Inside a JABSCO water filter

I know what you are thinking. "Why doesn't he write a post about what there is inside a Jabsco water filter?  Oh alright then, just for you. Jabscos are one of the ones  the ones that come as a cartridge a bit like a big yoghurt pot and you install them in the line to the water tap. 


We’ve been using one for a couple of years now to filter the water to a separate drinking water tap aboard Herbie.  You may recall a long time ago I showed these photos of how well it dealt with the rust particles when our water tank was down to the last silty dregs at the bottom.

Normal tap:          Filtered tap:

We changed the cartridge this summer and just for fun I bust it open to see what was inside.  I don’t know what I expected but I assumed some sort of labyrinth with a paste or granules of carbon.  Well it did have granules, but no labyrinth.  See here:



Ignore the rusty look of the  manky old washing up bowl, I use that for cleaning tools and stuff.  So you see what there is is just a bit of foam and a few handfuls of granules that actually look like plastic, but are probably not. Here’s a closer look.



I also expected to find a lot of disgusting sludge, but there didn't seem to be any.  This was a cartridge that had been in use for about 150 or more “working” days. I suppose that might be the filling of about a thousand kettles and water for cooking which is all we use it for. Our non drinking / food water we just get from the ordinary tap.

Simple I suppose, but it seems to work.

Barring any unforeseens, we’re off on our first autumn cruise at the weekend.  Banbury and Oxford via a possible short detour to Rugby.