History of Rotorflush

The Idea:

Rotorflush Filters was started by Jim Hosford in 1995 to commercialise a very simple self cleaning filtration system that he had developed to solve a problem pumping waste water from his dairy farm.
The filter supplied with the pump kept blocking every hour with straw and cow manure making the system unusable
He came up with a simple self cleaning filter, fitted to the suction hose of the pump with an internal cleaning rotor which used a proportion of the output of the pump to continually backwash the filter screen. This worked even better than he had hoped. The filter worked almost continually for 2 years before eventually the tank from which it was pumping needing cleaning out, owing to the build up of solids backwashed from the filter.

First Prototype(1994)	Production version on first customer's pig unit, waste water lagoon (1996)
Close up showing filter backwash on pig unit waste water lagoon (1996)

Competitions:
In 1995 the original prototype was entered into the Farmers Weekly Invention competition, (a farming magazine in the UK), it won first prize in its class. Other farmers were soon asking him if he could make one for them. So, with the help of a local foundry, in 1996, the first production models were produced for farmers. The production version was entered for the Douglas Bomford Award for innovation where it was awarded second place. In 2000 the pond filter (see below) was awarded Millenium Product status and was exhibited at the Millenium Dome in London.

Diversifying into other areas
In promoting the product at agricultural shows around the country, Jim was constantly being asked if he could do a small one for garden pond pumps, as they also were getting blocked with algae and weed found in all ponds. In 1999 a small plastic injected model was produced and introduced into the garden pond market, in 4 years has sold over 60,000 units. Other areas where the filters are used are Lorry washes, vegetable washers, extraction of river water for irrigation, recycling of sewage water for washdown to name a few.

What are we doing now
We have developed more products for the industrial and waste water sector, please click on products to see what we are up to.

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