10 Berkey Water Filter Mistakes to Avoid

[Music] hey there i am cammy creator of the blog tidbits at tidbitstashcammy.com today i want to talk to you about my berkey water filter which i just love so stinking much but i want to discuss specifically 10 berkey water filter mistakes to avoid unfortunately some of these lessons were learned the hard way so let's see if we can prevent you from doing any of the same so i often talk about my berkey in my instagram stories or on my blog and i always get loads of questions about it i should probably do another video on why i love it but today i just want to share what i've learned to avoid after using our berkey for going on about four years now so feel free to shop berkey through the link in my description below you can always use the coupon code tidbits for a discount on your purchase if you would like um but if you want to watch to the end of the video i will just give maybe a really brief explanation about why i love having a burki water filter but for now 10 burger mistakes to avoid starting with buying the wrong size so the first berkey that i got was the big berkey which holds 2.25 gallons of water now i actually thought that would be plenty for our family of six but i found i was filling it up at least two times a day most days which was just annoying so i recently upgraded to the royal berkey which feels just about perfect since my kids really don't drink that much water and my husband works all day so my biggest suggestion to anyone that asks is just buy as big as your space will allow you want to make sure the berkey that you buy isn't taller than the spots you will have for it so here we don't have upper cabinets so the royal berkey is really a nice size without feeling too bulky in our kitchen and with that extra gallon that it holds it just works perfect for us so you just don't want it to be too big for your daily water consumption because you don't want those filters to sit dry for too long as you drink your way through the bottom chamber but we'll get to more more on that in a second but the mistake number two is filling the top of the chamber before the bottom chamber is empty so the actual water filters sit in this top chamber and you pour the water in and it just slowly drips down to this bottom filter and gives you beautiful clean water well if you haven't drank enough water through the bottom chamber and you go to fill the top chamber again you might guess what happens make your cup overflow with um you'll actually start to see water come out of this middle section here and it just kind of spills everywhere it's the worst if someone fills it up and does this and then everyone goes to bed and then you wake up in the morning with water everywhere so yes i speak from experience it took the hubs a while to figure out that he needs to check this bottom chamber before he refills it or we will wake up to that mess okay berkey mistake number three leaving the spigot on so another water mishap can happen if say a child comes along and they go to take a drink and the water's really low in here and so they'll tip it forward with the spigot on and get as much water as they can out of the berkey and then they walk away with the spigot on they don't notice because the water level is actually below the spigot so it's not pouring out of the time well then perhaps an adult comes to feel the berkey unawares that the spigot is not actually closed they fill it and they walk away um as that water starts to drip down to the bottom chamber and starts to drain that spigot is wide open and the water just keeps flowing through um yep we've had that happen too as well so just always check it and tell your kids that they have to shut that and then just hope for the best so berkey mistake number four would be to just partially fill your berkey so to keep these filters in here working equally well you always want to fill it completely up to the top submerging the filters all the way and then you let them drain completely um if you're just continually maybe filling it halfway or refilling it when it's not all the way drained only part of those filters are going to be working and if you do that a lot they'll just wear out differently and unevenly so we make it a practice to drink it all completely and then fill it completely to get an even wear on the filters so berkey mistake number five letting your filters stay dirty so these filters work really well but you will begin to see a buildup of residue on them so depending on how contaminated your water is will probably depend on how fast that buildup accumulates so you have to clean your filters regularly and you will begin to notice how frequently you need to do this because the water won't actually filter through as fast or even like all the way so we lived in an airbnb for a few weeks while we were finishing up this home before we moved in and the water there was very high iron in iron like it was yellow so i had to clean the filters like weekly because it would just cake the filters so quick but i got to tell you i was so grateful that we had the berkey in that situation especially so that i didn't have to buy bottled water and we could still use the water was available and filter it and it was just amazing no matter how gross that water was by the time it was filtered in the berkey it was just pure and clean and tasting great berkey mistake number six letting your filters get dry now as i alluded to already you don't want to let these filters sit dry for too long so if you're not drinking through a complete cycle in a day you may have bought too big of a berkey um if the filters go dry for too long you'll actually have to re-prime them to get them to work at their optimum best so generally you want to fill daily keeping them wet and moist or if you will be traveling or putting it away you want to scrub the filters let them dry thoroughly before you put them away so this will really extend the life of your filters and keep them working good for you all right perky mistake number seven letting your filters get too old so you will eventually need new filters you can read up on the berkey site about when to do this they get a lot of information on that but with two filters in our berkey and filling it