Comment by 🚀 lars_the_bear
Re: "I bought a Berkey gravity fed water purifier (vs/filter)…"
I have a hand-pumped filter, and I use it when I have to. But, frankly, I don't fully trust any of them. Few of them even claim to be able to remove viruses, which might explain @stack's experience.
But I'd take a filter over a worn hiking sock any day.
Mar 18 · 7 weeks ago
8 Later Comments ↓
👻 darkghost · Mar 18 at 16:30:
Hi, I have a background in this. The claims Berkey makes are very dubious to me. The fundamental technology is pressed activated charcoal. This is not a microbial filter. It does a good job removing certain chemicals and ions. Lead, pesticides, forever chemicals are all removed. The filter life depends very much on the water you put in. If you're cleaning up tap water, it will last a really long time. If you're putting muddy lake water in, it won't last nearly as long. Activated charcoal works by adsorbing (electrically sticking) chemicals. There's a finite number of sticky spots so more contamination uses it up faster. Beware that solvents like alcohol will knock things off back into the water.
If I'm lost in the woods, it beats questionable raw water from a puddle. Same for a life straw, which is a size exclusion filter that only filters biologicals.
If I'm trying to mitigate industrial pollution in my tap water, I'd take another strategy. Activated charcoal is one part of a good water purification system to do that. Here's my ideal system: Coarse size filtration (particulates), activated charcoal, ion exchange (Culligan Zerowater does this mostly), UV biological kill, reverse osmosis. Or skip all that and go right to stream distillation, which is energy intense and slow.
"But darkghost, I can't take all that stuff camping, it's way too much!" No worries. Keep your Berkey and just boil your water for a minute. If that's too much fuel add 8 drops of unscented household bleach per gallon (3.79L) to the water and let it sit for 30 minutes. You can do this before it goes into the Berkey and remove the chlorine smell and taste when you use the Berkey. It will have already killed the pathogens. Just maybe don't go camping downstream from an industrial plant, which is probably good advise no matter what.
🍀 gritty [OP] · Mar 18 at 17:19:
@darkghost thanks for the detailed input. I figured someone here would have some experience.
If you do all that filtering do you lose the "nutritional value" of the minerals in the water?
@stack I've not had that experience yet. hope it's not the food?
👻 darkghost · Mar 18 at 18:31:
The minerals will be filtered out. Their quantity was miniscule to begin with. A lot of the world drinks collected rain water and the fact that they do this isn't the reason they have nutritional deficiencies, so don't worry. If the water is too bland, a tiny amount of salt will improve the taste. Less than a pinch. You can also do this with sports drink powder but that is also likely to bring other flavors with it.
I use Culligan Zero (which actually results in water that reads 0 ppm solids), and re-mineralize it with a few drops of concentrated minerals.
For many years I had a reverse osmosis filter (which is technically better than Zero as it's the only way to remove chloramine) and neglected mineralizing, and 10 years later wound up with many cavities...
As for my berkey experience -- definitely water. My friends pump it out of a quarry, and it has a slight smell even after filtration. My body definitely says "don't do it" (I still drink it with predictable results). Oddly, my partner who has a much weaker stomach has no problems and says that she likes the water.
I personally don't think that berkey does anything at all. Given the amount of water that goes through and the suggested replacement period, I would be surprised if there is any noticeable filtration if you bother testing it. But that's just an opinion unsubstantiated by any hard data.
P.S. TMI but maybe not irrelevant:
To be fair, my better half has what I consider diarrhea every morning and more than once; it's the norm, so she probably wouldn't be able to tell if Berkey is making it worse.
I am the opposite and maybe with God's help produce an unflushable fece once a day. So I know right away something is wrong.
🍀 gritty [OP] · Mar 19 at 21:41:
hey it's natural. good context and good use of fece
You got me. Mainly wanted to use the word 'fece'.
👻 darkghost · Mar 20 at 00:28:
It should be the singular form.
Original Post
I bought a Berkey gravity fed water purifier (vs/filter) not long ago. It claims to be able to remove heavy metals and you can take it camping to drink normally nonpotable water from lakes and streams. Filters last for years. They're expensive up front but cheap in the long term. Anyone have any experience or input on these? Reviews and purity claims seem legit.