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Posts Tagged ‘berkey water’
Ann’s Helpful Hints For Berkey Water Filter Systems
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011As a proud member of the Berkey family for over 10 years, I’ve learned many tips and tricks that help customers with the initial setup and smooth lifelong use of their berkey water filter systems. Below are some of my top Berkey tips.
Priming Your Black Berkey Elements
When you first receive your black berkey elements or ceramic filters it is important to prime them. A priming button (large beige washer) is included in the box with each set of elements. Be sure to keep this some place safe so that you can re-prime your element if needed. ALWAYS USE PROTECTIVE GLOVES WHEN HANDLING YOUR BLACK BERKEY PURIFICATION ELEMENTS OR THE WHITE CERAMIC FILTERS.
To prime the elements, place the priming button on top of the threaded end of the element and place it firmly against your faucet. Turn the water on so that it is just a trickle. The water will go into the black element and the outside of the element will slowly bead up and around the element. When it has completely beaded up the element you can turn off the water and install the element into the Berkey water filter system.
Be sure to throw out the first 2-3 batches of water you put through the system so that the tap water used for priming is completely out of the elements.
Fore more details please read and watch our video: How to Prime the Black Berkey Filters for Use or Storage
Cleaning Your Black Berkey Elements
Once you install the black berkey or ceramic filters, the best thing you can do for them is just LEAVE THEM ALONE. The instructions state that you should clean your elements every six months with a scotch brite pad. I have found that to NOT be a good idea. Certainly, if they get a film on them you should rinse them off, but do not scrub them. This tends to clog them up. Instead, just leave them alone until they stop filtering or slow down so much that you are not getting very much water.
When and if they stop filtering, remove them and using a vegetable peeler, peel a thin layer all the way around the Black Berkey element and up to the top like you would a carrot. This will open them up, removing the layer of clogged material off the elements. You can then re-prime (only if needed) and re-install them into your Berkey water filter system.
Cleaning Your Berkey Chambers
Berkey Stainless Steel Canisters – Since you are most likely trying to reduce your chemical exposure, I recommend using natural cleansers to clean your bottom canister monthly. If you don’t have access to natural cleansers, just fill your bottom canister ¼ of the way up and add 1 cup of white distilled vinegar. Scrub thoroughly and empty the water through the spigot on your system. This will clean the calcium buildup off the spigot. Clean your bottom canister once a month. It is not necessary to clean the top canister, but if you choose to, be sure to remove the black elements before cleaning.
Berkey Light (Plastic) Canister - Always use a mild dishwashing detergent (preferably a natural cleanser) to clean your Berkey Light. Vinegar is too abrasive for plastic and will harm the system. Clean your bottom canister once a month. It is not necessary to clean the top canister, but if you choose to, be sure to remove the black elements before cleaning.
Red Food Coloring Test
Every 6 months, I recommend you test your Black Berkey elements with a simple red food coloring test. It is important to use only RED food coloring as the other colors have minerals in them and will not be removed from the water.
- If using the white PF-2 Arsenic/Fluoride filters, remove them from the system.
- Empty both canisters and in the bottom canister place cups or juice glasses so that the elements will drip into each cup. If possible, use a clear or white cup/glass. You will need 1 cup for each element in your system.
- Place the top canister so that each element will drip directly into the cup below.
- The amount of red food coloring to be used depends on the size of your system. If you have a 2 ¼ gallon Big Berkey you will need to use 2 teaspoons of red food coloring and place it in the top canister. If you have a 3 ¼ gallon Royal Berkey you would use 3 teaspoons of the food coloring.
- After putting in the correct amount of food coloring into the top canister, fill it up completely with water. The water will be very red. Allow the water to filter down into the cups for several inches until the cups are at least one half filled. Then discard the rest of the red water in the top canister.
- Remove the cups/glasses from the bottom canister. Make sure you know which element goes with each cup. The water in the cups/glasses should be clear. If you are using a clear cup/glass, put a piece of white paper behind the cup/glass to get a good reading on the color of the water.
