Berkey
Go to here
to place an order, watch videos, and
obtain more information
Berkeys are gravity fed non pressurized filters. These are the most powerful filters
available today which not only remove amoebas and protozoa like La Guardia
and
bacteria but also are able to remove chemicals, viruses, heavy
metals, fertilizers
and a long listof additional contaminants from your drinking water. After many years
of
research Berkey developed the Black Berkey purification element. This filter gives
you all of the benefits of
the ceramic filter with the added abilities mentioned above.
That includes both chlorine as well as chorarmines (fluorine removal elements
are
also available) .
Black Berkey purification elements significantly raised the bar to a
level that no other gravity flow
water filters are currently able to attain.
Specifications -
descriptions - prices for each unit
Berkey testing
List of contaminants removed
Choosing the right Berkey
Municipal water becoming big problem - the San Diego
Story
How to make your own filter setup using
Berkey filter elements
Distillation using a Survival Still - another
method of cleaning drinking water
Stay on this page for more information too - lots of information.
There are 8 different models; same filters/filter technology used in all
The Big Berkey or Berkey Light will handle most 2-5 person family needs at least
cost.
A 2 person family could use a Travel Berkey but it would not be as convenient.
Berkey purifiers provide incredibly clean, pure, sparkling water whether the source is a wild stream, stagnant pond, lake, private well, or substandard municipal supply. Available in a wide range of sizes, Berkey purifiers rely on no moving parts and use no electricity. Berkey filters are gravity filters only. They are designed with two chambers; an upper chamber that contains the filter(s) which you put the water that needs to be cleaned up into, and a lower chamber that filtered water flows into by gravity. These filters are not meant for connection to pressurized water systems. See the water filters part of my site for filters that work with pressurized water systems. The same technology and gravity flow filter is used in each Berkey model. Size, number of filters used, capacity and flowrate is the only difference among models.
Recent Berkey
testing
Brand new black berkey testing results that show the Berkey removes Chloramines,
Pharmaceuticals,
BPA, lead, arsenic,
other heavy metals and much more from your water. This highly anticipated round of testing was recently completed.
If your water has the potential for containing flouride, the PF-2 add on
filter which screws on to the bottom
of the black filter, will remove it.
There's no doubt about it: fluoride should
not be ingested. Even scientists from the EPA's National
Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory have classified fluoride as
a "chemical having
substantial evidence of developmental neurotoxicity.” Furthermore, according
to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), 41 percent of American adolescents now have dental
fluorosis—
unattractive discoloration and mottling of the teeth that indicate overexposure
to fluoride. Clearly,
children are being overexposed, and their health and development put in
jeopardy. Why?
The only real solution is to stop the archaic
practice of water fluoridation in the first place. Fortunately,
the Fluoride Action Network has a game plan to END water fluoridation worldwide.
Clean pure water
is a prerequisite to optimal health. Industrial chemicals, drugs, and other
toxic additives really have
no place in our water supplies. So, please, protect your drinking water and
support the fluoride-free
movement.
10 facts about flouride http://www.fluoridealert.org/wp-content/uploads/10facts.pdf
50 reasons to oppose flouridation http://www.fluoridealert.org/wp-content/uploads/50-reasons.pdf
People use Berkey filters for two main reasons; to prepare for
emergencies and times when the power goes out, pumps fail, city water goes down, etc. Less than 5% of the
population has water storage for more than 7 days. And more and more people are using them as their sole source of
drinking water because they are becoming more aware of all the harmful elements and compounds that can
potentially contaminate their household water supply; especially from treated municipal water. That includes
pharmaceuticals people dump down the drain that get run through the city's clean up process.
What is your water source for an extended electrical outage when your well
and
city water goes down? How much pure water do you have stored or available?
If you missed the recent National Geographic documentary "American
Blackout",
you can watch the full length version at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uObV-AJDb98
This is a must watch. Although this was a fictional movie it is probably
very accurate in portraying
what will happen when the power grid goes down and people run out of food,
water, electricity,
and gasoline. Those who didn't prepare will become your enemies and
attempt take from you so
they can survive. The grid will go down; when is the only question and
whether will be due do an EMP
weapon burst, cyber attack or an enormous solar flare(s). The key thing
to note in this movie is the
irrational behavior people exhibit when under stress and they have no
water, food, or electricity.
Keep in mind less than 5% of the population has food for 7 days or more.
Less than 2% of our population have both food and water for more
than 7 days.
Less than .5% have food, water, and medical supplies for more than 7 days.
Scary.
