# Don't waste you money on Berkey or doulton filter



## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Save your dough and make one from five gallon buckets.

I just bought a doulton with doulton filters and it works amazing, truly amazing. The water is the best I have tasted in my life. The problem though is the price, the size of the storage tank, and the fact that you have to replace the filters twice a year.

If you are like me and drink a lot of water a day then you might be frustrated like I when you find yourself filling the tank with more water as often as you will have to do. A five gallon tank would last longer and be less of a chore.

if you are like me and can get food grade buckets for free or for a buck then it makes sense to make your own because the filters are the most important part of the store bought metal units and you have to replace the filters twice a year. The filters are why the water taste amazing, not the tin tan. Maybe the five gallon buckets give it a plastic taste, if so let me know.

If I could go back and do it all over again it would cost me:
$2 for two buckets with lids.
$10 for a tap.
$45 for filters.

So, I would have saved $150 and saved myself the hassle of refilling twice a day.

I am sure you heard all this before, but I wanted to share my real life experience and hopefully help others avoid a headache.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Doulton, and the stainless steel housing are well worth the money. 

I wouldn't waste another cent on Berkey however. I'll never trust them again.


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## Wolfy-hound (May 5, 2013)

Could you share a picture of your 5 gallon set up?

And which filters are these? How many gallons of water does a filter work for before needing to be replaced/

Sorry for questions but I've been looking for devices to make water safe.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Pictures here. http://www.stpaulmercantile.com/berkeyfaq.htm

You can get larger stainless steel filter housings. They are available, and don't cost much more. http://www.stpaulmercantile.com/index.php?action=store&item=StainlessCeraCarb47


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

A candle (filter) will treat about 1,000 gallons.

http://doultonusa.com/HTML%20pages/how%20it%20works.htm

I've been looking at using cheap stainless pots for the housing instead of a plastic bucket.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

For those who aren't yet aware of it, Fairey (the people who make the Doulton filters) now have an undersink version with a pop-on cartridge to hold the filter. If you have pressurized water from a well or municipal water, it will do the same thing as a gravity filter without taking up the counter space. There is also a "whole house" unit to make ALL of your house water safe.

I'm thinking seriously of converting over to one or the other.


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## Tobster (Feb 24, 2009)

Harry Chickpea said:


> For those who aren't yet aware of it, Fairey (the people who make the Doulton filters) now have an undersink version with a pop-on cartridge to hold the filter. If you have pressurized water from a well or municipal water, it will do the same thing as a gravity filter without taking up the counter space. There is also a "whole house" unit to make ALL of your house water safe.
> 
> I'm thinking seriously of converting over to one or the other.


What is your current setup with filters? I recall over the past few years you have commented on water filters and been critical of claims by manufacturers and evaluated the products. It seemed you had some experience and was well informed on the topic. TIA.


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## wannalive (Aug 29, 2013)

Common Tator said:


> Doulton, and the stainless steel housing are well worth the money.
> 
> I wouldn't waste another cent on Berkey however. I'll never trust them again.


is there something wrong with Berkley filters.. or is it just a price thing


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

The problem isn't with the genuine Doulton filters which are made by the UK company that also makes the Berkefield setup that's the original from which the Berkey was copied. The issue is the filters that go inside the stainless housing that are thought to have been sourced from China by the company that makes the Berkey. The supposed Chinese filters allow water to pass through unfiltered when the base comes unglued.

Genuine made in the UK Doulton filters have never failed unlike the ones from Berkey which failed frequently and had to be tested periodically to make sure they hadn't failed.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Berkey sold a great many defective filters. In my case, I had saved for many years and bought a Berkey which came with two filters, and 8 replacement filters. Every one was defective.

In fact, they were aware that the filters were defective before they shipped my order! They had redesigned the filters because of the defect, and the new ones had already been designed and were in production when they sent me the old ones.

I wanted to share with my HT friends, because I believe they should know if a prep could harm or kill them. I started this thread. You will see that many of us had defective filters. http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/sp...berkey-red-food-color-test-picture-heavy.html


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Harry Chickpea said:


> For those who aren't yet aware of it, Fairey (the people who make the Doulton filters) now have an undersink version with a pop-on cartridge to hold the filter. If you have pressurized water from a well or municipal water, it will do the same thing as a gravity filter without taking up the counter space. There is also a "whole house" unit to make ALL of your house water safe.
> 
> I'm thinking seriously of converting over to one or the other.


Hey Harry, I didn't know about this! I could replace the Reverse Osmosis at our house in the Burbs with one of these! That thing makes nice water, but the numerous pieces of plastic tubing sometimes spring a leak. And the darn thing takes up most of the space under the sink. This is much simpler and smaller!

Are you talking about this one? http://www.amazon.com/Ceramic-Under...3PJN0/ref=pd_luc_sbs_01_02_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

The one I was looking at is this:









http://www.doultonwaterfiltersusa.com/products.html

We have enough sediment that I have to scrub the ceramic fairly regularly, and the quick disconnect would make the job much easier, especially since it uses a single candle and will need cleaning even more often.

This puppy would do the entire house, but cleaning could be tedious:










The one you are looking at appears to be a standard double undersink case. All I can think is that they have modified the head of the case to accept the thread of a Doulton. (I have a double sitting out in a shed, I might look at it - I also use a single ($15 +-) with a 5 micron as a prefilter to the cistern.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Thanks Harry!


