Shopping for countertop water purifier

[888zzz]

I am shopping for a countertop water purifier. Berkey and Doulton are popular brands. What brand and model do you recommend? I only need about one gallon per day. I need it to filter out flouride and chlorine. Thanks for any replies.

[thefrug]

This is what we plan on doing:
http://www.alpharubicon.com/kids/hom...erkeydaire.htm

This will be our next big purchase.

You can also check this out:
http://shop.monolithic.com/products/...ic-drip-filter


I have never heard of Doulton

[Denvergirlie]

We have a Berkey and LOVE it. We have the Royal size, it was actually cheaper than the size down from that (don't remember the name). There are 2 of us and we thus need to fill every other day or so. However, we also use that water often for cooking, coffee, what not.

The black filters will take out everything except the flouride, you'll need to buy the white filters as well to take that out.

We even took ours camping once, it was so nice to just pull water from the creek 10 feet away and filter that for drinking and cooking instead of hauling that with us too (we camp most backcountry, so no water at the "campground".

[Grainlady]

We use a 1-gallon distiller to purify water. Filters and reverse osmosis don't remove small molecules of toxins from a large assortment of chemicals and prescription drugs found in water, if you are wanting something more than just improving the flavor. Filters block large particles and improve the flavor. There's a huge difference between filtering and purifying water.

Distillation is the only purfication method that removes prescription drugs now found in drinking water. Water treatment plants only take care of bacteria, so if Rx drugs is a concern, that's another reason to use a distiller. It costs us 21-cents to distill a gallon of water.

We got our last distiller from Amazon.com after checking for the best price.

[onencgirl]

I've been looking at distillers and like what they do. I found some for $99. Is that a good price?

[Denvergirlie]

We use a 1-gallon distiller to purify water. Filters and reverse osmosis don't remove small molecules of toxins from a large assortment of chemicals and prescription drugs found in water, if you are wanting something more than just improving the flavor. Filters block large particles and improve the flavor. There's a huge difference between filtering and purifying water.

Distillation is the only purfication method that removes prescription drugs now found in drinking water. Water treatment plants only take care of bacteria, so if Rx drugs is a concern, that's another reason to use a distiller. It costs us 21-cents to distill a gallon of water.

We got our last distiller from Amazon.com after checking for the best price.

Technically Berkey's are purifiers, it's a whole new ball game compared to something like a Brita picture filter.

Here are some of the technical stats of what these will remove.
http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkeytech.htm

What I like about the Berkey over a distiller, is the lack of need for electricity/ power to purify my water. Plus it's portable enought to take camping in the woods and let's me not worry about my water supply being disrupted during a power outage.

I've yet to see a distiller that doesn't require electricity or an old fashion open fire with beakers and tubing to capture the vapor steam.

But there can be advantages to everything, distillers are less money up front, but then use electricity, but they also take up less counter space too.
I like the Berkey because it works off of gravity, thus will work when the power is out, as well as the fact that its portable.

[thefrug]

The power thing is the reason we're going with the Berkeys. It's good to be able to have water in all circumstances.

[peanut]

My friend has the best tasting water. She has an Ionways system. It does way more than you want though, and I'm sure it's out of your price range. They start at $1400CAD. But oh the taste difference in tea! I could be convinced to get some for that alone!

[888zzz]

Will this design work with smaller buckets like around 3 gallons? I assume it will because there are small Berkeys. I want to make one of these.

[Grainlady]

Technically Berkey's are purifiers, it's a whole new ball game compared to something like a Brita picture filter.

Here are some of the technical stats of what these will remove.
http://www.berkeyfilters.com/berkeytech.htm

What I like about the Berkey over a distiller, is the lack of need for electricity/ power to purify my water. Plus it's portable enought to take camping in the woods and let's me not worry about my water supply being disrupted during a power outage.

I've yet to see a distiller that doesn't require electricity or an old fashion open fire with beakers and tubing to capture the vapor steam.

But there can be advantages to everything, distillers are less money up front, but then use electricity, but they also take up less counter space too.
I like the Berkey because it works off of gravity, thus will work when the power is out, as well as the fact that its portable.

I also have a non-electric distiller. It's essentially for emergency use, but still requires a heat source. http://www.nsaw.com/waterwise1.htm

There are also "solar distillers", but I'm not sure how effective they are because they never bring the water to a boil.

It all boils down to (pun intended ) what do you want removed from your water? For us, it's all the Rx drugs in the drinking water, as well as farm chemicals and pharmaceuticals.