Saturday, May 28, 2011

How to Make Your Own Gravity-Fed Water Filter

I hope you all are enjoying your Memorial Day weekend. Take some time to remember the reason for the holiday in between bites of BBQ, 'K?
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We have quite a bit of water stored, but if there was a long-term emergency or if I simply wanted to do some laundry, we would go through our stored water quickly. You've simply got to have a way to make water safe for consumption.

You can strain and then boil water, which will certainly work fine. You could also use water purification tablets or disinfect the water by using the power of the sun. All of those methods require extra effort on my part. If there's one thing you should know about me, it is that I am l-a-z-y! I want clean water and I don't want to have to do very much to get it. Oh, and the water should taste good at the end of the deal, too.

A gravity-fed water filtration system is just the ticket. Here's the lovely stainless steel Berkey model that they sell on Amazon, at Lehman's and other retailers:


You pour the water in the top and gravity does the rest. The only problem is that a filter like this one will cost nearly $300.

I don't know about you, but that kind of money isn't in my budget when I've got so many other things to stock up on. The good news is that you can make your own filtration system for about half the cost.  This is an excellent post that gives step by step instructions and pictures.

Now back to my laziness. We didn't actually make our own filter. I planned to, but after reading about it on survivalblog, we bought a Bucket Berkey Water Filter Kit from disasterstuff.com.



Image from disasterstuff.com

The cost for two Berkey elements, the buckets, lids, spigot, etc. was $135. Everything was predrilled, so all you have to do is screw it together and viola! Instant cheap Berkey.

Now if I have to collect rainwater or bring back water from a farm pond, I'm confident we'll end up with safe, palatable drinking water.


What are your plans for obtaining clean drinking water for your family in an emergency?

5 comments:

  1. Wow that's a great deal. I got two filters for $100! Totally worth it.

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  2. Thank-you for this post. I have been looking for an affordable water filter and this is it!!

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  3. I got one of these Bucket Berkey filters a few years ago. It works great. I was going to get an Imperial Berkey, but with four filters in the bucket Berkey, I am able to make as much water as a Crown Berkey with four filters, which was a lot more than the Bucket Berkey. Pretty easy to put together too.

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