How to Make a Water Filtration System

You can make your own filter to purify your drinking water.

To be healthy, we all must have clean, pure water to drink. Though tap water must pass through rigorous filtration processes imposed by your municipality before it comes out of your faucet, it certainly isn't as pure as it could be. After all, your city cannot control the impurities in the pipes within your home. With a few common and inexpensive materials, you can make a water filtration apparatus that will remove potentially harmful particulates from your drinking water.

Things You'll Need

• Two-liter bottle
• Coarse gravel
• Fine gravel
• Granulated charcoal
• Coffee filter
• Cotton balls
• Scissors
• Plastic clamp

Instructions

1. Remove the cap from the two-liter bottle.

2. Cut the top third of the two-liter bottle neatly off. Invert it and slide it into the bottom portion of bottle so that there is still plenty of empty space below the inverted spout in the bottom portion to collect filtered water. Clamp the inverted top portion in place with the plastic clamps.

3. Spread a layer of cotton balls down inside the neck of the inverted bottle. Be sure the cotton completely covers the opening of the neck.

4. Spread a layer of charcoal on top of the cotton balls. Then spread a layer of fine gravel over the charcoal. Finally, spread a layer of coarse gravel over the fine gravel.

5. Lay a coffee filter across the top of the coarse gravel.

6. Fill the remaining space in the top portion of your bottle with water. The water will filter through the layers of gravel and charcoal and collect in the bottom portion of the bottle.

Tips & Warnings

• Untreated gravel from the hardware or pet store will work fine. Before you add the gravel to your filter, you may want to boil it or wash it with a disinfectant to make sure it is sterile. If you wash it with a disinfectant, rinse it thoroughly before adding it to your filter.

• If the collected water isn't perfectly clear, run water through the filter a few more times. Drink only clear water from the filter.

• Remember that this filtration system will not remove bacteria from the water. You will need to boil the water if bacteria is a concern.

References

• Heartspring: Guide to Water Filters
• All Water Purification: Homemade Water Filters