Supermarkets turn over their entire inventory every 4 days, or in as
little as 4 hours if
a major event or emergency such as a blackout
occurs. That's why they ask for your
phone number and track your purchases so they
can anticipate what's needed and
continually restock. There is no one to three week stock of food kept in a
grocery store backroom.
We can live without oxygen for about three minutes before we pass out.
We can live without water for about three days before we start getting
delirious.
We can live without food for about three weeks before becoming too weak to
function.
Store enough pure water. Change stored water at least annually.
1 gal/person/day for the first three days
3 gal/person/day for 3 to 10 days
10 gal/person/day for emergencies more than ten days
You should have both stored water as well as mechanisms to properly filter
or distill water.
Here's a brief history about Berkey. Berkey is the original North
American distributor for British
Berkefeld, a company who makes the finest ceramic water filter available, the
Doulton. These
ceramic filters are excellent at removing harmful bacteria from sediment heavy,
contaminated drinking
water. It soon became clear to Berkey that a more powerful filter was needed,
one that not only removed
bacteria but was also in addition able to remove chemicals, viruses, heavy
metals, fertilizers and a long list
of additional contaminants from your drinking water. After many years of
research Berkey developed the
Black Berkey purification element. This filter gives you all of the benefits of
the ceramic filter with the added abilities mentioned above. That includes both chlorine as well as chorarmines.
Black Berkey purification elements significantly raised the bar to a level that no other gravity flow
water filters are currently able to attain.
Which of the three methods of water filtration;
reverse osmosis, distillation or Berkey purification is
the healthiest for drinking purposes? With respect to the healthfulness of the
water, most health experts
that are up to date on current research are no longer recommending drinking RO
or distilled water on a
long-term basis because these methods remove all the beneficial minerals from
the water making the
water an acidic "hypotonic" solution. A chemist will tell you that any
time a hypotonic (de-mineralized)
solution comes into contact with a "hypertonic" (mineralized)
solution, the minerals within the hypertonic
solution will transfer out and into the hypotonic solution until equilibrium is
achieved. What this means is
simply that when one drinks hypotonic water (RO or distilled water) , the
minerals in the blood and lymphatic system, which are hypertonic, transfer into the hypotonic RO or distilled water
that is consumed and the minerals are flushed out of the body upon urination. This loss of mineralization
is very detrimental to health.
In an effort to re-mineralize, the blood and lymphatic systems then begin to
scavenge for minerals from
other parts of the body, such as bones and other organs, and this process
repeats itself every time
de-mineralized hypotonic water is re-consumed. Several studies suggest that
people who drink demin
eralized water (hypotonic) over a long period of time tend to be more prone to
degenerative diseases
such as osteoporosis.
Berkey purification systems do not remove the beneficial
minerals from the water but they do
extract harmful heavy metals such as lead and mercury as well as sedimentary
minerals such as iron
oxide. Therefore, the TDS (total dissolved solids) reading will not typically
change much unless there
are a lot of heavy metals or sedimentary minerals in the source water.
Reverse Osmosis does not remove pathogenic bacteria and that is why it
is often necessary to add
an additional UV light to the system. However, the UV sometimes does not kill
all the bacteria because
any turbidity in the water can create shaded spots preventing some bacteria from
being exposed. Typically,
the UV is installed before the bladder tank, however, it is in the bladder tank
that bacteria usually colonize.
Therefore, if the bladder tank is not sterilized on a regular basis, it becomes
a source for bacteriological
contamination that is never exposed to UV. Additionally, the carcasses of the
dead bacteria remain within
the drinking water with an RO system whereas they are removed by the Black
Berkey filters
Berkey Testing - what specifically will a Berkey
black filter remove
1) Bisphenol-A - Removed to greater than 99.9%. Many customers
had the desire to pour their bottled
water into their berkey, and had wondered if the system would remove this
endocrine disruptor.
2) Chloramines - Removed to greater than 99.9%. With many
water municipalities switching to
chloramine disinfection instead of chlorine, there was a growing chorus of
existing and potential Berkey
customers wanting the answer to this question.
Chloramines are newer chemicals that water utility company's are increasingly
using instead of chlorine
to disinfect drinking water, but is it safer? These chemicals kill pathogens in
the water such as bacteria
and viruses that could potentially pose a threat to human health. Chloramines
typically form when ammonia
and chlorine are used in combination during the water treatment process in an
effort to ensure long-lasting
disinfection of water as it is pumped through the water network to our homes.
Monochloramine is typically used during drinking water disinfection; while other forms, including dichloramine and organic chloramines -- and in rare circumstances trichloramine -- are formed during the treatment process, their levels are much lower than that of monochloramine.