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Common Tator said:


> Doulton, and the stainless steel housing are well worth the money.
> 
> I wouldn't waste another cent on Berkey however. I'll never trust them again.


 
Oh I hope I did not give the wrong impression. I am more then happy with the Doulton filters they produced the best tasting water I have ever drank (and that includes various bottled water like my favorite Poland Spring which I consider the best quality of all the bottled waters). 

My problem is with the size and cost of the container. I do not see why that container should cost $150 when I can buy a thin 5 gallon stainless steel stock pot for $15. The Daulton container is thin and almost flimsy, it is thinner then the thin walled stock pot I mentioned previously.

I will have nothing to do with Berkey ether. They are untrustworthy, crooked, and greedy. Some people buy a Bekey housing and use Doulton filters in them but I hate the individuals who run berkey so much that I could never conscience giving them one penny of my money nor stomach looking at their water container in my house at all.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

There was a woman here on HT who literally almost died from drinking water from the defective berkey filters. She trusted them and they almost killed her. 

If I recall right, the problem was with the black filters, something about the glue that holds the filter to the mounting plastic was defective and created a leak.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Another idea is for the potters here. You could make the container our of thick glazed clay. Two five gallon clay containers stacked on top of each other would work well. The walls would be thick enough to take the weight, the glaze makes it water tight, and it would not give a plastic taste (that is if the food grade plastic buckets give the water a plastic taste. I do not know.) It could also look very attractive with various glazes and designs.


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

That would work as long as a glaze containing lead was not used.


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## K.B. (Sep 7, 2012)

If you aren't looking for fancy, just functional, this is what I have been using for that past couple years with 2 five-gal bucket system:
http://shop.monolithic.com/products/just-water-ceramic-drip-filter

works very well and for ~$40 (including buckets), you are set for 1000 plus gallons


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## Old Vet (Oct 15, 2006)

If the water is potable and free from other contaminants like bacteria a good sand filter will do the job of making it taste good.


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## logbuilder (Jan 31, 2006)

City Bound said:


> Another idea is for the potters here. You could make the container our of thick glazed clay. Two five gallon clay containers stacked on top of each other would work well. The walls would be thick enough to take the weight, the glaze makes it water tight, and it would not give a plastic taste (that is if the food grade plastic buckets give the water a plastic taste. I do not know.) It could also look very attractive with various glazes and designs.


I used to be a potter. To throw a pot that large is hard. If I threw two that big, they would sell for more than the berkey SS container. It could be done easier with coils.

I do have two food grade buckets, spigot, 2 filters and plans in storage should I ever need it. I have my own well that tests perfect so I don't routinely filter. The filter would be for use should I need to use river water.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

logbuilder said:


> I used to be a potter. To throw a pot that large is hard. If I threw two that big, they would sell for more than the berkey SS container. It could be done easier with coils.
> 
> I do have two food grade buckets, spigot, 2 filters and plans in storage should I ever need it. I have my own well that tests perfect so I don't routinely filter. The filter would be for use should I need to use river water.


Not thrown, hand built with the coil method. It would not be made to be sold it would be made by an individual for their own home use.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Darren said:


> That would work as long as a glaze containing lead was not used.


lead glaze is outlawed in America if I am not mistaken.


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## sand flea (Sep 1, 2013)

I believe I've seen where Berkey acknowledged the issues they had and resolved them, also offering people some options to replace defective filters. I guess it all depends on how old one's system is... as to whether you've got good or bad filters.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Sand flea, if you read through the link I provided above, in post #10, you will see that in response to the defective filter issue, New Millinium Concepts, the company that makes Berkey actually made it more difficult to replace the filters. And where they previously replaced them free of charge, they started pro-rating the filters. So if you bought your filter a year prior, but didn't use it till today and then discovered they were defective, you would be responsible to pay a large percent, I think 100% of the replacement costs. 

It took months to get my filters replaced. And even at that, the only reason they replaced mine was because Matt from My Patriot Supply contacted them, and asked them to call me. But I had already called them several times and hadn't been able to get anywhere with them on my own.

I don't know if they ever resolved the issues with defective filters. Their handling of this issue was enough to sour me on them forever. I asked them to do a recall of the defective filters and they refused. I tried getting the Federal government to act, but they didn't.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

So they lost all credibility.


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## biggkidd (Aug 16, 2012)

Good topic thanks.

Larry


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## oth47 (Jan 11, 2008)

City Bound said:


> So they lost all credibility.


They did with me..


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## tab (Aug 20, 2002)

Yes, as I stand here next to my Berkey. The one I thought was top of the line. Used to be maybe but when the issue with the filters came up and no recall it soured me. Throw in a spigot that did not last as it was also faulty and nary a word or replacement, not a company I would recommend. Common Tator's thread is very detailed and it is how I found out my filters were all made in the time frame of faulty. Did I mention that I would NOT recommend Berkey?!


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

tab said:


> Yes, as I stand here next to my Berkey. The one I thought was top of the line. Used to be maybe but when the issue with the filters came up and no recall it soured me. Throw in a spigot that did not last as it was also faulty and nary a word or replacement, not a company I would recommend. Common Tator's thread is very detailed and it is how I found out my filters were all made in the time frame of faulty. Did I mention that I would NOT recommend Berkey?!


Since the Berkey is a copy of the British Berkefield, buy the Berkefield spigot and Doulton filters that are sourced from Fairey Ceramics who make the Berkefield. You won't have problems. You have the Chinese knock off stuff. 

The stainless steel Berkey housing will work with the British Berkefield parts.


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