P.S. Don't get me wrong. I know that some of you guys don't feel that the extra effort of building the pleated paper header is worth the effort to save $55 or so. And I can understand that (the day is coming when I might have to do that. As the kids get older I am finding far less time to go into the garage to do daddy stuff!). And I know I pointed out at least one instance of the UAT malfunctioning, but I am pretty sure that was an isolated incident or two and with the tens of thousands of UAT running hours out there, the difference in reliability between the two designs is likely a moot point. It really comes down to the money and the slight advantage with the pleated of being able to choose your own tank size. If you don't mind spending the extra cash (but trust me, it ain't buying you more reliability like some have suggested here, at least not if you build the pleated one right), then the UAT is the best solution for you. But I can not justify that since it does not take me very long to simply do it myself.

But anyway, to answer the original thread's question: "is a UAT really needed?" The answer is most assuredly NO! (but its a great solution, just not necessary).