You can avoid drinking unwanted chemicals, particles and bacteria by changing your refrigerator water filter on a regular basis. Manufacturers recommend that you change your filter every 6 months.
The life of your water filter depends on the amount of water you use and the quantity of contaminants in your water. If you enjoy drinking lots of water or if you are on a well, you will need to change your filter more often.
Replacing your refrigerator water filter at least every 6 months is the best way to keep your water tasting great. You can install the filter yourself and feel confident that you and your family are drinking clean water.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Water Filter Changing Instructions
The goal is to provide filtered house water to the three diffractometer heat exchangers ("A,B", "C" and "D") with sufficient flow to carry away the heat from the X-ray tubes. Clean water filters are essential to maintaining a constant source of X-rays for an experiment and to preserving the life of the X-ray tube and generator. Note the sequence of events: dirty water filters --> reduced tap water flow through heat exchanger --> reduced heat exchanger heat removing capacity --> increased temperature of circulating water --> circulating pump(s) stop --> X-ray generator turned off.
Recent experience indicates that the water filters last about 1 month with the refrigerated heat exchanger ("D") and a week or two with the ambient heat exchangers ("A,B", "C"). The filters are arranged in parallel with a pair of valves to isolate each one; the procedure for a pair of filters for a given heat exchanger is (starting with two new filters and all valves closed):
- open both valves for one filter allowing water to flow through only one filter
- after one week ("A,B", "C") or one month ("D") open both valves for the second filter allowing water to flow through both filters
- after one week ("A,B", "C") or one month ("D") change both filters:
- close both valves for one filter
- place a bucket beneath the filter housing (to catch any drips)
- use custom wrench to loosen filter housing
- unscrew filter housing
- decant excess water from filter housing into bucket
- take filter housing with filter to large trash can
- remove filter element from filter housing:
- place two fingers into hole in filter element
- spread fingers apart (to grip filter element from inside)
- lift filter element out of filter housing
- discard filter element into large trash can
- rinse out filter housing in sink
- get new filter element from shelf over "D" heat exchanger
- ensure "O"-ring in filter housing is properly seated in groove
- place new filter element into filter housing ensuring that hole in the filter element fits around the short centering tube in bottom of filter housing
- fit filter element around short centering tube in filter housing base
- screw filter housing onto its base
- hand tighten filter housing
- slowly open supply valve while watching thread area of filter housing for leaks; if leaks are found:
- close supply valve, briefly open and then close other valve
- cautiously tighten filter housing using custom wrench
- check for leaks (and cautiously tighten filter housing and re-check for leaks, repeatedly, until no leaks
- "burp" the water line of trapped air by opening supply valve and then briefly opening other valve and closing it and waiting a few seconds, repeatedly, until all air bubbles have passed through the filters and into the drain
- close both valves
- repeat this procedure for the other filter
- leave both valves open for one filter, both closed for the other filter
Note that it is especially bad when the X-ray generator is turned off because of dirty water filters as the hot X-ray tube, which was running at full normal power levels and was experiencing only minimal cooling from the higher temperature circulating water, suddenly has NO cooling water flowing past its hot anode. These are the conditions (hot X-ray tube, no cooling water flow, and THEN the X-rays are turned off) which can result in a perforated/melted anode and an X-ray tube full of water!
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Is Your Water Safe For Your Children To Drink?
No one would argue that clean, healthy water is essential for the health of children. It is important to understand, however, that contaminants in drinking water have a far greater impact on the health of children than they do on adults. And it is even more important to understand that most tap water in the US does contain contaminants, including lead, which pose a serious health threat to children.
The defense systems which protect us from disease and toxins develop over the course of childhood and adolescence. Children’s bodies are therefore more sensitive and vulnerable to carcinogens, lead, bacteria and water-borne parasites than are healthy adults. Our children are exposed, through air and water pollution and our mass produced and treated foods, to far more toxins than our parents or even our own generation was during our childhood. While we are limited in our ability to affect the quality of our air and food, it is possible to remove virtually all toxins from our drinking and showering water. And that is good news, since an abundant daily intake is essential not only for overall health, but for our bodies to effectively be able to remove all the other toxins to which we and our children are exposed.
