How long do Carbon Filters last?

My Boat had one, installed in an inaccessible place. It stupidly had no drain plug, so it froze, and burst several winters ago. I bypassed it, so now have no filter. However, we drink very little direct from the tank, and we do use our boat, so the water in the tanks doesn't get much chance to go stale. We're still here to tell the tale.
 
My wife, many years ago, worked doing water analyses for a UK water company. She refuses to drink un-boiled water, though to some extent, that's a conditioned reflex from having been brought up in Hong Kong, where it is definitely a good idea to boil drinking water. However, there are bugs in drinking water; the regulations simply provide a limit that should not be exceeded. That limit is low enough to mean that infection from drinking water is unlikely - but it isn't impossible, especially for people with compromised immune systems. And of course, bugs may multiply in stored water - we use water purification tablets to avoid that on the boat. Now, you may say she's over-reacting - but she does have the knowledge and experience to judge for herself. She has a long-term heart condition, and has to be more careful than most.

Taste is totally unreliable as a means of determining water quality. As others have noted, the pump that caused the outbreak of Cholera investigated by John Snow in 1854 was favoured by the local people as tasting better than other water supplies! A level of contamination that could cause an infection is well below the threshold of our rather poor sense of taste.

In general, I am happy with "water at the burn" as long as I know there's no settlement upstream. Basically, only human contamination is likely to cause infections, and water that is aerated by passing over waterfalls etc. is likely to be pretty clean.
 
My favourite burn water is from "The Mad Burn" at Loch na Cuilce, in Loch Scavaig. Yes, draw your own conclusions!
Actually there is very little plant growth there, and only a very few deer, and the water just runs straight down off the rock, so little risk of contamination.
 
ghostlymoron said:
The fluoride is added where requested by the local health authority and has nothing to do with disinfection. In the UK , there will always be some residual chlorine in drinking water at the point of supply. So, provided the supply hose and the boats tankage and plumbing is clean, its quite safe to drink it. You should run water to waste from the supply hose before putting it in the storage tank. Buying bottled water or using clear bottles for drinking is unnecessary in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I made no ref to disinfection.
 
Interesting discussion. Life of filter clearly depends on volume through it. It's years since I changed the filter. I have made carbon filters out of carbon from pets r'us put in ladies' tights and plastic tubing. We've drunk the marina water all round the Med. We (2 of us) use 40 l a day in total when it is freely available (includes washing clothes, warm climate). On passage 50% of that. That excludes virtual water. See this for more about virtual water http://www.angelamorelli.com/water/#.UmEvJeMvpAw.facebook
 
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