Pressure Sand Filters (PSF) for Water Treatment
Pressure sand filters for borewell, tanker and surface water: what a PSF removes, how it is sized by flow, backwashing, and where it sits ahead of RO and softeners.
- Pan-India installation & service
- AMC support available
- Free site water-quality audit
- Custom-engineered to your TDS
- Capacity range
- 25 – 4,000+ LPH
- Indicative capex
- On design basis
- Installation lead time
- 48 – 72 hours
- Annual AMC
- 10 – 14% of capex
A pressure sand filter is a closed vessel filled with graded sand and gravel that removes suspended solids and turbidity from raw water. It is the standard first stage on borewell, tanker and surface water before a softener, an activated carbon filter or an RO plant.
It is sized by flow: the vessel diameter is chosen so the water passes through the sand at the designed filtration rate, and the plant's peak flow sets the diameter. Too small a vessel for the flow lets turbidity through and blocks quickly.
Sand filters are cleaned by backwashing — reversing the flow to lift and flush the trapped dirt. Manual multiport valves need an operator; automatic valves backwash on a timer or pressure drop.
Sand filter, multimedia filter or both?
- A single-media sand filter is simple and cheap and handles moderate turbidity.
- A multimedia (multigrade) filter layers anthracite over sand and garnet, holding more dirt per backwash and producing lower turbidity — the usual choice ahead of RO.
- Very fine or colloidal turbidity, common on monsoon surface water, may need coagulation or ultrafiltration as well.
Note
Installation, commissioning and service response
Commercial buyers are buying uptime, so the commercial terms matter as much as the equipment specification. Insist on these being written into the purchase order rather than discussed verbally.
- Site survey and feed-water analysis before the final quotation — never accept a specification produced without a water report.
- Defined commissioning scope: civil and electrical prerequisites, who supplies what, and a documented performance test at handover.
- Written service response times, with escalation, and clarity on whether spares are held locally.
- Operator training and a laminated SOP left on site, so routine flushing and cartridge changes do not depend on one person.
- Warranty terms stated separately for membranes, pumps, vessels and instrumentation, because they differ.
What a quotation includes
- Raw-water turbidity and TSS review
- Vessel sizing by peak flow and filtration rate (FRP or MS, rubber-lined where required)
- Graded silica sand and gravel media
- Manual multiport or automatic backwash valve
- Pressure gauges, sampling points and commissioning
Why specify with us
Low total cost of ownership
High-rejection membranes, correctly sized pre-treatment and efficient pumps reduce power draw, consumable spend and reject volume. We quote five-year operating cost alongside capex, because that is the number that actually matters.
Heavy-duty SS-304 / SS-316 build
Corrosion-resistant stainless chassis and wetted parts engineered for continuous 24/7 duty, with SS-316 specified where chlorides or process chemistry demand it.
Rapid on-site servicing & AMC
Pan-India installation and service, with written response times and escalation in the AMC rather than verbal assurances — because plant downtime, not the repair, is your real cost.
Custom TDS tuning
Systems engineered against your actual water analysis — brackish groundwater, municipal supply or heavy borewell input, including high-TDS configurations for 3,000+ ppm feed.
Treatment architecture
- 1
Pre-treatment module
Multigrade sand and activated carbon filtration strips suspended solids, turbidity and chlorine that would otherwise oxidise the RO membrane.
- 2
Softening / antiscalant dosing
Protects membranes from calcium and magnesium scaling. On hard feed water this stage is not optional — it determines membrane life.
- 3
High-pressure RO module
Heavy-duty booster pumps drive feed water through industrial spiral-wound membranes at 12-18 bar in an array sized for your recovery target.
- 4
Post-treatment disinfection
UV disinfection and ozonation, with mineral dosing where potable taste and consistency matter.
- 5
Microprocessor / PLC controls
Auto start-stop on tank level, dry-run protection, high and low pressure cut-offs, and timed membrane flushing — with data logging on industrial plants.
Frequently asked questions
What does a pressure sand filter remove?
How often should a sand filter be backwashed?
What is the typical lead time for commercial installation?
Do you offer Annual Maintenance Contracts (AMC)?
Need a quote for pressure sand filters today?
Share your water analysis report and output requirement, and our technical team will build a system specification with capex, five-year operating cost and AMC options.