Hydronix HF2-5CLWH12, 5' Clear Housing with White Flat Cap For RO & Filtration Systems, 1/2' Ports

The pipe thread holes for the pipe nipples must be slightly over size because it took 10 wraps of Teflon tape to keep them from leaking. After that, no problems. It even mounted right to my original bracket.

OK, so I saw the 1 star reviews saying it leaked, but decided to give it a try anyway since other reviewers who purchased the same basic product, but with different npt port sizes, didn't seem to have this problem, so I thought perhaps these occasional leaking problems were...occasional. Should have thought a bit harder. Mine leaked immediately upon installation, where the filter sump screws onto the cap. It also leaked from the female npt ports in the cap where I installed appropriately (i.e., nominally) sized, teflon-taped NPT brass male fittings. I noticed before installing the latter that the female NPT fitting in the cap appeared to have a lot of play (i.e., I could hand tighten the male NPT fitting almost all the way in), which I figured was from a sloppy and slightly oversized mold during manufacturing. As a result I wrapped the threads on the male NPT fitting with about 7 wraps of teflon tape before installing. Still leaked. So to try to solve this I disassembled, cleaned the threads, and rewrapped with the same number of wraps of teflon tape and then put pipe dope on the tape. This fixed one of the fittings, but one still leaks, so I'll have to take it apart again and use pipe dope and wicking to see if this will stop the leaking. Old-Timer solution, but hey- if that's what it takes to make it work, I'm all for it. Now returning to the other leak between the sump and the cap. Took it apart, lubricated the O-ring with food-grade silicone grease, reinstalled and repressurized (55 psi). Still leaked. Then when taking it apart I carefully inspected the O-ring and found it was flattened. Ahah, I said to myself, this was surely the problem. The unit had likely been sitting in the warehouse for so long, tightened up, that it must have deformed the O-ring. This would therefore explain the leaking seen by other reviewers. So I searched for a replacement O-ring on Amazon (where I also purchased the filter housing). Nope!!! So I contacted Hydronix Customer Service to ask where to get one, when I also relayed my experience receiving a flattened O-ring. The representative did provide me with the replacement O-ring part number but was otherwise defensive, dismissive, arrogant, and generally unpleasant to even speak with. Anyway, I was able to find this O-ring replacement at one of the online storefronts dedicated to water filters. I bought a couple extra. When I received them, I carefully inspected for flatness (round! YES!!!), lubricated with silicone grease and made sure there were no stray fibers (or anything else that might interfere with the O-ring creating a good seal in the housing), cleaned the O-ring's channel in the filter sump, cleaned the mating surface in the cap, reinstalled hand tight, pressurized, still leaked. So then I bought Hydronix's wrench, cranked the sump onto the cap as tight as I could, and still leaked! All I can say after all this is I must have received a defective housing (cap, sump, I don't know which). So, from the loose tolerances in the fitting, causing the female NPT holes to be slightly oversized, to the problems with the mating surfaces between the cap and sump NOT providing a tight seal onto the O-ring (not to mention receiving a flattened O-ring from the original purchase...), this appears to be poor quality control from a manufacturer that doesn't really appear to give a damn and puts arrogant customer service representatives on the other end of the phone lines to dismiss rightly dissatisfied customers. I would suggest finding a different product from a different company. Just sayin...

I was trying to replace the bottom part, but they wanted 30 bucks just for that. Found this one, and you get whole unit, exactly the same.

I found this filter housing to be of good quality, and it appeared to take the standard RV water filter well. Replacing the housing that came with my camper, it was slightly shorter and reused the original mounting flange effectively.The problem arises when you try and mount the coupling fittings to the new housing. There seems to be some variability from a standard fitting size in the manufacturing process. After applying way too much PTFE tape than should be necessary, over 10 wraps, I was able to get one fitting to seal properly. The second fitting would not seal with tape. I had to resort to using pipe fitting compound on the second fitting to get it to seal effectively. Overall it took me an extra hour installing and uninstalling several times to finally get it to seal properly.Even though this housing is much cheaper than the original, I cannot recommend it given the extra time it takes to get it to work properly.

I liked the fact this was fairly inexpensive. The description says "1/2 inch threads", which any normal person familiar with plumbing would assume is 1/2" NPT (tapered) female threads. I don't think this is the case. I think these are straight cut threads, which is why you can thread a 1/2" NPT male fitting all the way in by hand. The threads will never fully tighten. I used plenty of teflon tape, that didn't cut it. I ended up fitting an o-ring over the male fitting and squishing it tight. This did make a seal and is fine for my purposes (which is not the manufacturer's intended use, i'm doing a one-off) but I wouldn't trust this with 60psi of city water in my basement.

The “in” leaked slightly just added more plumbers tape and works