If there were an emergency or disaster, where would your family’s water supply come from? You can only store so much water in your home. If you were forced to go in search of water, how would you know it was safe to drink?
As part of your family’s emergency preparedness planning, it’s imperative to procure a good water filtering system. There are many to choose from, but one of the most reputable is Berkey Water Filters.
We have the Berkey shower head filter (amazing – my hair has never felt better), but only recently had the opportunity to give the drinking water filter a try. I was sent a Royal Berkey Water filter to review several years ago – and we’re still using it seven years later.
Choosing a Water Filter
When considering a water filter for emergency preparedness, it’s imperative to ensure it can purify not only treated (tap) water, but untreated water from such sources like remote lakes, streams and stagnant ponds. It’s also important to choose a filter that does not rely on electricity to function. The Berkey filter meets both of these criteria.
The Berkey System completely removes pathogenic bacteria, cysts and parasites while extracting harmful chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, organic solvents, VOCs, radon 222 and trihalomethanes. It also reduces nitrates, nitrites and harmful minerals like lead and mercury. I was fascinated to read that the system is so powerful it can remove food coloring from water without removing the beneficial minerals your body needs! That is pretty amazing.
The standard setup does not remove fluoride, but you can add up to 4 PF-2 Fluoride and Arsenic Filters to the lower chamber of this system if you want to be able to remove those chemicals. I’d personally like to pick up a couple of those filters.
The Royal Berkey Water Filter System is made of polished 304 stainless steel (it definitely shows the kiddos fingerprints) and comes with 2 Black Berkey purification elements. However, you can expand it up to 4 purification elements. With just the 2 elements, it can purify up to 4 gallons of water per hour, whereas if you expand it to 4 elements, it allows you to purify up to 8 gallons per hour.
Is It Worth The Investment?
I know a lot of people look at the initial cost and think it’s too much, but break it down this way and you’ll see it’s actually quite inexpensive. A set of 2 Black Berkey Water filters last up to 6,000 gallons. If your family uses 10 gallons of water per week, that equals more than 11.5 years of pure drinking water.
To break it down even further, at that rate of use, 1 gallon of water purified with a Berkey filter costs you only 1.7 cents! If you add the fluoride and arsenic filters, 1 gallon of Berkey water will cost you just 7 cents. Compare that to grocery store water (that’s stored in plastic), and it’s a no brainer.
Setting Up The System
Getting the system set up is relatively easy. First, you just wash everything out really well to make sure you’re starting with a clean environment. Then you attach the handle to the lid and the spigot to the lower chamber.
Screw the filter elements to the upper chamber and cap off the 2 holes where you can expand the system. Then place the upper chamber on top of the lower chamber and fill it with tap water. Put the lid on and wait about an hour and you’ll have clean drinking water!
Since we recently moved, we still didn’t have our normal water filter hooked up yet and we had been drinking tap water. There is a very noticeable difference in the taste of the tap water compared with the water coming from the Royal Berkey Water Filter – much cleaner.
It is much larger than I was expecting, but it works relatively well on the counter next to our refrigerator. Since it’s just sitting on the counter, the girls love being able to help themselves to clean water without having to ask for help.
Purchasing a Berkey System
There are several models of Berkey Water filters to choose from. Visit the Berkey Filters website today to get the one that’s right for your family. You don’t want to be caught in an emergency situation without a source of clean water for your family! And they make great everyday water filters too. Ours has been going strong for seven years!
