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?

Month Ten in Review and Month Eleven Prepping Plan

I feel so accomplished. Hubby Dear and I really got a lot done around the homestead this month.

1. I upgraded my EDC. BTW, thanks for all the great comments and ideas. The stuff some of you all carry around is quite impressive. 
2. Our Food Storage Blitz Month was quite successful. It's such a nice feeling to know that we wouldn't have to go hungry during an emergency or job loss.  
3. We did a ton of work in the yard. Literally, we moved a ton of materials into our garden, a few bags at a time. First, Hubby Dear finished filling all 19 of our garden boxes with Mel's Mix. This was a major undertaking, especially since we had to drive 50 miles each way to get the materials and could only fit a certain amount in the ol' mini-van. I think we exceeding the load limit a few times.
   
   

   

   The boxes - filled with Mel's Mix and grids in place

We're also nearly done putting down pea gravel to cover the pathways between the boxes.
   
 



The grids are optional, but handy. The larger areas are where we're planting
 pumpkins. Radishes, lettuce, and peas are in the smaller boxes.


We planted radishes, peas (sugar snap and shelling), lettuce (both a romaine and leaf lettuce mix), cabbage, strawberries, and onions.



The Thinker's radish seedlings.

We also added a few more raspberry canes, doubling our raspberry patch in size.  We're still waiting on the organic seed potatoes we ordered to arrive. The delay is irksome enough that I think next year we'll buy our seed potatoes closer to home, even though they may not be organic.                                 
4. You might be asking what happened to the cloth pad project? Well, I got sidetracked with all the gardening work. And I got a huge stack of uber interesting books at the library. Then the NCAA basketball tournament started. (We are giant college basketball fans.) The result? I still have only two (partially completed, at that) cloth pads. I will get back and finish the project, eventually.   

What's in store for Month 11 of my Prepping Plan?

1. I want to add more cash to our BOBs/at home emergency stash.
2. We're going to craft our own water filter using food safe buckets and ceramic filter elements.
3. Using some of the suggestions from my Ask the Readers post, I'm going to stock-up on some more can openers.
4. I'm going to buy some garden seeds for long term storage.
5. We're going to continue building our food and oh-so-important toilet paper supplies.
6. We'll be very busy in the garden. Hopefully we'll have some lettuce to harvest.  
7. I have some preps of a unique nature that I'll discuss with y'all in an upcoming post. I've got to pick your brain again!