- If the water is pink, the element for that cup/glass is breached and should be replaced.
- If the water is clear, your elements are doing their job perfectly.
- A video of this test can be seen here: The Black Berkey Red Food Coloring Test
Berkey Fluoride and Arsenic Reduction Filters
For priming the PF-2 filters, I recommend priming from each side by at least 2 minutes to wash out as much manufacturing dust from the filter as possible. Also, once installed, it can take up to 10 full system flushes of water before all the cloudiness (manufacturing dust) has been rinsed from the water. Be patient as this will vary depending on the production run and dustiness of the granules used in the filter.
- To determine how long your fluoride filters will last depends on the quality of your water. Since the fluoride filters also remove arsenic and continue to reduce the heavy metals in your water they may not last 1,000 gallons for the set of 2. So don’t get upset if they don’t last as long as you expect, they are continuing to reduce other harmful things in your water.
- When the fluoride filters are used up you will find that they usually stop allowing any water into the bottom canister. If this happens just remove them and make sure your Black Berkey Purification Elements are working. If they are, you need to just replace the fluoride filters and you are ready to go.
Spigot Issues
If leaking occurs around the washers of the spigot, make sure you have washers on both sides of the stainless steel. (black inside, white outside for stainless systems) Tighten as much as you can and leave the spigot about 90 degrees out of phase. Then, grab onto the nut in the back with a wrench, and turn the spigot itself that last quarter turn using the spigot as leverage to get a tighter turn. If this is ineffective, please soak the washers in olive oil for approximately 1 hour. Sometimes the washers can dry out and get hard over time and the olive oil will soften them up allowing for a good seal.
One final tip to ensure you get the full life of your black berkey filters is to fill the upper chamber to the top (assuming lower chamber has the room for the water) every time. This will allow for the entire length of the filter to be put to use so that the media gets exhausted evenly. I hope this information is of help to every Berkey water filter system owner.
Ann
BigBerkeyWaterFilters.com
What Berkey Water Can Do For You
Saturday, February 6th, 2010If you’re like most people, you’re concerned about the quality of your drinking water, but you aren’t sure what to do about it. Berkey water offers a solution that works without costing a small fortune in the process.
The Berkey water filtration system is different from other options on the market. This system is made in the United States and uses gravity to remove unwanted chemicals and contaminants from drinking water. Berkey water systems are suitable for at-home use, but are portable enough to take on the road. They are even effective at purifying untreated water, which makes them great in emergency situations or when owners are away from home.
Berkey water systems are used in homes throughout America and Canada and in some 140 different countries all over the world. Their effectiveness and unique design has also made them a favorite for relief organizations like the Red Cross. The British Royal household even uses Berkey water systems.
There are many reasons why Berkey is a great investment in personal health and safety. The top reasons why Berkey water is a solid choice are:
The Health Benefits – Berkey water systems remove the bad things in water without impacting the good. These systems are superior to other filtration devices because they get rid of pathogenic bacteria, cysts, unhealthy chemical contaminants and even parasites. They are effective to levels higher than 99.99 percent on many chemicals. Berkey systems are even effective at reducing fluoride and arsenic found in water. When Berkey water filters are used, they will not remove the vital minerals found in water that bodies need to maintain healthy and thrive.
The Affordability Factor – Some filtration systems can cost a small fortune to purchase and operate. While Berkey water does require an upfront investment, it’s one that can pay off quickly. Berkey water offers a fantastic return on investment. Each Black Berkey Water Filter, for example, will last up to 3,000 gallons or 6,000 gallons for a set of two. This lifespan is a great deal longer than most other water filtering systems available today. At an estimated 10 gallons of water a week, the Berkey water system will provide more than 11.5 years of use. This equates to about 1.7 cents for each gallon of clean drinking water.
The Functionality – Berkey water systems do not require electricity to function and they are completely portable. Berkey systems can purify both standard city tap water and also untreated, raw water from sources like streams, stagnant ponds and lakes. The micro-pores found within the self-sterilizing and re-cleanable Black Berkey water purification elements are so tiny that bacteria and other contaminants simply cannot pass through them. Because Berkey water filtration systems don’t need electricity, they are ideal for use in emergency situations. They are also great to take along on camping trips and treks outside of the country.