3) Pharmaceuticals - Removed to greater than 99.5%. This
has been a hot button also. Many studies
and articles have come out over the past 5 years showing how these
pharmaceuticals are washing down
our toilets and not being removed from our water supply by the local municipal
filtration plant. The filters
were tested for 17 different types of pharmaceuticals and they were all removed.
No additional types of
pharmaceuticals were available for testing at this lab, however the results
should be similar for others.
And it isn't just San Diego. San Diego's plans to recycle sewage water will
force residents to consume
increasingly higher concentrations of antibiotics, pain
killers, hormones, and other pharmaceutical pollution:
http://www.naturalnews.com/047874_drought_pharmaceutical_pollution_sewage_recycling.html
4) Petroleum Contaminants - Removed to
greater than 99.9%. With the unfortunately too common
event of oil spills and petroleum contamination of waterways and water sources,
this has been on the
mind of customers for some time, especially since the gulf oil spill. The
black berkeys would protect
them from these contaminants.
5) Methylcycohexane-methane - Removed to greater than 99.9%. This
was the contaminant that
was involved in the March 2014 West Virginia oil spill.
6) Pesticides - Removed to greater than 99.9%. These had
already been tested for before, however
more pesticides were included in this round of testing.
7) Heavy Metals - Removed to greater than 99.1%.
These had already been tested for before, however
a couple more heavy metals were included in this round of testing.
8) Coliform and e-Coli - Removed to greater than
99.9%. These had already been tested for before
and shown to be removed to over 99.9999%. This could be considered as
confirmation testing.
See contaminants list removed for
a detailed list of what Berkey black filters will remove.
9) Herbicides - farmers across the US have been using atrazine, a toxic
herbicide, extensively to control
weeds in corn fields and other agricultural row crops for over 50 years now.
This widespread use has
allowed atrazine to leach through soils to contaminate groundwater systems or
enter surface water systems through runoff, ultimately winding up in drinking water, where it is now a
common drinking water contaminant.
Atrazine is the number one contaminant found in drinking water in the U.S. and
probably globally. Studies
have shown a possible link between atrazine exposure and breast, ovarian and
prostrate cancers; as well as low fertility and birth defects. The black berkeys are capable of removing
atrazine and other commonly used pesticides from the water to below detectable limits.
If you feel happy quenching your thirst by drinking a glass of water
poured straight from your kitchen faucet, you are one of the few Americans who do. According to a recent study conducted
by NSF International, most people living in the US, as well as globally, harbor concerns about the
pollutants that could potentially be contaminating their drinking water. This concern is one of the reasons why purified
bottled water is currently one of the most popular beverages in the US, topped only by soda. And it's not the best
water to drink.
Lead exposure
If
you think lead poisoning is not much of a problem anymore...Think again!
In
a 2013 report, written just a few months ago the Centers for Disease Control
disclosed
that 1 in 38 children suffer from the life-long debilitating effects of lead
poisoning!
See, the problem is in our pipes. Lead was used in galvanized piping systems
as
well as in the solder in copper systems for decades.
You
would never drink out of a rusty pipe on purpose would you? The kind that are
corroded
to the point that little red flakes of oxidized metal float into your glass.
Unfortunately,
that is exactly what most of the pipes look like in municipal water systems
across
North America. Plus, there are some private wells out there that are even worse!
Pipes that contaminate our water with lead can lead a to a host of health issues.
As
I mentioned before, drinking water with lead can cause delays in physical and
mental
development, slight deficit in attention span and learning disabilities in
babies and children.
In adults, it can increase blood pressure, develop kidney problems and high
blood pressure.
The
Government won't admit it outright, but the evidence makes it clear that lead
exposure
in our water supply is a problem that is exploding. Lead is rarely found in
source water, but
it’s a widely accepted fact that lead can enter tap water through corrosion of
plumbing materials.
But rusty pipes are just one of the MANY ways lead is getting into our water
supply! Even legally
“lead-free” plumbing may contain up to 8% lead!
Lead
is often found in some of the most common household plumbing connections.
These
include brass or chrome-plated brass faucets and fixtures. These fixtures can
then leak significant
amounts of lead into the water – especially hot water.
Like
I mentioned before the Centers for Disease Control reported that 1 in 38
children suffer
from the life-long debilitating effects of lead poisoning.
See, even tiny amounts of lead in the environment can cause serious health problems.
And
to make matters worse, lead poisoning is almost impossible to detect... at least
until
the symptoms are full-blown.
Those
symptoms include: irritability, fatigue, abdominal pain, learning difficulties,
slowed
growth, headaches, mental decline and many many more.
