Playtpus Gravityworks Filter Review

Simply brilliant -that’s the summary.

I have spent countless hours crouched down by a stream trying to avoid getting a soaker or falling in and having to guide the pump hose inlet to a clean spot while  pumping, only to have a small stream very slowly filling up my Nalgene or hydration pack.  With the Gravityworks filter, that is no longer a necessity in the backcountry.

With Gravityworks, you just have to scoop up some water in a bag, hang the bag on a tree branch or put on an elevated rock, and the system will filter while you are off around camp packing/unpacking your gearor eating.  It really is that much simpler to end up with 4 litres of filtered water.  Not to mention it is lighter than most pumps.  If all that wasn’t enough to convince you this is a good thing, it also is a very convenient dispensing system when you hang the clean bag of water up on the tree after filtering.  This thing is great.

One useful trick to know with this system is to backflush the filter when hooking up a new bag of water to be cleaned.  It helps get rid of air bubbles in the filter for quicker flow.  It is also good practice to backflush a small amount of water at the end of filtering  water to clean the filter into the dirty water bag and dump out the little bit of water every time you filter, to maintain a clean filter.  Backflushing is simple practice.  When a little bit of water is in the cleanbag, simply raise that bag higher than the dirty water bag.  Or, just roll up the clean bag like a tube of toothpaste and apply a gentle bit of pressure on it to force water back through the filter towards the dirty water – you can see air bubbles coming out and see the filter contaminants come out as well into the dirty water.

Platypus also offers many replacement parts for this system so you won’t be stuck having to buy a whole new system if you lose or puncture anything.  Platypus also offers an add-on carbon filter if you want tasteless water as well (MEC doesn’t sell it, you’ll have to find it elsewhere).

After using this filter, I am ready to give away my older pump filters.  No more crouching, pumping and scrubbing  or disassembling to turn components around to backflush/clean required any more! Seriously, this is one of the best value added pieces of outdoor gear I have upgraded to this year.