Choosing a water purification system can be a confusing task. When functionality, return on investment and reliability are desired, Berkey water is the clear choice.
Emergency Preparedness - Berkey Water Filters to the Rescue
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008For the majority of suburbanites and city dwellers, the food supply rests solely of the effectiveness of large scale farming, transport supply chain systems, and local supermarkets. Rarely nowadays, do we find self sufficient households with the ability to live off the land via their crops, gardens, livestock, and local water sources. Compare this to 100 years ago when self sufficiency was much more prevalent, neighbor could rely upon neighbor to barter and trade for essentials, and the local town store filled in the gaps. Today, our idea of bartering with our neighbors lies more along the lines of borrowing the snow blower for the power washer.
The more our current model of food supply evolves, the more dependent our population becomes. This is a dangerous road we’ve been traveling down for a very long time. The dilemma can be compared to that of raising an animal in the zoo for 10 years and then releasing it into the wild and expecting it to be able to fend for itself. Under those circumstances that animal will not survive, and on many levels the majority of the US population is just as vulnerable. If a natural disaster does strike and our zookeeper can’t tend to us for a few days, where’s our food and water come from? We can’t expect relief organizations to pick up immediately where the zookeeper left off as it takes days and weeks to address those in need.
The percentage of the population that is prepared and has a backup plan is sorely low and is only trending lower due to the nature of our technological pursuits and progression. Due to the fact that you can go weeks without food but only days without water, emergency preparedness begins with potable water. The popularity of Berkey Water Filters stem from the fact that they filter and clean the dirtiest of water using gravity, without the need for electricity. This fact alone speaks volumes as to the inherent value that these systems possess, not to mention the piece of mind it brings to the owner. There’s an argument to be made that a water filter such as the Big Berkey is considered the most, if not one of the most important forms of emergency preparation. Stop and adjust your perspective for a moment and this reality becomes abundantly clear. If we spent just a tenth of the time preparing for a potential emergency that we do preparing for a economic downturn, we’d have a garage stocked full of food, water, supplies, and equipment. Unfortunately, I feel as though we’ve been hypnotized by our own technological advances into a false sense of security. New Orleans residents had the wake up call of a lifetime, and my hope is that the rest of the population is still not sleeping.
Click here for more information on how many berkey filters are needed.
The Thirsty Berkey - For the Love of Clean Water
Indianapolis - Polluted River Water, Pt’s 1 & 2
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008A water treatment plant in Indianapolis has been dumping sewage overflow into the White River for over 40 years now. This is a river that people swim and fish in…even though there are warning signs posted. Pay attention to the amount of E-Coli they find from a river sample.
It makes you wonder how much of this contaminated water made it into the water supply of the downstream popuation over these 40 years. What seeped into the well water systems? Was it filtered out in some way? I’d be real interested to see illness or cancer rates across this potentially affected population to look for correlations. Environmentally speaking, this is just sad.
How Many Berkey Water Filters Are Needed?
Thursday, October 30th, 2008This seems to be one of the questions I receive the most. And, it makes sense because there are many ways in which Berkey Water Filters can be set up. The more you read, the more confusing it can get, and the information out in cyberspace doesn’t always clear things up. Below, I’ve assembled 7 basic facts and guidelines that will help you understand the world of Berkey.
- Basic systems all start out with 2 filtration elements in the upper chamber. You then build upon the system from there depending on your needs and system capacity.
- The larger the system, the more elements you can fit into the upper chamber. It ranges from 2 elements in a system like the Travel Berkey or Berkey Light, to 8 elements in the Crown Berkey.
- Traditionally, filter / purifying elements are designed for either the upper or the lower chamber. Ceramic filters & Black Berkey filters are upper chamber. PF-2 Fluoride / Arsenic and PF-4 Arsenic / Lead / MTBE / Fluoride filters are lower chamber. In theory, if you wanted to pimp out your Berkey, 16 filtration elements could fit into the Crown Berkey (8 up / 8 down).
