Berkey Water Filters: Our Families 6 Year Review

How we decided on a Berkey Water Filter over other Water Filtration systems: 

We looked at multiple factors when choosing a Berkey over it's competitors; How much and what it filters out, taste, price, style, and convenience.

What does it filter out? and Does the water taste good?

Berkey Water Filters removes over 200 contaminants from your drinking water. This was a major selling point of course as our kids love drinking water, so I want to make sure they're getting hydrated without pumping their bodies full of contaminants. It also tastes great! The water always comes out tasting pure and clean. We fill up our reusable water bottles multiple times a day and are always happy to drink up. We also use our Berkey to fill up ice cube trays, make coffee etc. My husband likes room temp water and the kids and I like cold water, so I just refill a glass water pitcher with Berkey water once or twice a day and leave it in the fridge. 

Is it Cost effective? 

Although The Berkey Water Filter has a bit more of an upfront cost compared to the Brita for example, the filters last for years. You can simply clean them about once every 6 months, and this can be done up to 100 times before needing to replace them!  Cleaning them can also increase your flow rate too. So overall the Berkey Water Filter Systems are an amazing value. 

Does it look good in your Home? 

We live in a 4Plex that we own, so we rent out the other 3 suites in the building and live in one of the apartments, so we don't have a ton of space (about 850sq/ft). When my husband first suggested getting a Berkey, my initial thought was "Where are we going to put it?". At the time we were using a Brita Filter system that we kept in the fridge so it was out of site. We decided to set up our Royal Berkey in our dining room which is off the kitchen, and honestly I've gotten so many compliments! It looks lovely with our decor, and with the kitchen being right there, we simply use a jug to fill it each night (it takes about 3-4 jugs to fill each time). This is how we have it set up:

 

Is it Convenient compared to other filtered water? 

I mentioned before that we keep our Berkey in our dining room, which is right off the kitchen, so it's easy to fill with a jug. No dragging huge containers of water around town and waiting in line at the grocery store, it's great!  It's also totally portable, so if you're headed on a trip or to the cabin for the weekend, you can bring it along it you.

Is it Environmentally friendly? 

Absolutely! No plastic water bottles are being used here. The filters last for years so no need to be driving back and forth to the store for refills. 

Are there any drawbacks to using a Berkey Water Filter? 

The only thing that people may complain about is the slow filtration. In general your Berkey Water Filter should filter roughly one gallon per hour when using two filter elements. So if you use 4 Black Berkey Filters instead, you can significantly speed up this process. 

Are we still happy with our Royal Berkey? 

Definitely! It seems like every day I hear about some new contaminant or issue with the city water system, so it gives us great peace of mind knowing that our water is consistently clean, pure and healthy!