Pentair Pentek 150470 Big Blue 10" x 4.5" Filter Housing, NSF Certified

It's been a while, but I needed a Big Blue housing for a project. I didn't even know if they were still available, but a quick scan and up pops this Pentek - It's gotta be Pen Pure - right? Wow they're still selling them! Price is right, ordered one right up, couple days later, another Amazon box.... When I saw "Pentair" on the label, I took a deep breath. Not made any better by the "Made in China" that followed. Oh-oh - this could be bad! Hmm.. looks pretty decent, No!, it's good! (Pentair is a huge industrial corporation, highly respected) I was in the commercial water treatment/RO business back in years ago, and the Pen Pure brand was well respected, as was their version of the standard Big Blue 4.5" (in 10 or 20") housing, often used as a prefilter for smaller commercial RO systems with a depth filter and a CBC to prep for a TFC membrane. That's what this is being used for, and I'm very happy to say, the quality is as good as they were back 20+ yrs ago. You can't say that about too many things that have aged that long and had their manufacture moved to China. I wish it was made in the US, but if it had, I doubt it would be sold at this price point. (We used to get a case of 4 for $99, and once in a while the wholesaler would throw in elements if you bought a few boxes) Small things tell you about quality, and how much a manufacturer cares about it. As always, I grabbed my silicone grease to lube the o-ring, and I also grease the threads lightly too to ease removal and prevent "plastic stick" which can be annoying on this size housing. Anyway, I opened it up and there was the o-ring (not in the groove, in the bowl - a good thing, so it doesn't take a set) and it was already lightly lubed up. A manufacturer that cares enough to do that cares about their product. Always, and still a Penn-Pure/Pentek/Pentair Big Blue customer. 5 stars across the board! Even "Flavor" - I assume they mean the water? That would depend more on the element than the housing, and raw water. One negative - No L bracket and screws with the housing. They used to come gratis, heck I had dozens of them floating around I didn't need, now think I can find one? Still giving five stars on "Ease of install" even though I should take one back, I figure these are available in 1" and 3/4" which saved me some grief. If you're listening, Amazon and Pentair, at least mark "bracket not included" and link one. They're not the same as a standard 10" x 2.5 one. The bolt pattern on a Big Blue is 3" x 3" with 4" to center to the bend - hope that helps someone out. (love that they kept the Imperial pattern) You can drill and tap 1/4npt for a gauge, and the original brackets are notched both sides to clear the bleeder and gauge (and allow 'flipping' if necessary) Bottom Line: These are a high quality housing at a fair price, and I highly recommend them.

I've had two of these installed in series as a whole-house water filtering system for just over a decade. One day I was reading that the manufacturer recommends replacing the housing every 10 years, and knowing mine were at least that old I thought I'd see if they're still available. They are, I purchased two new ones, and they appear to be exactly the same quality... pretty rare for so many products now-a-days that get worse yet more expensive with time. These things are really cost-effective, even if you toss them every 10 years or so. And it's easy to swap out filter elements if you use a little food grade silicon on the o-ring and threads and don't tighten them too much. I suspect my originals would have lasted forever as they are made really well... and I did put the old ones in a box to save them for an unlikely emergency. But with new ones I should be good to go for a long time. Highly recommended!

Great quality. Solid build and worked well with the components I used to build my filtration system.

This is different from my original one. The old housing required two O-rings and this new housing one requires one. It took me over two months to get an answer from the company and I found out that I have to replace the cap as this housing is not compatible with the old cap.

Local plumbing supply wanted 4x as much for this. It replaced the old cracking one which really should not have been failing in under five years, but this one has a relief valve too, so that’s nice.

