So I am giving the sawyer inline filter a second chance. About 2 years ago I tried it out with a gravity system and it worked well until one day it just stopped. Tried backwashing and still could not get any flow whatsoever without a large amount of pressure. Long story short, I ended up breaking it trying to open it up and see if I could figure out the problem. I have since ordered a new one with thoughts to give it another try since the first worked great until it broke. New, out of the box, with a hose approximately 1.5 feet long I am getting a flow rate of 3-4minutes per liter using tap water... this seems slower than I remember and much slower than others have posted theirs filtering at. Ideas?

Hi Derek,

Which Sawyer model do you have, the point-one bacterial or the point zero-two viral? I'd expect better than a liter a minute out of the bacterial with 1. sufficient head, 2. a large-diameter hose and 3. all air purged from both filter and hose.

The viral filter would have half the flow rate, at best.

Cheers,

Rick

Edited by halfturbo on 03/09/2011 17:24:17 MST.

The 0.1 micron filter.

increase the length of the hose. 1.5' sounds a little short (assuming you've got it going from a dirty water bag through the filter to a clean water bag). i upgraded mine a while back from about 2' of hose to more like 4' of hose. It cut the filtering time for 2 liters in half and seems to holding steady around the 2 min/liter pace.

Derek,

Based on the Sawyer website, you have the biological filter, not the one for viruses.

I have the older version of the Sawyer filter (same as yours) and the rate of flow is a lot better than that.

Quick few questions....have you back flushed it with the hose attachment for the faucet?

That could blow out something in the filter that could be blocking, but would be surprised if this was an issue.

(You really can generate a lot of pressure with the faucet adaptor).

Otherwise, the only other thing that I can think of is if you have air in the filter that is disrupting the flow.

Beyond that, I don't have any other ideas of what it could be...maybe the length of the tubing that you have above and below the filter to create pressure to push the water down and on the back end to create the siphoning effect.

-Tony

I've been practicing using my sawyer setup and I've found that when the filter is dry, there is almost no flow. What I do is allow about 4-6 ounces to accumulate in the clean bag and then force that water back through the filter, the same method that you would use to clean the filter. Force enough water back through so that all of the air comes out in the dirty bag. After this process the filter flows very quickly and the next time I use it everything starts up much faster.

Yup, it's priming. The filter can be primed in the field with a bit of water plus manual pressure.

Unfortunately, with the even more intricate Sawyer purifier -- every time the thing dries out (which of course it does in between trips) -- priming by hand is impossible. The force of a faucet is required -- which renders the purifier basically useless out in the field.