Burkey water filter insight?

[ejmamallama]

Anyone have a Burkey water filter? How do you like it? I'm filter shopping and am overwhelmed with my choices. Also looking at Crystal Quest. I like that with the Burkey, I don't have to connect to any plumbing at all. I'm looking to eliminate/greatly reduce fluoride, chlorine, pharmaceuticals and other contaminants. Any insight you have is appreciated! Many thanks!

[rush2ady]

I love my berkey system!  I have a midsize stainless steel one.  I only have the black berkey filters in it since I live in a city which doesn't fluoridate the water supply.  The water from it is clean and fresh tasting.  The black filters are super easy to scrub clean as needed ( I clean mine maybe twice a year), so basically last forever.  Even my husband who's not into all this health stuff doesn't like to drink water except from our berkey.  We fill up old glass juice bottles with our water every time we go anywhere. 

Highly recommend.  Never tried the Crystal Quest, so I can't compare tho.
 

[littlest birds]

We love ours!  It is very simple, doesn't use electricity, and the cost is very low in the long run.  We have the flouride elements, too.

[quantumleap]

We love ours too. But, we have VERY sedimenty water, and we have to clean it up to once a week. Gross. That's our water supply though. Also, I was keen to remove the fluoride from our water, so we have the fluoride filters. They're awful. I called the company about them, and flushed them more times than I can count, but they add a funky taste to the water. The Berkey people told me that the fluoride filters do add a bit of a taste to the water, but that it decreases and some people don't mind. They also said that I was far from alone in my dislike/noticing of the taste, and that many people just give up and remove that portion of the filter. Kind of a bummer. But, even with that, we do really like our Berkey and would make the same purchase again.

[Abarat]

You can't go wrong with a Berkey!  I can't give too much insight since we don't use ours regularly, but it was one of our best purchases.  We have really good well water and we used our filter for a while but decided to pack it up to keep for long-term emergencies should we have water issues and need to filter questionable water sources such as our rain barrels.

But if we had any question about our water we'd use it daily!  Love that it's so simple to use, well built, doesn't use any power and really is low cost in the long run.  The filters are amazing and really do their job, we had fun testing them!

[ejmamallama]

Thanks for all your insight. One other concern I have is with the fluoride filters, since they use alluminum in the filter and small amounts get deposited in the filtered water since there isn't a third stage. I wonder if this is a valid concern?

[rush2ady]

For anyone thinking about getting the Berkey filter system and reading this thread....I no longer endorse them!!!  The stems at the bottom of my black berkey filters have come loose, and who knows how long I've been drinking unfiltered water. 

The water has been tasting worse and I finally checked online, and yes, there are tons of reviewers out there saying the SAME thing!  The glue connecting the stem to the filter breaks down and then unfiltered water leaks through.  So disappointing--and not good since I'm very sensitive to chemicals and have been struggling with my health lately.  My water kefir grains have been doing badly as well, poor things, I didn't realize I was soaking them in unfiltered tap water.

I'm now shopping for a different brand of filters which will fit into the Berkey system.

[littlest birds]

Berkey did have a large defective batch of their filter units that came loose and they have info on their site about it.  They are mostly within a certain date range.  Try calling the company and see if they will help you replace them--they can at least explain the current situation and what to expect.  As far as I know the replacements for the defective filters aren't problematic.

We knew immediately when this happened to ours because of course it suddenly tasted just like tap water.  We got a credit from the company for our new ones based on our original purchase date.  It was a hassle to arrange the replacement but the new ones have been fine in steady use all year.  It was disappointing that they did not find a way to let all of their customers know!

We still love the water quality and our relationship with our Berkey is still a good one for the foreseeable future.