“More
than a half-million US children now have lead poisoning despite some progress
being
made in eliminating lead exposure,” reports the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC).
That
means 500,000 children in the US suffer from lead poisoning! That statistic
alone is shocking
and something must be done to protect your family. But lead in our water supply
will do much more
than just impair learning, stunt our children's growth and slow mental
development...
In fact here is a complete list of lead exposure symptoms at various exposure levels.
Please
take a moment to think about your families current exposure levels and risk
factors
for lead poisoning...
LOW
LEVEL EXPOSURE
Low levels effects can include increased risk of developing kidney damage and
disease,
increased blood pressure, anemia, reduced sperm count and fertility, future risk
of osteoporosis
in children.
MODERATE
LEVEL EXPOSURE
Moderate
exposure to lead over time can increase risk for hearing loss, digestive issues
including
abdominal pain, cramps, nausea, vomiting, altered immune systems and changes in
levels of certain
hormones.
HIGH
LEVEL EXPOSURE
Extremely
high levels of lead over time can increase risk of developing convulsions,
including
an inability to control hands and feet, chronic kidney failure, miscarriage and
stillbirth, and many
types of cancer.
Berkey
black filters remove any lead particulates from your water in gravity filtration
systems.
Doulton filters remove lead in
pressurized water systems.
Arsenic
Arsenic
is scary stuff...
It’s been linked to bladder, skin, kidney, and prostate cancer but still thousands of pounds are released every year into our water supply!
Farmland runoff, industrial waste and even orchards are silently polluting your aquifer from hundreds of miles away... This insidious toxin is both odorless and tasteless. Meaning it is undetectable without advanced screening equipment.
Drinking water that has been contaminated with arsenic can cause skin disfiguration and circulatory system damage, and as I already mentioned has been linked to an increased risk of cancer.
It is used in a number of “High Pollutant” industries and chemicals such as: Wood preservatives, paints, dyes, metals, drugs, soaps, semi-conductors. The list of “offending industries” is long and thats why this toxin is showing up in water supplies across North America at alarming rates. Much of it comes from places that are probably very, VERY close to where you live.
Let me explain...
Is
your water supply near any type of farmland or orchard?
Do you live near any type of livestock yard of agricultural area?
There is a very good chance your water supply(and the underground aquifer that supplies it) are “downstream” from one of these Arsenic polluters. So even if you are miles away from such activities, they can still pose a deadly threat to the safety of your water supply.
That
means even if there is no sign of this activity near your water, it is a safe
bet that the aquifer that supplies your drinking water may be leaching dozens of
lethal chemicals... From polluters that are miles away, and the most likely
chemical is...
And if you get your water from a well then we REALLY need to talk... Arsenic is
a huge concern for anyone who gets their water from any type of well. No matter
how “protected” you may think your water source is.
See, the EPA’s arsenic standard of 10ppb only applies to public, regulated
well waters. Meaning large municipal water systems used by big cities and towns.
The same protections and limits do not exist for individual wells. This means
Arsenic levels that are 10 times as high as the recommended levels in many
private wells!
The EPA has found disturbing evidence that unregulated well waters which have have arsenic concentrations of 100 ppb and higher. The highest levels are found throughout New England, Florida, and many part of the Upper Midwest. Even if you do not live in one of those areas the chances of Arsenic contamination in your well are highly likely.
What are the long-term health effects of Arsenic exposure?
According to a 1999 study by National Academy of Sciences, arsenic in drinking water can cause bladder, lung, skin, kidney, and liver cancer!
They went on to point out that long-term Arsenic exposure at even moderate levels can harm the central and peripheral nervous system, and has also been tied to heart problems, and a number of disfiguring skin conditions.
Unfortunately, as with most environmental toxins, pregnant women, young children and the elderly are most at risk. The same study found that Arsenic exposure may cause birth defects and long-term reproductive problems.
The
evidence is clear that Arsenic is a growing health epidemic in North America and
it looks like there is little we can do to stop the high levels of contamination
from spreading.
The Berkey PF-2 add on filter that screws on the bottom of the black filter
removes both flouride as well as arsenic.
Competitor www.clearlyfiltered.com
Looks like a Brita pitcher but takes out chlorine and flouride also (but
not chloramines as
Berkey can) but only has a 2 micron capability - Berkey is .02
- (won't catch the smaller
bacteria and won't catch any
viruses) and only good for 200 gallons before need to replace
a $46 cartridge. Unit costs $70 but won't
accomplish the filtration a Berkey filter will.
Berkey black filters are good for 3000 gallons, only cost $53, and filter
out all protozoa,
bacteria andviruses down to .02 microns.