The list of chemicals commonly found in tap water and even in many bottled waters is quite sobering. Lead is found in virtually all house tap water, due to the fact that the source of lead is the household pipes themselves, making it impossible for lead to be removed from water at any centralized facility. Lead itself is the greatest health threat to children in the US, according to the EPA, however it is hardly the only hazard. Chlorine, herbicides, pesticides and other contaminants are commonly found in tap water, and in some areas water borne parasites and bacteria are also found. Even trace levels of these contaminants have been shown to have detrimental health effects. Children are at the greatest risk, not only because of their still developing immune systems, but also because of the way that water quality is both studied and regulated.
Water quality research has been conducted to determine the effects of all of these contaminants on human health. However, the way such research is generally conducted is to study each toxin individually to determine the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for each one. Such research has little value in the real world, where many toxins are found at the same time in virtually all drinking water, and where the interactions between two or more chemicals may be far more detrimental than the effect of any one of them in isolation. Furthermore, the “safe” levels that are determined are based upon their effects on adults rather than children. For these reasons, it is clearly unwise to rely upon the public health system and governmental regulations to ensure the health and purity of the water you give your children.
So what is the best way to ensure an abundance of healthy, clean water for your family? The most reliable and cost effective way to ensure safe, healthy and delicious water for daily consumption is with a home water filter. Bottled water is both a more expensive and less certain option, since bottled water regulation only requires that the water be as safe as tap water. A quality home water filter removes all of the contaminants discussed above, at a fraction of the cost of bottled water.
The defense systems which protect us from disease and toxins develop over the course of childhood and adolescence. Children’s bodies are therefore more sensitive and vulnerable to carcinogens, lead, bacteria and water-borne parasites than are healthy adults. Our children are exposed, through air and water pollution and our mass produced and treated foods, to far more toxins than our parents or even our own generation was during our childhood. While we are limited in our ability to affect the quality of our air and food, it is possible to remove virtually all toxins from our drinking and showering water. And that is good news, since an abundant daily intake is essential not only for overall health, but for our bodies to effectively be able to remove all the other toxins to which we and our children are exposed.
The list of chemicals commonly found in tap water and even in many bottled waters is quite sobering. Lead is found in virtually all house tap water, due to the fact that the source of lead is the household pipes themselves, making it impossible for lead to be removed from water at any centralized facility. Lead itself is the greatest health threat to children in the US, according to the EPA, however it is hardly the only hazard. Chlorine, herbicides, pesticides and other contaminants are commonly found in tap water, and in some areas water borne parasites and bacteria are also found. Even trace levels of these contaminants have been shown to have detrimental health effects. Children are at the greatest risk, not only because of their still developing immune systems, but also because of the way that water quality is both studied and regulated.
Water quality research has been conducted to determine the effects of all of these contaminants on human health. However, the way such research is generally conducted is to study each toxin individually to determine the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for each one. Such research has little value in the real world, where many toxins are found at the same time in virtually all drinking water, and where the interactions between two or more chemicals may be far more detrimental than the effect of any one of them in isolation. Furthermore, the “safe” levels that are determined are based upon their effects on adults rather than children. For these reasons, it is clearly unwise to rely upon the public health system and governmental regulations to ensure the health and purity of the water you give your children.
So what is the best way to ensure an abundance of healthy, clean water for your family? The most reliable and cost effective way to ensure safe, healthy and delicious water for daily consumption is with a home water filter. Bottled water is both a more expensive and less certain option, since bottled water regulation only requires that the water be as safe as tap water. A quality home water filter removes all of the contaminants discussed above, at a fraction of the cost of bottled water.
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