Customer Reviews

Coghlan's Water Filter

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Our family has been using this model filter for years for backpack trips, it does a great job and it's easy to use. The filter will last several seasons if you start with the cleanest water possible and take proper care of it, and replacements are inexpensive. Flow capacity is better than most due to the large filter surface area, and it's also lighter weight than the fancy ones.

A good friend that I camp with bought an upscale brand purifier for $99 that certainly looks cool (and came with a fancy carrying bag); but often we can not get it to pump at an acceptable rate, and it has an annoying habit of squirting you in the face when you try and pump too quickly. It also costs close to $50 to replace the filter cartridge.

The bottom line is that this Coghlan's pump filter will do the same thing as the $80-100 models - except make you look like a model in an REI catalog.

This filter only has a 2 micron filtration rating. It is effective against most important waterborne protozoa (giardia and cryptosporidium), but will not filter any harmful bacteria. you should only use this filter in a clean mountain stream that has not been contaminated with fecal material. If you use this filter in a pond or standing water, you are asking for trouble. More expensive filters are rated to 0.2 microns and are effective at removing harmful bacteria. One previous review stated that this filter produced water at a faster rate and clogged less than a more expensive filter. That is likely a very true statement as the filtration pore size on the cheap filter is 10X bigger! If a more expensive filter is clogging, it is doing its job of removing particles that would otherwise end up in your drinking water. Do not assume that all filters are created equal, and just because you run water through some device does not make it safe to drink.

I have used one of these for many years and it works very well. It has provided the camp with water on numerous trips it even makes mud puddle water drinkable.

I love this style of water filter for backpacking trips. We filter the water right out of the creeks and springs. It is the cheapest and the best! I'm not sure why they don't sell them at the store anymore . . .

QUESTION --

Why don't they sell these at the store anymore?

I backpack in the North Cascades and carry the lightest products on the market. This water filter is just that.

We took this filter on a 7 day pack trip and it worked great. No problems at all. The water tasted wonderful as well but not sure if that's from the filter or the high mountain stream we got the water from. But no one got sick and we drank a lot of water. The other filters were very expensive and this one was much cheaper which made me a little nervous, but for no reason. Buy with confidence.

I have used this filter setup for over 10 years (the same pump, but several filters). Typically I used it to pump water from streams, but occasionally from pools of standing water (ponds, puddles). I have never gotten Giardia, so the filter likely works, or perhaps all those water sources did not have Giardia in them to begin with (which is possible; Giardia is not that common in remote places, but it is better to be safe than sorry). This filter is significantly lighter than its high-end alternatives (PUR/Katadyn, MSR), but those alternatives are not actually the same (they filter out more a lot more stuff).

My greatest concern about this filter is the potential for accidental cross-contamination. After the first use, one has to make sure that the filter (the cylinder) does not come into contact with the output tube, directly or indirectly (by touching something else, which then touches something else, which then touches the output tube). This is pretty hard to do on a long trip. The ``alternatives" have fewer pieces and so are somewhat easier to keep clean.

Another issue is that it is very hard to use solo. While pumping with one hand (moving the top part of the pump up and down), you need to keep the pump, the water bottle, and the end of the output tubing in place. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find adapters for this filter that would screw on top of a Nalgene bottle. In principle, the metal string can keep the output tubing in place, but then more of it comes into contact with the filtered water, increasing the chance of contamination. I have used this pump solo by holding the bottle with my feet, which was usually rather uncomfortable. With two people, this thing is very easy to use though. The cylinder also comes off from the pump very easily and thus has to kept pressed against the bottom of the pot from which you are pumping or of the stream (and streams do not often have smooth bottoms...). Some of the ``alternatives" attach to Nalgene water bottles, making them much easier to use solo.

Used this item on a recent hiking trip, we camped by a running creek with clear water and relied on this item for our water supply. We didn't get sick, so Id say it worked well ;) The unit is very cheaply built but at this price point that isn't even an issue. I bought this because at the time I didn't want to spend 80 bucks on a different water filter.

I wouldn't recommend using this item in standing water or a questionable water source unless you added iodine or bleach after filtering, but in a clean running supply this unit works well.

Went camping with 5 friends at Cranberry Lake ADK mountains and brought this along for drinking water. Couldn't have been more satisfied. No fuss, no lengthy instructions to read.....just connect supplied parts and begin to pump. Great buy for $25... light weight, durable, simple design and works great!!