Gravity Powered Water Filter for Backpacking

A water filter is a key piece of gear on nearly any backpacking trip. Many of these filters using a pump which moves the water through the filter and into your bottle. This design has its drawbacks as it may take a good amount of time and effort to pump all the water that you need for cooking, cleaning, and drinking. There is also the potential for part of the pump mechanism to break, something which could force you to have to boil all your water, take the "Giardia Challenge", or just be thirsty for the rest of the trip.

In this Instructable I'll show you how to use your existing water filter as a gravity powered water filter. This setup will use gravity instead of you to "pump" the water,  be lighter, and be less prone to failure as there are no moving parts!

Step 1: Assemble Parts

First of all you want to get your water filter out and take it apart. In my case, I'm using a Katadyn Hiker Pro water filter, but this Instructable could work for other filters as well. The parts that we're looking for is the actual filter (the core which is screwed into the pump body) and the clean hose which connects the filter to your bottle. Unscrew the filter core from the body and connect it to the hose to complete your gravity filter assembly. Couldn't be simpler!

Comments

[Chad.Kalas]

Thanks for the great 'ible! I have the same filter, and I will definitely use this technique when my wife and I are car or canoe camping. We have pumped a LOT of water through ours over the last couple of years. This will give the pump a much needed break!

[mstyle183]

hey man i wanted to thankyou for giving me a great idea for a portable coffee filtering straw .. check out my instructable

http://www.instructables.com/id/Portable-Coffee-Filtering-Straw-for-outdoors-or-co/

i gave you credit for helping me think of this

thanks again

[mstyle183]

this is awesome

thanks for the idea

[WYE_Lance]

Simple and clever - thanks!