every single day they estimate it will last up to three years we did notice our filters not working that great anymore in our other one in about three and a half years um it just wouldn't drain even after we scrubbed them so that was a clue for me that we need a replacement and if you don't do that your berkey just won't work great it won't filter the water that you needed to so you just have to make sure that those aren't past their prime okay perky mistake number eight buying a used berkey without replacing the filters so i had a friend wanting to buy our old berkey from us um but i warned her that she would need to buy replacement filters i highly recommend if you are buying a used berkey maybe someone online just plan on the need for the cost to buy new filters and then price the advantage of doing that versus just buying a brand new one you really just don't know the information that you need to on those old filters if you're buying used so i think it's just a best practice to just plan to buy new filters if you happen to find a berkey for a good deal that is used if you need to save money on this purchase i have noticed they do have a scratch and dense cell section on the berkey site i will link to that for you below as well but that might be an even better option rather than buying a used one all right so bricky mistake number nine is skipping the priming of your elements or the red food coloring test now this relates to the first things that you will do when you get your new berkey there are many videos that berkey's put out and instructions that come with your berkey to teach you how to prime the filter elements and to test your setup with a red dye test to just make sure it's working so both the priming and the red dye test are crucial to make sure it's all working like it should be so i highly suggest you don't skip that step all right breaking mistake number 10 is cleaning your filters with a dirty scrubbing pad or with soap so you want to keep as much bacteria or contaminants away from those filters just as much as possible i like to keep a handful of inexpensive scrubbing pads on hand to clean these filters and then i always toss them after the clean i think we all know how dirty those sponges can get and how well they grow bacteria so using a fresh clean one for your filters is just a really good idea also just use water when you clean and scrub soap could potentially plug the filters or coat them with chemicals or irritants and they just won't work as good for you so running water and a clean sponge and that works like a charm all right there we go i hope that was helpful go ahead and shop the link below use the code tidbits to save a little moolah on your berkey purchase and let me just share a few more thoughts on why we love our berkey if you want to listen to that so i first got the berkey because i noticed our city water was often cloudy and when we'd have like out-of-state visitors they would always complain about the taste of our water so then i started to read up on what kinds of things that they put in the city water and i decided i did not want that in our bodies you'll have to read on the rookie site but the berkey has a huge list of contaminants and elements that it filters out and leaves you with just delicious fresh water um the berkey really came in handy while we lived in the rv and we're drinking out of hose water which tasted terrible and i'm sure was leaching even more chemicals into our water so i was really grateful to have it during that time because there was no way that we could have had room to store bottled water um i already mentioned how great it was in that airbnb that we stayed at for a few weeks and now we are on well water which also has a small amount of iron and other natural elements in it that don't make our water taste great so again i rely on this fresh and clean water i would say unless you have a really robust complete home filter system whether you're on well water or city water or whatever a berkey is so great to have it's also wonderful as an emergency preparedness item because if traditional water sources aren't available you can filter almost any water with this and make it safe to drink so big perk right there additionally and something you might not think about i love having this filtered water to feed my sourdough starter a starter won't stay alive if you are feeding it with water that has like chlorine in it which city water usually does so if you are on the market for one there are many water filters to choose from but i feel like the berkey is the most stylish and it doesn't offend my design eyes to have it on the counter in fact i think it looks quite nice and it just sits out and reminds me to drink water i have had friends ask me if i don't like not having cold water to drink from like what might come out of a fridge so we absolutely love drinking room temp water and if you take a minute to research it cold water is actually a bit stressful on the digestive system so i drink way more water in a sitting if it's room temperature versus if it's cold and quite honestly my kids don't know any different at this point so we do have ice in our freezer for those hot summer days if needed well that is enough berkey cheddar for today thank you for joining me i would love to hear if you have any questions or comments or perhaps you have made mistakes with your water filter as well and you can share that with us um if you're not already subscribed to my channel i would absolutely love to have you do that and just come on back as i share more inspiration for do it yourself living thanks for [Music] watching [Music] you

Channel: TIDBITS

Views: 111,870

Rating: 4.9296637 out of 5

Keywords: berkey water filter, berkey water filter setup, berkey water filter review, berkey mistakes, berkey water filter priming, review of the berkey, tidbits berkey, what size of berkey should i get, how to clean the berkey, berkey water filters reviews, home water filter systems, big berkey, royal berkey, berkey red, priming berkey water filter, priming big berkey water filters, berkey water filter priming pump, berkey metal spigot, healthiest water filter, beautiful water filter

Id: AnAp837zTQA

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021