Should I toss my sawyer squeeze?

does it smell like mold?  if not, maybe don’t worry about it?

the tubes inside the filter are pretty small and won’t dry out.  Maybe if you pump air through it it would.  If you backflsuh with city water, that has some chlorine.

backflush the Squeeze.  try squeezing water.  if it seems to work it’s probably okay.

if water squeezes easily through it its probably broken, like from freezing, but it’s hard to tell that

if the befree works, just get rid of squeeze?

I’m happily on the one BeFree/year plan myself.

I’ve backflushed the squeeze last weekend and didn’t smell anything. I’ll try to actually use it. Broken and mold are two different things though . . . I’m leaning towards tossing it at the moment.

If there’s mold, you’ll taste it. Luckily did a test run the night before a trip. I consider them semi-disposable.

Use Aqua Mira and don’t look back.  I grew sick and tired of finicky filtration systems and sorry I wasted years with them.

AM drops are OK. Iodine works OK. Bleach works OK. But these are chemicals. As I remember they do not recommend any of these (except chlorine treatments) on a continuous basis. But like Randy, I was tired of the wait times, the finicky set-ups for filters with tubes and connectors, and the sheer weight of a pump besides the unreliability of filters. Get a Steripen.

With a spare set of batteries, it weighs less than 4oz, adds nothing to the water, and saves carrying water where it isn’t needed. The risk of breaking the ‘pen is about the same as screwing up a filter on a trip. It works as close to instantaneously as it gets (~40-45 secs for a half liter) for little effort. It works great in the ADK’s where I often only carry a half liter between watering holes. With no more fiddling than simply pressing the button.

Regarding Mold…by back flushing and treating with few drops of bleach, you should not have any mold in your Squeeze.

The hollow plastic tubes inside don’t provide anything for bacteria or mold to feed off of to grow/survive.

The water back flushing the filter should remove any physical material that mold could grow on.

The bleach should kill off any remaining residues that might allow for stuff to grow on.

Essentially, two things will destroy your Squeeze or Mini….freezing that causes the plastic water filled tubes to expand with ice and breaking them. The other is damaging your exterior plastic housing so that there is a leak between the dirty and clean water sides of the filter.

I have been using different versions of the Sawyer since 2008-2009 without a failure.

I love the BeFree, but recognize its failures and limitations….mainly, it cannot be back flushed in the field.

Hope that helps.

Tony

I didn’t think the better could be backflips he’d at all just have water shaken around it.

I have a steripen and I do love it, batteries are a pain though. I don’t like to bring anything that requires power if I can avoid it.

I like to be able to use water right away rather than wait thirty minutes for treatment to work.

I’ll do a taste test on the squeeze to see if it’s ok.

I agree with Katherine, at ~$40 they are a consumable product.  For 6 years, it cost you less than $7/year without doing much to it.  Buy a new filter and cut apart the old filter and share the results.  Then follow the recommended cleaning procedure.  My 2 cents.

If you can taste the water and it feels moldy, yes I would toss it, if not, I would still use it.
If you want to be safe, you can get a new one on Amazon for just $23. (tip: wait for the 16th July this year for the PrimeDay to get it at a discount.)

In Canada they usually go for around 50 bucks.

IIRC – Someone on BPL cracked open a Squeeze a couple years ago that was treated in the same manner. It had a red substance all over the filter media. I don’t think we ever deternined exactly what it was, but….Yeah, you’re probably drinking mold. Just run bleach through it and your good.

Ryan

I’ve found that soaking the filter in warm water for 15-20 minutes and then shaking it out clears more debris than back flushing.