Eliminate Filter Maintenance Costs Once And For All

Polly Stenberg, Director of Sales with Forsta Filters, explains how self-cleaning filters significantly cut costs and reduce maintenance for industrial, municipal, and irrigation applications.

The following is an excerpt from a Q&A with Water Online Radio. Click on the Radio Player above to hear the full interview.

Water Online Radio: How does Forsta Filters serve the water industry?

Polly: Forsta Filters manufactures self-cleaning screen filters that operate on system pressure. The main thing for our customers is that there is no interruption of their main system flow during this backwash. This technology decreases downtime and service and reduces wastewater. There are a lot of great benefits.

Water Online Radio: How does a self-cleaning filter work?

Polly: It’s entirely automated. So basically, you have the inlet and the outlet of the filter where water is coming in. At the same time, water is exiting the filter, and we are constantly monitoring the pressure between these two points on the filter. When it reaches a certain point, which typically tends to be 7 psi, it will trigger this automatic cycle.

On our normal series of filters, a pressure drop in the hydraulic motor chamber initiates the cleaning cycle. We also have a low pressure series where the cleaning cycle is operated by an electric-driven motor.

Water Online Radio: I love the idea that it’s completely automated. What kind of maintenance is involved?

Polly: A couple of times a year, we recommend that you open up the filter for periodic checking of things such as the “O” rings and the seals. But there is no routine as far as day-to-day or month-to-month maintenance. You just want to check it out now and then. For that reason, our components are designed to be very easy to pull apart.

Water Online Radio: Can you share some of the applications of these self-cleaning filters?

Polly: Self-cleaning filters have applications in three main areas. We have industrial customers that use them in cooling, affluent treatment, and equipment protection. In the municipal sector, we work with wastewater treatment and drinking water treatment. In the wastewater sector, we are typically found in the secondary or tertiary phase of the wastewater treatment depending upon the plant. Forsta filters are also used with the reuse of non-potable water within the plant for rinsing of different types of equipment.

Water Online Radio: There are lots of different filter technologies. Why should I choose Forsta?

Polly: Forsta set out to build a robust piece of equipment that includes the most important components of this automated technology without any extra bells and whistles that would overcomplicate it for the user. We stuck to the basics. We made components very hardy so they have a long life and they will contribute to the sustainability of an overall system.

Water Online Radio: What advantages does Forsta have over other self-cleaning screen models?

Polly: We work specifically with stainless steel, and we also offer a variety of higher-grade alloys including 326 instead of a typical 304. We also debuted a line of self-cleaning filters from FRP that are fiber glass-reinforced plastic.

We have reduced flush volumes and shortened the backwash cycle. We also are working on custom-engineered filters and skid-mounted filtration packages unique to the needs of a particular customer.

Water Online Radio: Particularly in the municipal market, folks are really focused on cost. Talk more specifically about the financial impact of the upfront cost, acquisition, and implementation as well as operations and maintenance with self-cleaning filters.

Polly: Customers will make a slightly larger investment for a self-cleaning filter versus a bag or a cartridge, but they can see the return on that investment very quickly because there are no disposable parts on a self-cleaning filter. The filter that you buy is essentially the filter you will have for the life of it. There are small things that need to be replaced, but they are very inconsequential in terms of the ongoing cost.

You reduce operator cost because you don’t have to have someone to shut down the system and pull out a bag or a cartridge. You also don’t have to shut down the system, so you don’t have any downtime in terms of operation of the system or ongoing routine maintenance...

Click on the Radio Player above to hear the full interview.