Water Filtration System

Hey all, this is a nice informative post by Harry/Dave. When it comes to engineering and how things work, I have the attention span of a chicken. Dave understands this (loves me anyway) and puts together these informative posts so that I understand better!! - Lisa

The latest addition to our off-grid cabin. I’m SUPER happy that we finally have a decent water filter for the camp. This item has been on the “wish” list for a long time but for some very strange reason we just never followed through until now. In all likelihood it’s the upfront cost that makes it such a shocker, however if you think about it… You really do need clean water 24x7 and for a family of 4 you need A LOT of clean water for drinking and cooking. So, having said all that, here is our recently arrived Berkey water filter.

Some specifics about this model. First, and this is a huge advantage… it's gravity fed and does not require ANY energy to operate, simply fill the top and pour from the bottom spout.



Since I tend to always go with worst case, I ended up with the Crown model which is their largest available. *editors note: this is a nice way for him to say he over engineers things!* As it comes, out of the box with 2 filters, it should produce about 6-7 gallons per hour. It has the ability to be expanded however to 8 filters… I think the output would be somewhere in the 25 gallon per hour range… Too much for what we need currently but when all was said and done… having all that extra capacity (minus the cost of the filters) really was not that different from the smaller models. The cartridges are pretty expensive but they do have the ability to be cleaned and reused so this to was important. So, as $$$ allows, we will pick up another set or two of filters and that will either provide for many years of operation and spares OR it would provide the capacity for cleaning large amounts of water very quickly. At this time I will be leaving it disassembled so I can’t give you any real world examples of performance, but I can tell you that from the look and feel of the materials, they are all top notch and I would recommend it for anyone looking for a stationary (yet movable) water filter that is both gravity and zero energy with pretty high output.