Big Berkey Water Filter

Even in America, there is no guarantee of safe water. All it takes is one person throwing the wrong switch, one value opening or closing at the wrong time or one act of terrorism and the water supply to a large area can be tainted.

Plus there is the problem with the chemicals they put in the water to kill pathogens. A lot of those chemicals are something you do not actually want in your body. The government claims they are safe at the levels in our water, but there is nothing on the planet that is 100% safe for every person. Everyone has a different ability in how well they can tolerate chemicals building up in our body.

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About 25 or 26 years ago, Larry and I were at a gun show and were introduced to the Big Berkey Water Filter. We didn't buy one that day, but everything I was hearing sounded good. Back home, I started researching water filters and when you get down to the type and size of the contaminants it will filter out, this was by far the best one available.

Not the Cheapest Water Filter Around

Back then, it was over $400 to buy the setup with a set of 4 filters. Now they have changed things a little and you can run it with just one filter by plugging the extra holes. Most systems seem to come with two, but they are a good $100 to $150 less than what they were when I bought mine.

Saying they are not cheap is really no a true statement, depending on how you look at it. the initial outlay of cash is not cheap, but the cost per gallon of clean water is actually very cheap because the filters last so long and can be cleaned many, many, many times before having to be replaced.

How long to the filters last?

That depends on the water you are putting through the system. Disaster Rescue teams take Berkeys with them to disaster sites because they can literally scoop up water from a creek or lake, run it through the system and have clean water. But water like that will clog the filters much faster than city tap water.

If you are not on city water, I suggest to set up a simple pre-filter to remove larger contaminates first, then run that water through the Berkey.

Making a prefilter

You need 3, 5 gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottom of two of them. A bag of clean sand. Play sand is very cheap at Home Depot or Lowes. A few coffee filters. Several pounds of Activated Charcoal. A bag of polyester fibers like the one that go into aquarium filters or I have heard of people using the polyester fibers quilt and pillow makers use.

The top bucket is just sand, with the bottom of the bucket covered in coffee filters just to keep the sand from running through. The middle bucks also has coffee filters in the bottom, then a THICK layer of polyester fiber on top. You want a VERY thick layer because the Charcoal will go on top and it is very heavy. You want several inches of fiber to remove all the charcoal dust before it drains into the bottom bucket.

This system removes all the larger contaminants and kills the vast majority of bacteria. You then run the water through the Berkey to remove all the smaller particles.

NOTE: If you are using city water or well water you know is reasonably clean, you don't need to do the prefiltering. But, if you are using creek, lake or runoff water, your Berkey filters will last MUCH longer by using the prefilter.

When to change the filters

If you are using city water, and you wait to clean your filters until they pretty much stop allowing water through, they will last a VERY long time. We bought ours only a year or two after we married in 1990. I used the same filters until summer of 2015.

How you clean your filters plays a big part in how long they will last. I use ONLY the ceramic filters. I do not use the newer so called "black" filters. From everything I have read, they do not last nearly as long as the ceramics. The system works by allowing gravity to pull the water through the filter where the inside is hollow. This allows the water to flow into the bottom reservoir. This means the contamination being filtered accumulates on the outside of the ceramic filter.

As the contaminants build up, the speed at which the water is able to be pulled through the filter slows down and when it gets bad enough, it will stop allowing any water through.

By then, the filters look rather dark brown, but you can still feel the raw ceramic of the filter. The trick is to take an old cloth of some sort that you can throw away afterward and very gently rub it around the outside of the filter. Note that raw ceramic can scrape skin off your hands, so try not to touch the actual filter. Let the cloth do the work and you can toss it when you are done, because it will be shredded.

NOTE: You will never get the filter back to being the pristine white it was when you go it. The best you can hope for is a sort of tea colored brownish color. The longer you rub, the more of the ceramic you are rubbing off and the faster your filters will be used up.

I literally ran at least 1 to 2 gallons per day through mine for about 24 or 25 years before replacing my filters.

New Sink Side System

When looking for the best price to buy new filters, I saw Doulton now offers a system that hooks directly to your sink faucet. It uses the exact same filter as the Berkey. Now that Larry is gone, I use this system because just turn on the water and it fills itself. (hooks to your faucet with a hose, included).

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Until the Zombie invasion starts, it is a lot easier to use the sink model. But I still have my Berkey on a top shelf in the pantry. I have enough water hose to reach down to the creek near my house and a hand pump to pull it up to my house. Pour it in and have fresh water!

Look a Like and Similar Brands

While checking some facts for this article, I noticed there are some newcomers on the block with similar (looking) products. I have not done any research into them yet, but will do so as soon as I have time. You have to look hard at the testing results when comparing and that often requires trying to tease information out from multiple places and they really don't want you to be able to compare.

There may be a cheaper alternative available, but until I find micron size filtration ratings, price per cartridge and estimated life of cartridge on all the models, anything I said at this point would just be guessing.

I can vouch for the Big Berkey because I have been using on for over 25 years now.

For those that don't know Doulton and Berkey were the same company at one point. I don't know the whole story but the two split. Unless they have made changes in the last 3 years, most of the products you find under the Doulton name will work just fine on the Berkey products and probably visa versa.

ALWAYS price shop

There are MAJOR differences in price of these systems. If you click the source image for the first photo on this page, that is one I saw on Amazon with 4 filters for $239. But I saw others closer to $400 for the exact same thing. Often I have seen people on Ebay selling systems, so always check there before deciding which you plan on buying.

NOTE: The link to the Amazon system will NOT pay me anything if you purchase from them. I do not participate in their program, so check for the best price you can find, That link it just so you can see they are much cheaper than what I paid 25 years ago.

Disclaimer: Everything in this article is my own personal opinion taken from my own personal experiences. Any website I visited while writing this article was simply to verify that my memory was correct so no credit is needed.