering the pressure in the system
15:11 sealing the cover
15:43 seal test again
16:12 how to clean water
17:13 external filter
18:51 explanation of the biofilter

Related video:

Want To help my channel grow so I can make more videos like this, I'm accepting donations. when you donate your contribution helps fund future Videos it would be greatly appreciated link below:

You can also donate with Super Thanks.
Thank you very much for your comments and donations

Uploaded to this channel are not how-to videos.
All work is done in a personal and self-responsible manner.

[MyshelafromTanelorn]

Hello, just wanted to tell you that this is very close to the system my grandpa put in place in our chalet in the mountains of valencia, Spain, in order to filter the rain water that we drank. It was the best water I ever had

[undernetjack]

Thank you for the English explanation. So many creators try to avoid this by using captions or robot voice over. It is so much more of a real and authentic creation when the creator explains with their own voice. It is appreciated.

[willm]

Thank you Robert for teaching these important skills to those of us that have become a little detached from what really matters!

[miriam-fabiano]

Great job, Robert! People do this in some rural areas in Brazil where the water supply provided by the government does not reach, and it works very well.

[CheatTheReaperOG]

Robert, this is exactly what I need in our homestead! Thank you for sharing your knowledge in a very clear manner.

[svendittmann]

I like such installations!
For a biofilter in my optionion the system needs oxigen.
I installed a similar system to clean a garden pond.
I take some water from the pond flush it over a filter system like yours an give the system oxigen 50l/min. One cycle lasts 2 hours and the water get back in the pond after that time. The next cycle is starting.
The principle is similar - seperate biological and chemical dirt or simple dust to clean it with bacteria and oxigen.
The result is impressive a murky and musty pond become clear in three month.

[ranchoep]

Sir Robert thank you for showing the flaws and not deleting them. You are awesome sir.

[thomasstudio]

I think the flow pipes should enter at the bottom of the barrel not at the top and drop to the bottom. The vertical drop in the pipes in this example are a route for water to bypass the filtration medium. As the gravels and rocks would not form a good seal with the vertical pipe area and lots of water would flow up through this gap route to overflow.

[fessit]

Great video! I love the detail. I use a rain barrel to water my raised bed garden. I prevent debris from entering the water by using a Gutter Helmet to catch rain from my roof. As a result, I never need to remove debris from my rain barrel!

[popdebarker]

Good job. May I suggest you rinse ALL of the filtering material before you put in the barrels. That will cut down on a lot of the dirt in the second rinse you do in the barrels. Again really good idea. Like the misquote netting.

[garywaterman]

So, im a big supporter of Off Grid and greener ways to live and capturing, filtering and storing water is a big part of that. So I applaud your efforts.

Having said that, Ive seen similar systems like this and they always leave me with some questions. Everybody shows you how to make it in layers of sediment filtering sand and rocks along with charcoal and mosquito netting. And they look really good. But, nobody is showing you 3 or 4 months later when they have to clean it out. No matter the style of filter, whether it be diy filters like this or off the shelf sediment and carbon filters, they all require you to clean or replace them periodically. If you dont need to clean it then its not doing its job in removing debris and other contaminents. If its doing its job you need to clean out what they remove from the water every now and then. None of these systems appear to be designed with ease of cleaning or replacing all the materials in mind. All those layers need to be removed and cleaned and since they are all touching eachother they will no doubt mix together no matter how you try to remove them making a mess. In your video you appear to make this even tougher by sealing the lids on top of the barrels. You cant clean the inside if you cant get to it. If it were me, with DIY in mind I would consider making "cartidges" out of 6" or 8" PVC. About 3 or 4 feet long. Water tubes flowing into and out of the middle of the caps, daisy chaining them together. Cartridge 1 would be the larger gravel. Cartridge 2 would be the sand. Cartridge 3 would be charcoal. All cartridges would be made to simply unscrew from the system with caps that unscrew as well. Then you can clean or replace the materials 1 tube at a time. No need to seal them for really high pressure pumping because I would use a low flow solar water pump to move the water from the source pond or roof top collection, through my 3 filters more gradually and into my storage tank. From tank to house would be a higher pressure pump pulling from the storage tank. The idea being my in house water demands can be met with good water preasure pulling from a 500 gallon storage tank when i need it, but im rarely going to pull more than 100 gallons at any given time. Therefore, when the house has no demand from a faucet or shower, my low flow filter system has plenty of time to fill the storage tank back to 500 gallons. In theory, no low flow pump may be needed if you can get gravity to bring the water from the source pond or roof top collection, through the filters and into the storage tank. I do appreciate the effort so many go into to make filtering systems but please make ease of "cleaning" and "maintenance" very big parts of the plans otherwise they wont seem very practical a few months later when the system is weighed down and bogged down by the very thing they are designed to collect. Nobody wants to spend an entire day every few months scooping all that out which mixes it all together. All large tanks need to have quick ways of disconnecting them for servicing which means generally you would want low flow coming into the system so you can have screw off fittings that dont leak everywhere due to the challenges of high pressure. My idea of diy PVC "Cartridges" would flow upward as your design does but each tube would only have 1 ingredient with mosquito netting inside each tube. On cleaning day I simply close off a valve to stop the flow of water. Unscrew my larger rock filter, unscrew the ends to dump out the contents, clean or replace, screw caps back on, screw water lines back onto the caps. Repeat for sand filter and charcoal filter. In fact id probably premake 2 or 3 sets of each type if filter so I can more quickly change them out only needing to spend some extra time 1 or 2 days a year refilling the cartriges.

