Excellent deal at less than $2 each. Shipped amazingly fast! The item: open at each end BUT can be used in something like a Rainfresh whole house filter unit, with modification. Our Rainfresh units (we have 3 and bought the first one almost 20 years ago (still working well), take the 10" cartridge which has a plastic cap on the bottom and open on the other end. Filtration is accomplished by the incoming water supply traveling down the exterior of said filter, then getting sucked in through the filter and up through the center to its destination. The Express filters are open at each end so I just salvaged a pile of the sealed cap ends from previous Rainfresh filters and I use some clear Dow Corning aquarium grade silicone. ALL filters that connect to a head unit, require at least one opening and some of the filter housings often have an item at the bottom that looks similar to a base plug so the bottom of the filter is fully closed when it's standing in that unit and shoved up into the head part. We buy Rainfresh filters from Canadian Tire, 1, 5 or 30 micron for sediment and we filter the whole house and especially a water heater since sediment slowly builds up in there too. We sacrifice filters since they are often priced around $5 each and we want to prevent the brown water we sometimes get from our city treated water. Old pipes in the city's water works network, water main breaks every so often and sometimes when maintenance is done by them and the pipes get cleaned and flushed. Most sediment (iron pipe particles etc.) does get trapped by even the 30 micron type. So, 50 filters for less than $100 all told, will provide us with 50 months at $2 per month if we decide to just pitch one every 30 days. For our drinking water we rely on yet another Rainfresh unit but I use ONLY their filter which is a 5 micron with charcoal, exterior mesh around it etc. Looking very closely at the "woven" material of the Express ones and at 1 micron size, I know that they'll filter the sediment but because of the type of weave, they'll clog faster but also that they'll trap more than we're used to. The simpler Rainfresh ones appear to be composed of tiny beads which in my opinion, resemble styrofoam. The size of the Express ones should be noted. Exactly 9 7/8" in length, 2 7/16" measured across, the center hole is 1 1/16" across. This might matter to some and for the life of me, I can't understand why EXACT measurements almost never seem to be in order for or from most manufacturers. I've read that in the past some people may have tried using a filter cartridge that might not have been designed or intended to be used with a specific brand of filter unit so there were issues with how snug the item fit etc. In my case my goal is simple, filter the incoming water supply for JUST sediment and it won't reach anything in my home but there's a little FYI in advance for all. Quite recently there was a water main break in the neighbourhood and we first noticed that the toilets had water that appeared to be almost like black coffee. Those not around or using water for a time, might not experience it and since it happened late at night and we were one of the few who were up, we got an onslaught of the brown water. 5 hours with a tap running at full blast and finally cleared the excess of dirty water. Later on in the next night, same thing again. For the existing filters we had in use, none were able to halt that dirty water because they got hammered right away. Very few filters at even less than .5 (1/2 of a micron) would have been able to do so. We have actually looked into this a lot, I'm eventually going to find and/or purchase something like a .5 micron re-usable mesh type filter, maybe a screen of some kind. I know that there are options like this and have even seen something with multiple layers of different media that one can use. Swimming pool filters utilizing silica sand of a certain grade, do something similar. For us it's the sediment that bothers us and it's advice that all people everywhere should heed, NEVER take a drink from a tap late at night with the lights out because even our brown water didn't have much of a smell to it. We never drink from any taps in the house BUT the one in the kitchen that IS filtered with deluxe carbon etc. Vegetables can be washed as dishes can be too, from the lines with just sediment filtration. Lastly, I make my own wines, beer etc. and have filter pad setups to filter sediment but in the 5 years I've owned the contraption and multiple grades of media pads, I've never once used it since I allow for the natural process of the "garbage" in the wine process, to drop to the bottom before bottling. Works like a charm and it would work the same way IF one had days to wait for the sediment from a water supply to fall to the bottom too. I'm constantly looking for new ways to "invent the wheel" so I'm also going to look into making the "poor man's multi-stage filtration system" with something like the lesser expensive Rainfresh type units. The Express filters won't go bad or stale if left sealed and stored properly so to use even 2 or 3 in units per month at less than $120 per year is NOT an issue for me. Water supply systems are getting worse as the years go by, it will cost into the billions to completely replace any city's network of pipes etc. so one must take steps to clean up their own water. At the price of just a little over $100 in total< I plan on buying up a few hundred dollars more of these just to have enough to be able to replace one if I'm not happy about the colour I see in each. Added note many months after purchasing and using these Express filters, they usually last our household about 4-6 weeks and they do fall apart when removed and handled from filter housing. Left alone inside the canister, it isn't an issue until ready to dispose of them. I've noticed a huge difference for when I switch from these Express ones to Rainfresh 1, 5 or 30 micron types, there's am amazing amount of sediment one would never see with the naked eye if using larger pore type filtration.
