A MODULAR WATER SYSTEM · DESIGN PREVIEW
A considered path from your water source to your glass. Stainless construction, layered filtration and a dedicated distilled drinking supply—designed for the trailer, truck and habitat.
An evolving engineering concept. Component estimates are open; complete-system performance and retail pricing are still to be established.
Thoughtfully slow treatment.
Stored water when you need it.Current design targets, not measured ratings.
MORE THOUGHT IN EVERY LAYER
One filter cannot do every job. Water brings together distinct treatments, each with a clear purpose—and room to adapt to the source.
Capture grit before it reaches the finer filters. Give targeted media time to work. Protect clean storage. Finish with monitored UV close to the outlet. Then take drinking water through its own distillation and finishing path.
Follow a drop throughFROM SOURCE TO FAUCET
Fast intake. Deliberate treatment.
Two ways to finish.
A BETTER START
Screens and a vortex separator intercept coarse debris before two 5-gallon raw-water kegs buffer the fast fill. Fine prefilters protect the stages ahead.
When needed, a separate flow-through ceramic pretreatment module captures fine suspended solids, with optional inline ferric coagulation. Automatic purge removes solids; no batch settling step is selected.
Conditional conditioning and softening are selected for the source. The interactive tour groups stages; the full sequence appears below.
Intake: 20-mesh suction screen → intake pump → 40-mesh Y-strainer → vortex separator → 100 µm strainer → 2 × 5 gal raw kegs.
Slow treatment: treatment pump & restrictor → optional sand/garnet → 25 µm cotton → 15 & 5 µm canisters → conditional inline coagulation/contact/additional ceramic MF or UF → optional early UV (no safety credit) → source pH conditioning & conditional Birm → 28-column media cassette → conditional lead/guard softener → 5 µm & 1 µm fines filters → booster → pressure ceramic → two 50 nm UF elements in parallel → 4 × 5 gal treated kegs.
Household: delivery pump/accumulator → monitored UV → short distribution to cold taps/toilet and tankless heater for hot taps/shower. Initial combined peak cap: 3 US GPM.
Drinking: treated storage → distiller → free atmospheric receiver → sanitary transfer pump → coconut GAC/fines retention → optional calcite/fines retention → 2.5 gal drinking keg → chiller → independent monitored UV → short faucet connection. Initial cap: 1 L/min.
THE COMPLETE PICTURE
Continuous pretreatment.
Serial media. Parallel UF.
Two independent delivery finishes.
Flow animation explains routing, not measured performance. Carbon remains before final UV. The upstream clarification module is additional to the downstream parallel UF pair. The still discharges freely into an atmospheric receiver before sanitary transfer. Source-dependent modules and detailed sanitation circuits require final hardware selection.
ONE SYSTEM. TWO PRIORITIES.
The extra work belongs where
it makes the most difference.
Layered filtration, buffered storage and final UV support the water you use throughout the day. Stored water separates quick demand at a tap from the slow contact time the media needs.
15 gal/day is the total treatment budget, including service and drinking-branch feed. Storage and peak flow do not increase daily production.
Distillation adds a separate barrier for many nonvolatile dissolved contaminants. Coconut carbon, optional mineral finishing and chilled storage sit upstream of independent final UV.
Distillation requires energy and scale management. Volatile carryover, hygienic transfer and finished-water quality still need verification.
A LOOK INSIDE THE CASSETTE
PURPOSEFUL MATERIALS
Metal housings, ceramic elements and replaceable media make the design tangible. Sample points between lead and guard beds help reveal when targeted treatment needs service.
Low plastic is a design priority, with explicit exceptions for seals, pumps, some sensor bodies, gas-filter membranes and source-specific resins. Each exception earns its place.
Media are replaced on loading, breakthrough or hygiene needs, with 90 days as the maximum cassette age—not a guaranteed capacity.
DESIGNED AROUND YOUR SOURCE
Broad-source ambition.
Source-specific treatment.
Catalytic carbon and GAC address specified disinfectant, taste and organic targets when the exact media, contact time and capacity are suitable. Source testing determines whether additional treatment is needed.
The main train retains most dissolved salts. Nitrate, PFAS and other specific contaminants need a qualified configuration and target-specific verification.
Source examples describe design intent. Acceptance depends on chemical and microbial testing, component inlet conditions, capacity and assembled-system qualification.
KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING
Arduino-compatible instruments are planned for flow, pressure, pH, conductivity, turbidity, levels and leaks. Hardness needs its own measurement. Factory UV health and independent outlet closure remain essential.
Sensor values help control the process. They cannot prove the absence of microbes, arsenic, PFAS or every chemical contaminant.
Flow · pressure · pH
turbidity · conductivity
Calibrated limits
valid data · UV health
Divert · isolate
close affected outlet
GOOD DESIGN SHOULD BE OPEN
Explore the components.
Understand the tradeoffs.
These are historical USD component allowances from the engineering design, using supplier snippets and estimates recorded in October 2026. Expand any row for the component lead, source and exclusions.
A complete system price depends on the source configuration, final hardware and qualification. Several required items are still unpriced.
The 28-column cassette and media fill; gas handling, sanitation and sampling; exact controls, analyzers, protection valves and power system; drinking transfer hardware and compact UV; and any source-specific clarification, Birm, nitrate or softening modules still need firm configurations and pricing. Filters below include these unpriced groups individually.
A FEW GOOD QUESTIONS
The dedicated drinking distiller can reduce many nonvolatile dissolved contaminants to low levels, which overlaps with RO's purpose. The main media/ceramic/UV train does not provide RO's broad dissolved-salt separation. Exact water quality depends on the assembled system and source; neither pathway is a guarantee against every contaminant. A whole-system RO-equivalence claim would be premature.
There are several. Sodium- or potassium-cycle ion exchange actually removes calcium and magnesium, and is the present reference for hard sources. NF/RO also reduce hardness, with membrane, pressure and reject-water tradeoffs. Continuous lime/soda or pellet softening can precipitate hardness but adds chemistry and solids management. Distillation separates hardness in the drinking fraction; scaling and energy make whole-demand use a different proposition.
“Salt-free” scale-control devices, TAC and magnets are not credited as hardness removal. The reference softener uses two 1.5 L lead/guard resin beds, but geometry and capacity need qualification. Illustrative lead-bed service is only about 2–3.5 days at 500–300 mg/L hardness and the 15 gal/day basis—not 90 days.
No. A suitable ceramic microfilter can capture coagulated solids; UF is not inherently required for that job. Conventional granular filtration is another established route. A published continuous pilot used 0.3–0.5 µm silicon-carbide ceramic with inline coagulation, but that larger pilot used PACl and active cleaning. It does not establish the same chemistry, flow or performance for this small ferric-based design.
A cheap household ceramic candle is not automatically suitable for sustained floc loading or backwash. Select for retention, effective area, seals, ferric residual, sustainable flow and cleaning. This upstream clarification duty is additional to the existing downstream UF pair. Read the ceramic pilot report ↗
The proposed options are potable-grade ferric chloride (FeCl₃) or ferric sulfate (Fe₂(SO₄)₃). They form iron-hydroxide flocs that help gather suitable fine particles and organic color for filtration. Dosing consumes alkalinity and can lower pH; chloride or sulfate remain dissolved. Ferric chloride is not chlorine disinfection. No synthetic polymer flocculant is selected.
Coagulant is used only when the source benefits from it. Metered dosing, mixing, contact and ceramic capture operate in a flow-through train, with isolated purge to waste. There is no batch mix/settle/decant step.
Carbon serves useful taste and targeted chemical functions. It has finite capacity and can support microbial growth, so both the main polish and drinking polish remain upstream of final delivery UV. Protected storage, cleanable short connections and a complete sanitation routine address the other clean-side surfaces. UV does not sanitize tank walls or provide a lasting residual.
Yes. Optional calcite remineralization can buffer distilled water and add minerals. The nominal finished-water pH target is 7.2–8.0, within an outer 6.5–8.5 acceptance band and all relevant component limits. Alkalinity, hardness and stagnation need control too. This is a taste and materials choice; a higher pH is not an established general health advantage.
This is an engineering design preview, not an available finished product. The complete assembly has not been built, tested or certified. Exact source conditioning, hydraulics, compact drinking UV, controls, sanitation, power/waste routing and costs remain to be completed. Component-level certifications do not certify this custom system.
The useful next milestone is a fully specified, serviceable assembly followed by source-to-faucet chemical and microbial validation—including storage, stagnation and fault behavior.
THOUGHTFULLY ENGINEERED. OPENLY EXPLAINED.