Discharge Filters are pretty much dictated by the particulate problems emmanating from the water source and the requirements dictated by the final water use, "we have this and we need that" type of situation.
To work backwards on the problem, we would consider the useage first; if you are using the water for general irrigation purposes and the water source is fairly clean, you might get by with just using either a suction filter or a Vu-Flow filter on the discharge side of your pump. Of course it is always better to use a suction filter, because they tend to be self-cleaning to some extent, they have a huge filtration area when compared to that of a (pump) discharge type filter and they provide a safety factor against any unusual intake of particulates. We do not recommend any type of cartridge filter for irrigation purposes because pressure loss is excessive, volume through is greatly cut down, and they tend to clog quickly.
Requirement for irrigation equipment in general is that all valves and heads will work fine and pass any paticulates that pass through a 60 mesh filter. Therefore 60 mesh filtration is appropriate and suitable for general irrigation purposes. If you are using drip-mist equipment with emitters and that sort of thing, then 100 mesh filtration is required. Keep in mind that you don't want to over-filter. In a general irrigation siuation, a 100 mesh filter would be over-filtering and would require cleaning a lot more often than a 60 mesh filter would.
In general, when pumping from a fairly dirty water source, it is better to pre-filter using a suction end filter, then also use a discharge filter with 60 mesh screen when using water general irrigation (sprinkler head) or a 100 mesh screen for drip-mist or domestic application where water treatment equipment isn't being employed. You will note that some of our Ultimate Filter suction-end filters have double or even triple screen for three levels of filtration that can be customized to fit your specific filtration requirements. When ordering suction-end filters with two or three (screen) levels of filtration, always order larger mesh outside, increasingly smaller mesh on the inner levels.
For instance, using the Ultimate Filter triple-screen model, then installing a 100 mesh Vu-Flow filter on the discharge side of your pump would allow you to take severly dirty raw water and use it for a properly designed drip-mist application without significant clogging problems.
If you have any questions on filter selection please give us a call at 352-573-7531
