Berkey water filters?

April 23, 2008 8:01 AM

Water filterFilter: I'm looking at purchasing a Berkey Light Water filter. This would be intended for both daily use and also to have on hand in case a hurricane or some other disaster knocks out the municipal water supply and we need to scoop drinking water out of a stream. Does anyone have experience with the Berkey filters? How is the taste compared to mainstream filters like Pur or Brita? Do they look odd in your kitchen or are they an attractive fixture? Any other thoughts or brand suggestions, random or otherwise, on this are welcome.
posted by Burhanistan to home & garden (7 comments total)

It looks like the clear one is made out of Lexan, which is a source of that bisphenol A stuff people are hating these days. It's somewhat ironic that a water filter that is supposed to remove harmful chemicals from your water can put a different harmful chemical into it.
posted by zsazsa at 9:15 AM on April 23, 2008

I'm very happy with my all-ceramic gravity filter from this company (scroll down past the carafes). I've got the Cuzco. It uses a ceramic filter "candle" by Doulton; specs here. I wanted to avoid all types of plastic.
posted by PatoPata at 9:34 AM on April 23, 2008

If you want something less plastic, there's also the Big Berkey, available from Lehman's. More expensive, of course.
posted by pullayup at 9:43 AM on April 23, 2008

The clear one is definitely Lexan, which is the same as Nalgenes and has been called into question.
posted by Leon-arto at 10:39 AM on April 23, 2008

Give these folks a try - http://www.pwgazette.com/gravity.htm

It's the same idea but you get to supply the containers of your choice, the
flow rate will be higher (Thank You Gravity!), and it's much cheaper since
you're just buying the actual filer element(s). If you need a lot of water,
just add some additional units.

I've been using an R/O unit from these folks for years and have been very
pleased with both their service and quality of products.

SandPine
posted by sandpine at 1:46 PM on April 23, 2008

I used a Berkey Light for a year or two and loved it. Water quality was fairly bad where I lived and the Brita filter would never remove all the chemical/mineral flavor from the water. Plus, we only had to fill the thing about once a day. I would still be using it if it hadn't been too big to cram into my car with all the other stuff when I moved.

I personally liked the look of it since we had the one with blue LEDs and it would make cool light patterns on the wall when you filled it at night. However, the kitchen was also kind of a hole and if you have taken the time to decorate yours and have particular taste then the cheap construction (it's basically just two big plastic bottles with some holes drilled to fit the filters and spigot) may put you off. I was also amused by the fact that the top bottle wore a little cloth hat - it keeps stuff out while letting air in. You could probably make your own bottle hat to match the kitchen curtains.

Anyways - awesome filtering, quick and painless to clean. Who knows about the plastic - I'm still alive. If it scares you, possibly try to see if you can get the filters it uses into some other container. Ceramic would probably keep the water cooler as well.
posted by out of context at 9:07 PM on April 24, 2008

http://www.pwgazette.com/model77.htm, from the above post, looks like it has affordable units and filters, they seem to be total water geeks, and they have been around for a long time. I am ordering a sink unit from them next paycheck and will report back. I like that they have clear filters so you can see the crud building up.
posted by mecran01 at 12:30 PM on January 10