Berkey Water Filter Review 2022
The Berkey Water Filter isn’t just your average water filter – it’s also a water purifier thanks to its ability to remove bacteria and viruses that a conventional filter can’t. Berkey water filters remove over 200 contaminants, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides, petroleum products, and PFAS. With tap water in US cities being heavily contaminated with hazardous chemicals and toxins, making sure you’re drinking clean water is a must. Berkey systems remove 99.99% of pathogenic bacteria and 99.999% of viruses for the cleanest water possible. The filter’s proprietary design also allows healthful beneficial minerals (like calcium, potassium) to remain in your water while removing chemicals, harmful sedimentary minerals, heavy metals and other contaminants (independent test results). If you’re looking for a countertop water filtration system, check out my Berkey Water Filter review.
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of drinking water quality from 31 million state water records, when some Americans drink a glass of tap water, they’re also potentially drinking contaminants like lead, arsenic, the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS. These contaminants found in our tap water are linked to cancer, brain and nervous system damage, fertility problems, hormone disruption and other health harms. You can check your zip code at EWG’s Tap Water Database.
Berkey Water Filter System
Berkey filters cost $300 to $500 and are an investment for your whole family. They offer a variety of sizes including a couple compact options like the Travel Berkey that I own, as well as shower filters.
The taste of Berkey’s purified water is noticeably different, which gives me extra peace of mind knowing that it’s doing its job. The Travel Berkey holds about 1.5 gallons and fits snugly on top of my kitchen countertop next to my other appliances. Berkey now offers a stand so you can comfortably fit a glass under the spigot, but you can also just place it by the sink so there’s room for your glass. If you have a small kitchen or don’t have a lot of countertop space, the Travel Berkey is your best option. Even though it’s named Travel, I find it to be large enough for everyday home use. It’s not something I would find convenient traveling with unless I were doing a big RV road trip.
Each Berkey system comes with upper and lower chambers, the filter elements (2 filters for each size Berkey), spigot and connection hardware. It’s very easy to set up in minutes, and once you wash the parts, you can start using the filter immediately.
The downside of the Berkey filter is you can’t see how much purified water is left in the lower chamber, so you’re not sure how much water to add to the top. This means I need to wait until no more purified water comes out before refilling the top chamber fully.
There’s also some maintenance involved with the filter. After several months you’ll notice that the water will take forever to filter, which means you need to clean the system. Eventually you also need to buy replacement filters.
Berkey cleaning involves:
- Stainless steel chambers: Every month
- Purification elements: Every 6 months
- Filter elements: Every 2-5 years (this depends on how much water passes through the filters, and how contaminated that water is)
Otherwise, the Berkey water filter is designed to last a lifetime. Above all, I love that these are very high-quality filters that go beyond filtering and actually purify water.
You have great content but way too many pop up ads which makes reading articles on my laptop SUPER annoying. Please consider reformatting – you’re losing this reader due to unreadability.