Yes, I know plastic is safe. Really.
April 20, 2008 2:16 PM Subscribe
Are there water filtration systems with no plastic anywhere in the water's path?
Best answer: Not that I was able to find.
I made my own from two old Revere Drip-o-lators. I filled the top of one with activated carbon (about a quart) and put more activated carbon in the compartment where the coffee is supposed to go in the top of the other one. I stacked the top with less carbon above the top with more (they fit together beautifully) and put that on top of one of the bottom pitchers. I filled the other pitcher from the tap and poured it through the two tops into the other bottom, like a Brita with two pitchers, but made of stainless steel-- and about ten times as fast.
I tried to get fancy by putting filter paper made of glass fiber in the bottom of the lower vessel containing the carbon, but there were always glass fibers floating in the filtered water. I tried an inch of 3mm glass beads in place of the glass fiber, but it turned out to be too hard to separate the beads from the carbon when it was time to change the carbon. There is a pretty easy way around that using the coffee-maker parts in the picture (which I leave as an exercise for the reader), but I found to my surprise that a final filter to catch the carbon dust was unnecessary. If you wash the carbon in a sieve before putting it in, almost all the dust is removed, and the remainder falls off exponentially with the first 20 or so pitchers. Coconut shell carbon, which tends to have glassy fracture patterns, interestingly, seems to me to have the least dust.
The charge of carbon will lower the smell of chlorine to levels undetectable by me for about six months (using about two gallons a day) with a single pour-through, but I have to sterilize the carbon containing tops about once every two months in a pressure cooker. Later I replaced the original pitchers with two old Vollrath pitchers for the sake of their greater volume.
posted by jamjam at 5:01 PM on April 20, 2008
I made my own from two old Revere Drip-o-lators. I filled the top of one with activated carbon (about a quart) and put more activated carbon in the compartment where the coffee is supposed to go in the top of the other one. I stacked the top with less carbon above the top with more (they fit together beautifully) and put that on top of one of the bottom pitchers. I filled the other pitcher from the tap and poured it through the two tops into the other bottom, like a Brita with two pitchers, but made of stainless steel-- and about ten times as fast.
I tried to get fancy by putting filter paper made of glass fiber in the bottom of the lower vessel containing the carbon, but there were always glass fibers floating in the filtered water. I tried an inch of 3mm glass beads in place of the glass fiber, but it turned out to be too hard to separate the beads from the carbon when it was time to change the carbon. There is a pretty easy way around that using the coffee-maker parts in the picture (which I leave as an exercise for the reader), but I found to my surprise that a final filter to catch the carbon dust was unnecessary. If you wash the carbon in a sieve before putting it in, almost all the dust is removed, and the remainder falls off exponentially with the first 20 or so pitchers. Coconut shell carbon, which tends to have glassy fracture patterns, interestingly, seems to me to have the least dust.
The charge of carbon will lower the smell of chlorine to levels undetectable by me for about six months (using about two gallons a day) with a single pour-through, but I have to sterilize the carbon containing tops about once every two months in a pressure cooker. Later I replaced the original pitchers with two old Vollrath pitchers for the sake of their greater volume.
posted by jamjam at 5:01 PM on April 20, 2008
Best answer: Perhaps there are some Berkey water filters that don't have any plastic parts.
posted by keith0718 at 6:29 PM on April 20, 2008
posted by keith0718 at 6:29 PM on April 20, 2008
I couldn't tell from their website what the spigots are made of on the Berkey stainless units. Anybody know?
posted by subatomiczoo at 7:14 PM on April 20, 2008
posted by subatomiczoo at 7:14 PM on April 20, 2008
Best answer: We have one of those ceramic ones at home - porous ceramic top and bottom pitchers that slowly evaporate the water to keep it cool. There's a ceramic-and-charcoal filter between the pitchers and it has a little plastic spigot that could be swapped for a metal one if you were so inclined. Plastic tap in the bottom pitcher but again, easily swapped for a metal tap.
posted by polyglot at 10:36 PM on April 20, 2008
posted by polyglot at 10:36 PM on April 20, 2008
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posted by andythebean at 2:50 PM on April 20, 2008