I bought this as a pre-filter to my Aquasana EQ-1000 whole house filter. I also bought the Pentek 150237 10" Big Blue Filter Housing as a post filter to the entire system (I am using the same review for both since I had the same experience with both). I also bought the brackets for the Big Blue filters found here on Amazon. I live in an area that on a good day might get 50 psi of water pressure so I wanted to keep as much of the pressure as possible. Seeing as I was lucky enough to have a 1" service line on my house, I kept the plumbing 1" up until I got to my utility room. So the filter system would have to be before the utility room on the one inch line. Installation: to connect the housings to the supply lines, I used brass compression fittings. This would allow me to completely remove the individual housings should I even need to perform maintenance. These fittings were tricky to find as I had to go to a plumbing supply store to find them. So they thread into the housing and then compress onto the 1" supply lines. Whatever you use, make sure and use plumbing tape on the threads but not pipe dope. For some reason I was told not to use that. As for the brackets, if you do not get the screws needed to attach the housings to the brackets (and you do need the brackets), they are 5/16 1¼" long lag screws. The housings are not threaded to accept screws which is why you use lag screws. Once the bracket was in place, I set a 5/16" washer on the lag bolt and then used a socket wrench to slowly start tightening the bolt in place. Just be careful and go slow and it will go in straight. Repeat for the other three. To attach the bracket to the wall, you can 3/8" bolts whatever kind suits your method of attaching it to the wall. These have to be attached to the wall with preferably something sturdy either to the studs or a board attached across the studs. Use: once everything was connected, I washed my hands thoroughly and took the O-ring and silicone lubricant that came with the housing. I spread a thin layer of the silicone lubricant in the channel using about half of what came with it. I then seated the O-ring in the channel and pressed down all around. Then I used the rest of the lube on the top of the O-ring. In the future when changing the filters, I plan on reapplying the lubricant. You can find it in your local hardware store for under a buck. I dropped in my filter and screwed in the blue bottom of the housing to the top. Once it was hand tight, I used the filter wrench to give it a little tighten. It didn't turn very much with the wrench but it seated it firmly. Open any shutoff valves to the housing and check for leaks. If there are any, immediately shut off water to the housing and tighten up areas with leaks. Once you are leak-free, be careful with the red pressure relief button on the top! It doesn't take much relieve the pressure and water will start shooting out. With my entire system in place, I did not notice any loss in pressure so this worked exactly as expected!

One more update: I previously posted "27 micro mesh filter", which was a mental math error. The filter is supposed to be good to 5 Micron particles, which is about the size of fine dust. Sand, by comparison, is about 75 microns (which could be filtered out by a 200 mesh screen). With a 5 micron filter, NOTHING (sediment/sand/etc.) should be getting by this filter, but apparently, everything is. I've tried two different 5 micron filters. I've tried sealing the top and bottom (where the filter mates with the canister housing) with vegetable jelly/grease. I don't know what else to do but to chuck the whole Pentek housing and buy another product. This problem is ruining my tankless hot water heater, and every faucet is becoming clogged. It's a real disappointment. *********************************************** ******************************************************* Update: With two different cartridges, this filter DOES NOT do the job. I have a 27 micro mesh filter on my water heater filling with grit that a 5 micron filter in this casing is not capturing. Also, my faucets and shower heads are plugging up. Whatever this filter casing is designed to do, it's not sealing sufficiently with the filter to keep unfiltered water from passing through. I used " Icepure ICP-PPL10BB 10” x4.5” Universal Whole house big blue sediment pleated water filter compatible for Pentek S1 series" filters. Waste of money. Worse, it's a waste of time and doesn't do the job. *********************************************** ******************************************************* I'll give this a strong 4-star. It's a quality, well made product. However, there are a couple of things you need to know, that the advertising doesn't make clear. The ad talks about a predicted 0.5 psi drop, but that's likely measured WITHOUT a filter. I installed a pleated sediment filter, which research told me was likely the least restrictive filter. My city-provided water provides 53 PSI, which is just above the minimum for my Rinnaii tankless water requirement (minimum 50 PSI). Adding a pleated filter in this housing resulted in a 6-9 PSI drop to about 46-49 PSI. The water heater hasn't complained, but it was an unwelcome surprise (however, one which I probably should have expected). Second, and another review has mentioned this, the brass fittings installed with Teflon tape leaked, and leaked badly. I've R&R'd both intake and outtake fittings, using a plumber's trick of applying both pipe dope to the threads, coated with Teflon tape. I've had these kind of molded receivers leak before, and this has solved the problem, and so far, it looks like it's working here as well. There doesn't seem to be a crack in the tough plastic top at the intake/outtake, but it won't seal easily on it's own with just tape. Be forewarned. Other than that, it looks like very solid construction, which is what you must have if you're going to make this a part of your pressurized water system. If it "breaks", it could cause many $1000's in flooding. I'll follow up if anything changes, but I think we're "good" with this installation.

Great price and very easy to install. Works great!