This blog was written in collaboration with AQUAlogic.nl
After oxygen, water is our greatest need: you can survive 46 to 73 days without food, but only about 100 hours without drinking water. Drinking water is becoming increasingly scarce in the world and even in the Netherlands the water boards can no longer always guarantee the quality of our drinking water. And what about locations where no connection to the water grid is possible and people want to live off-grid?
There is a growing demand for water filters for a variety of reasons. AQUAlogic.nl meets that demand and has been doing so since 2000, based on a clear mission that revolves around helping people. With the water filters from AQUA Logic you are always and everywhere assured of clean and safe drinking water.
Background: IBOTA Foundation and AQUA Logic
Peter Koelewijn is a ‘man with a mission’. While traveling through India in 1997, he saw with his own eyes how a large part of the population did not have access to clean drinking water. He felt something needed to be done and so he founded the IBOTA foundation, with the aim of making water filters available to people in need. The foundation runs entirely on volunteers and donations and 95% of all income goes directly to the projects. For just € 25,- you can donate a water filter that helps an entire family to clean drinking water. The company Innologic was born from the foundation, with its AQUA Logic brand, which is at the service of the foundation and its goals.
Peter is now at retirement age and can take it easy. Fortunately, he has found worthy successors in the brothers Ewout and Willem. Ewout and Willem have just as much passion for the mission of the foundation and the technology of water filtering as Peter and complement each other’s qualities perfectly: Willem is the technical whiz, Ewout is in his element when it comes to projects and communication. Peter is certainly not out of the picture yet, he likes his job too much to stay at home. But it’s nice to be able to take it easy and pass on his knowledge and experience to the next generation.
Clean water, not self-evident
Waterborne diseases are the number two cause of death worldwide, number one for children up to 5 years of age. People often don’t realize that they are sick from drinking contaminated water, because they often don’t get really sick until days after drinking it. Diarrhea and vomiting dehydrates you and that is what eventually kills you. This is often the case in third world countries, but also in disaster areas and even in Ukraine there are currently problems with the availability of clean drinking water as a result of bombings. Fortunately, the IBOTA foundation and AQUA Logic are also active there to help people by making water filters available.
But people going away on holiday also sometimes mistakenly believe that drinking water quality abroad is just as high as in the Netherlands, which can lead to serious health problems. It is partly because doctors at the GGD in Zwolle drew the attention of the recreation industry to this issue, why they started offering water filters. AQUALogic.nl offers various travel and built-in filters for campers and caravans.
Distinctive filter technique
There are several ways to filter water. You may have heard of ‘reverse osmosis’, and the use of UV light to filter water. However, these techniques have drawbacks: they often require a lot of energy and useful elements are filtered from the water in addition to harmful components.
Aqualogic believes in simplicity. It is even intertwined with the mission of the foundation: the water filters for emergency relief, which are also popular among the so-called preppers as emergency supplies, must meet the following conditions:
- Simple to use
- Can be used on its own, without electricity or water pressure system
- Low maintenance, no vulnerable technology
The filters are unique in the combination of activated carbon and an ultra-membrane filter in one. With the option of nano silver on the activated carbon cartridge, which has an anti-bacteriological effect, and a sediment filter sleeve around it, which in the case of the Siphon C-Ultra provides a 3-stage filter. This is a compact siphon drinking water filter. The same technique is used, for example, in the Gravity stainless steel C-Ultra drinking water filter.
With the use of Activated Carbon and Ultra-Membranes, all bacteria are stopped, but not the minerals are filtered out of the water. That is an important difference with some other filters that usually filter the salts and therefore minerals from the water. Your body does need those minerals and you actually have to add them back to the water. This is not necessary with an ultra-membrane filter from AQUA Logic. In addition, the filter works in such a way that it functions with the help of gravity or, in the case of built-in filters, with the help of water pressure, and therefore does not consume any energy.
The ultra-membrane filters consist of a bundle of straws whose walls have tiny holes of only 0.03 microns in size. Every bacteria is larger than 0.03 microns, so they can’t get through, but the clean water can. The carbon cylinder around it already stops most dirt and adsorbs harmful substances, so that the ultra-membrane needs to be replaced much less often. When the water flow slows down, you know it’s time to clean or replace the filter.
Applications for Tiny House residents
Off-grid water filtering
Reliable water filtration is, of course, indispensable for off-grid Tiny House residents who depend on ground or rainwater for their home water supply. AQUALogic.nl has a three phase system for the off-grid residents which they recommend in this situation, this filter can handle a more polluted water source just fine. The AQUA Logic Inline Water Purification System consists of a polypropylane sediment filter (10 microns) as a pre-filter, an activated carbon filter and the ultra-membrane filter. If surface water is filtered, the system can be expanded with an Inline Backwash Sediment Filter.
Tap water filtering for health concerns
But the interest in water filtering is also increasing among residents of Tiny Houses and other homes that are connected to the water network. Medicine residues and microplastics that the sewage treatment plant is unable to remove from the water are stopped by an AQUA Logic water filter. The ‘inline’ water filters such as the Tab C-Ultra can be mounted in the sink cabinet so that your tap water first goes through the filter and then comes out of the tap. Alternatively you can use the Tab C-Ultra model which you can connect directly to your tap.
Challenges and Solutions
AQUA Logic’s water filters are aimed at filtering water into high-quality drinking water with the lowest possible energy consumption. The filters work optimally when the flow of water is slow, the activated carbon is given time to absorb to the maximum.
In a Tiny House, however, people often also want to use the water for showering. Shower water doesn’t need to be of the same quality as drinking water, but it does have to be filtered. The 3-phase water filter system from AQUA Logic can therefore be divided so that the ultra-membrane filter only filters the water in the kitchen. You hang the first two filters in the technical room, and you hang the ultra-membrane filter in the kitchen cupboard. The first two filters are sufficient to filter the water for, among other things, the shower.
Custom made and personal advice
All parts of the AQUA Logic filters are made in the workshop in Heerde, or in the employment project they have set up in India. Part of the mission of the IBOTA foundation is to teach the people in the areas where the filters are used to manufacture the parts themselves. IBOTA partnered up with a foundation that takes women out of prostitution and offers them a full-fledged job, which can be making parts for the AQUA Logic filters. Peter made the machines they work with himself and taught the local people how to use them.
The AQUA Logic team knows from A to Z how their products are assembled and how they work and can supply custom-made products. In addition, they are happy to add their brainpower to your project to supply a suitable water filter system for your specific situation.
Of course you can also find Aqualogic on TinyFindy:
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