[mattski]

I watched this entire thing from beginning to end, no pause. You're great at making get to the point videos and a genius with the other things. Thank you for the video. I appreciate it.

[salimufari]

Only change I would consider is a cut of valve between the 2 barrels & an easy disconnect so you can clean or replace the 2nd barrel with the charcoal with a fresh barrel. This would make it so you didn't have the wait time to recharge the carbon filter half. Just swap the barrels & you're good. Clean the now dirty one & repeat as needed.

[judiehavard]

Put faucet to open and close in the bottom of the barrels. Then you can flush out your filter system. And back flush each barrel for cleaning your filter materials. This is very similar to setting up a filter system for fish ponds.

[morjesusgan]

Really cool natural system and doesn’t look very expensive. Thank you for sharing!

[naabligay]

I also watched the video, and i really admire and inspired, by his method of laying the pipes in the tanks. i thought since the water flows from the buttom to the top, he could've adopt the small smaller smallest order of applying the rocks sand and charcoal. This could have make the system operationally effective.

[carmenortiz]

Congratulations, you have the best video (than even an old lady can follow). Better by far than the instructions by the US state of Minnesota, who used a person who has probably never even seen an rainbarrel in her life.

[randysmith]

Hello! In the Appalachians here. There are many people in my area with old family homes from the 1800s like mine. Mine is 20 feet deep and 8 foot diameter at the bottom and 12 feet at the top. It holds approximately 7000 gallons.
I do not have a filter other than a piece of screen covering a barrel at the top to catch leaf litter and the foot valve is 14 inches above the bottom to keep from sucking up the fine silt from the bottom. If I am home when the rain starts I will turn the water out for the first 15 minutes of the rain to clear the roof of debris and bird poop. My family has used the water from it for all household uses including drinking with no additional filtering for 4 generations. I clean and repair the cement lining once a year using a stiff broom to remove the silt from the walls and rinse it with clean water followed by a clorox rinse before patching and refilling it. The roof is tin not shingles. I would never drink water from a roof with shingles as they contain petroleum products which are toxic.
I was told it was unsafe to drink the water from my cistern without a filter system in place by the health department so I tried the method described in the video. If you get a rain heavier than a light shower most of the water will back up and overflow the barrel system very quickly wasting most of the water. A filter process after the water enters the cistern wastes much less water.
Since my family has drunk the water for generations without getting sick I have opted not to use it. This could be because of acquired tolerances to local pathogens or maybe I'm in a cleaner area where such pathogens do not exist. That being said, if you try drinking water without some kind of filtering you may become ill and infants and small children should not consume such water.

[Chriss]

I love that you showed the curious cat what you were doing 😻 and that curiosity wasn't its demise 👍

[simpley]

You could use a gravity double filter instead with the same filter ingredients.
Saves the pump electricity as well as prevents spillage/leakage.