- Black Berkey’s only match up with PF-2’s, and Ceramics only match up with PF-4’s. This is because the PF-2’s are designed to complement the improved filtering abilities of the Black Berkey elements. Similarly, PF-4 filter technology is designed to complement and fit with the Ceramic filtration elements. So, if you buy 4 BB’s up top, you’ll need 2 sets of PF-2’s down below…not a PF-4 set.
- The amount of lower chamber elements in any given system must match the amount of upper chamber elements. i.e. 2 BB’s up top must equal 1 set of PF-2’s down below, 4 Ceramic’s up top must equal a set of PF-4’s below…etc. Keep in mind, lower chamber(pf) filters are not required. A system can function with only upper chamber elements, like 2 BB’s, but not the other way around.
- You cannot combine different types of filtration elements in one chamber. In other words, if you have 2 Black Berkey purification filters in the upper chamber and you’d like to expand to 4, you cannot add two Ceramic filters to the mix. You would need to add 2 addt’l Black Berkey filters.
- More Filters = Faster filtration; not better filtering. If you’re buying a larger system, you most likely have a requirement for water to be available quicker and in larger volumes. In this case, you would want to opt for 4, 6, or 8 upper chamber filter elements.
Hope this gives everyone a good foundation. Couple this information with your filtering intentions and you’ll be able to select the right system and elements combination that will meet your health needs. Please feel free to contact me with any other questions that I can help you with - Dan@Bigberkeywaterfilters.com.
The Thristy Berkey - For the Love of Clean Water
Arsenic in Your Well Water?
Sunday, October 26th, 2008I remember when someone first told me that arsenic can be found in the drinking water coming from the taps of many homes in the United States. I took it as one of those scare statistics at first, until I came across a newspaper article on the subject a couple months later. It’s at that point that I decided to do a little research. I’ve written an article posted on ezine that gets into the details, but let me cover some of it here.
Arsenic is deadly, period. It is known for causing all sorts of cancers including bladder, lung and skin and possibly kidney and liver cancer. In 2006, the EPA set the arsenic standard for drinking water at .010 parts per million (10 parts per billion) to protect consumers served by public water systems from the effects of long-term, chronic exposure to arsenic. However, the limit was set at 50 ppb up until that time and the EPA readily admits that it reduced the maximum in part due to studies revealing health deterioration at these levels.
It’s a step in the right direction that public water systems are required to stay below 10ppb, but if you get your water from a well, you may be drinking water with much higher levels of arsenic contamination. Many areas of the country, particularly the western United States are known for naturally high levels of arsenic in the ground and well water. Being an element found in the earth’s sediment, arsenic has the ability to leech into your well water source and you may be none the wiser. Hopefully, if you live in a particularly vulnerable area, your town and/or state officials require arsenic testing as part of a home inspection or house transfer. Unfortunately there are also many towns that do not require this, or are simply not aware of new studies highlighting the need for more stringent arsenic thresholds.
State and federal governments do not require regular testing of well water for arsenic, so what develops is a gap in public safety. The public water officials must report their arsenic levels on a regular basis to state and federal officials, but many homeowners have been drinking from wells that haven’t been tested in decades. The distress of researchers pushing this issue is that even at levels lower than 10ppb, the continuous consumption of low doses may result in cancer 15-30 years down the road.
Fortunately, arsenic testing can be done for as little as $50 and it may be well worth your while to get it checked out. You can also invest in a full home filtration system, but these installations can cost upwards of $4000, with additional annual costs of $300. I recommend point of use water filters as an inexpensive and highly effective option. I’m partial to Berkey water filters since they are distinguished for their arsenic removing filter technology and the systems last for many years without needing regular filter replacements typical of others on the market. Regardless of your choice, if you drink well water, please take a few moments to learn if you may be affected by this chemical and explore your options.
The Thirsty Berkey – For the Love of Clean Water
