Berkey makes one of the most recognizable water filtration systems on the market. They’re like the airstream of water filters. You know it as soon as you see it.
So how does it work, what’s the science behind it and is it worth the several hundred dollar price tag?
The Berkey Water Filter System
The Berkey water system contains three primary parts.
- The upper chamber
- The lower chamber
- The filtration units
While you don’t necessarily know it from the outset - a Berkey system is actually two parts. The top part you put water in. Then, it filters through the black filters and into the drinking chamber.
This filtration process allow Berkey to filter out millions of bacteria, minerals and other junk in your water that you don’t want to be drinking.
I know what you’re thinking - how do we know this actually works? Let’s break it down.
How does Berkery Water Filter Work?
While the Berkey may have a noticeable stainless steel look to it (it looks like the airstream of water filters) it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
The Berkey system has two parts of the container - the upper half and the lower half. It’s not immediately obvious if you’ve never used a Berkey before.
In the middle are several Black Berkey Filters that do all the heavy lifting of the filtration. It's kind of cool to set up if you've never done it before.
Berkey describes their function as doing three things:
- Absoprtions
- Asdsorption
- MicroFiltration
We’ll break down exactly how ti works.
Microfiltration
Berkey filters are built of six types of elements. They contain millions of small passages for the water to flow through, but they are so small that contaminants or unwanted elements cannot.
These holes are not superhighways - they’re tiny twists and turns in the filters that catch more contaminants at every pass. This catches batteries, parasites, sediments, and other junk in your water before they make it to your drinking chamber.Thi
Absorption
In this part of the process, Berkey is packed with ions that attract all the contanimants in your water. These are absorbed into by your black filters and what continues to flow through to the drinking water portion of the chamber is pure, pure water.
Adsorption
You’d be forgiven for thinking that this is just a misspelling of absorption.
What Berkey does here is creates an ionic barrier that creates surface tension and allows tiny pores to block any materials smaller than them. This is the part of the process that allows Berkey to remove submicron viruses in ways that other filters usually cannot. In fact, most purification systems use iodine or chlorine to achieve this so this is one of the things that makes Berkey unique in it’s filtering methodology.
The Berkey Water Filter Models
The Berkey Water Filter is the same system, but comes in a wide variety of sizes based on your individual needs.
They all run the same process, but are mainly different volumes depending on how much space you have in your house and the number of people you have drinking out of it. Here's our breakdown of the volume, serving and price of each berkey (and our tongue-in-cheek take on who might be a good fit for each model).
The Travel Berkey
For the berkey user that's on the go.
- Volume: 1.5 gallons
- Serves: 1-3 people
- Volume: $327
The Big Berkey
If you need just a little more water.
- Volume: 2.25 gallons
- Serves: 1-4 people
- Price: $365-$527
The Berkey Light
If you just wanted roughly the same amount of water in a different format.
- Volume: 2.75 gallons
- Serves: 2-5 people
- Price: $305-$365
The Royal Berkey
You're starting to get thirsty.
- Volume: 3.25 gallons
- Serves: 2-5 people
- Price: $408-$568
The Imperial Berkey
You're starting an empire of hydration.
- Volume: 4.5 gallons
- Serves: 4-8+ people
- Price: $451 - $771
Crown Berkey
If a drought ever happens, your neighbors will be flocking to you to bless them with your fountain of hydration.
- Volume: 6 gallons
- Serves: 6-12+ people
- Price: $478 - $958
Berkey Water Filter Accessories
There are not that many Berkey Water Filter Accessories. Most of the accessories are typically filter replacements and cleaning capabilities. Berkey recommends you replace these filters every 2-5 years - so you can be sure that everything is functioning at it's best and your water stays as clean as possible.
The one exception is water stands.
Berkey Water Stands
A standard stainless steel stand for a Berkey Filter is roughly $50. You can find one of those here.
You can find a variety of custom and unique stands for Berkeys around the internet and on places like etsy.
Here's one from Heirloom that we particularly liked
Common Berkey Questions
If you have a few questions about Berkey - you're not alone, here's some of the most commonly asked questions:
How to Clean The Berkey Water Filter?
Cleaning your berkey is easy! Here's how you do it
How To Prime The Berkey Water Filter?
Sometimes a video is worth 10,000 words. Here's a quick primer on how to prime the berkey properly.
Where to Buy Berkey Water Filter?
You can go ahead and grab the berkey water filter from one of their distributors below (comes with free shipping).
We also have links to buy Berkey on Amazon.com below.
The Berkey Water Filter on Amazon
The Berkey Water Filter is available on Amazon. However, due to the issues with Amazon’s sourcing of various products - it’s sometimes hard to know if you’re going to get a genuine Berkey product or a returned/open-box item.
If you’d like to check out Berkey on Amazon, you can grab it here.
However, to guarantee authenticity we usually recommend people usually purchase directly from Berkey or an authorized distributor to make sure you're getting the best quality.
Official Berkey Links
If you want the official links to Berkey, here you go:
- Berkey Website
- Berkey Filter Twitter
- Berkey Filter Instagram
Berkeys are hands-down the best water filter on the market. Whichever one you end up with - I'm sure you'll be happy. Drink up!