Water Filter

[NHGuy]

Does anyone use a water filtering system .. such as a Berkey to use along with the filtering system in the RV? Just wondering if this would be worth the cost or if the standard filter is good enough.

[Csbadvisor]

Originally Posted by NHGuy

Does anyone use a water filtering system .. such as a Berkey to use along with the filtering system in the RV? Just wondering if this would be worth the cost or if the standard filter is good enough.

Recently purchased a Berkey, its removes many impurities that regular filter will not remove. Using it at home now but will place it in TT when our season starts. Many YouTube vids of travelers who use the Berkey to filter all types of water.

[pgandw]

Having lived in the marine world and in the Bahamas, any filtering is a luxury. Marine water tanks are very difficult to empty/clean out, and houses in the Bahamas usually use roof rain runoff into a cistern. Backpacking - used what was available, used a filter/pump to avoid the worst stuff in later years.

So I'm pretty happy with the stock filter on our A-frame camper. We do carry a full water tank in Colorado, and the tank is emptied a couple of times a year. With a full tank, we are normally use our home city water rather than the campsite water.

Different strokes for different folks - we're probably at one extreme.

Fred W
2019 Flagstaff T21TBHW A-frame
2008 Hyundai Entourage minivan
camping Colorado and adjacent states one weekend at a time

[Dennis878]

The Berkey is very expensive as opposed to a regular water filter system. Forest River is a 5 micron filter is Berkey better? From what I’ve read about them they are not NSF certified. Says a lot about the company. They can’t even be sold in several states.

[TitanMike]

Originally Posted by Dennis878

The Berkey is very expensive as opposed to a regular water filter system. Forest River is a 5 micron filter is Berkey better? From what I’ve read about them they are not NSF certified. Says a lot about the company. They can’t even be sold in several states.

Before I retired there were numerous people in the office that used various water filters for their drinking water. Remember seeing several Brita pitchers in the lunchroom refrigerator with the owner's name on them.

Funny thing, many of those "owners" seemed to be "out sick" more than the rest too.

I just drank from the drinking fountain in the hall. Somebody came in every few months and changed the inline filter like used for refrigerators. Tasted fine. Only work i missed, when I was supposed to be in the office, was when I played hooky and played golf with a supplier.[emoji41]

[oxcamper]

We use a Britta for drinking, just tap water for cooking and anything else.
As serious wilderness backpackers in our younger days, using ground water treated with iodine tablets to drink, we've never got sick, got giardia, I think it's over rated that people worry about the quality of water provided.
JMHO.
please don't go ballistic on me!

[ependydad]

Originally Posted by Dennis878

The Berkey is very expensive as opposed to a regular water filter system. Forest River is a 5 micron filter is Berkey better? From what I’ve read about them they are not NSF certified. Says a lot about the company. They can’t even be sold in several states.

For the covid lock down, we spent 7 weeks at a friend's hunting camp that literally had mud in the well water.

We tested a couple of different filters- a basic .5 micron filter, a dual filter setup (my ClearSource water filter system), and then water that went through those and THEN through a Berkey.



I can't speak to the NSF certified results or if the Berkey does everything it says. I can say that with sediment, it makes a big difference. I can also say that it has consistently improved the taste of the water across the country. And frankly, central Florida water is pert near like drinking swamp water.

[ependydad]

After we went fulltimg, we spent the first 6 months buying 12-14 gallons of water each week. We did it primarily with 2.5 gallon containers. We also bought a case of water about weekly.

We bought a Berkey water filter with 2 black filters. At the same time, we bought a set of reusable water bottles in about the same size as bottles in cases of water and we bought a couple of 2 gallon containers. We fill the water bottles and the 2 gallon containers so that we can always have cold water in the fridge.

With this setup, we entirely cut out buying water.

The problem was, we were still getting muck from the campsites in the rest of the water system. Every once in a while, I'd buy a cheap Camco in-line water filter and more expensive hose/in-line filters from RVWaterFilterStore.com. They would regularly impact water pressure so much that I'd throw it away and go back to being without protection.

Until I got the ClearSource RV Water Filter system. This is an expensive case for a pair of filters. There are cheaper alternatives out there, but this ClearSource is solidly built. They compare themselves to being the Yeti of water filter systems (shrug!). I've been very happy with it and the replacement filters aren't very expensive. Fulltiming, I was replacing them about every 2-3 months (except for the covid lockdown I mentioned in the last post, then I was replacing them every 2 weeks due to caked on mud!).

Here's a full review on that:
https://learntorv.com/clearsource/

I continue to use both the Berkey and the ClearSource because I have them both. I do think I'd be happy with the water with just ClearSource.

[AlaskaErik]

Originally Posted by oxcamper

We use a Britta for drinking, just tap water for cooking and anything else.
As serious wilderness backpackers in our younger days, using ground water treated with iodine tablets to drink, we've never got sick, got giardia, I think it's over rated that people worry about the quality of water provided.
JMHO.
please don't go ballistic on me!

I've drank water straight out of fast flowing streams in Alaska and never had any problems.