Best Water Filter? Brita, ZeroWater, PUR, Berkey, Aquaphor, AquaTrue

when it comes to water quality there's a lot more to it than just how the water tastes so have you ever checked out the water that you're drinking to see what's in it we're today we're going to do just that testing a bunch of different water filters to see which brand is the best in the first test we'll see how the filters perform on tap water then we'll see how well they do cleaning up well water that's had red food coloring added to it we'll add some iron to distilled water and see which brand performs the best then we'll cut open some filters and see how they're designed so i spent money on a water filter system when you can just make your own for around five dollars in supplies you'll need a plastic bottle a little bit of sand and some carbon let's first go ahead and soak the carbon in some water while the water's soaking let's go ahead and drill some holes in the cap on the bottle let's remove the bottom of the plastic bottle and then rinse off the carbon a coffee filter will help keep the carbon in place i'll go ahead and add a layer of sand then some carbon and another layer of sand i'm going to filter several cups of water and then we'll see how it performs to serve as our baseline i'll be using some tap water which is from the municipal water supply let's use a total dissolved solid tester to see the levels of minerals salts and metals dissolved in the water water with a high tds isn't necessarily bad it just means that the water has some stuff in it 259 parts per million let's go and test the homemade filter to see how it performs 237 parts per million so there's definitely a little bit of improvement at a price of only 19 the least expensive brand we'll be testing is made by aquaphor a5 filter reduces water hardness chlorine pesticides and heavy metals we're going to test that it claims to have the highest quality filter on the market the eight-stage filter is highly efficient and has outrageous performance for lime scale plus hundreds of contaminants including sand silt rust chlorine heavy metals like lead copper and mercury place the water filter under water for 10 minutes place the water filter into the pitcher after filtering water through the filter twice the water filter should be ready to use there's new information on the aquifer packaging regarding where the product is made an aquifer did slightly better than a homemade filter at 233 parts per million at a price of 20 the second least expensive brand we'll be testing is this sawyer mini water filtration system filters up to 100 000 gallons remove harmful pathogens from your residential water when boil alerts are issued the sawyer mini 0.1 micron absolute hollow fiber membrane filter housing a cluster of microfibers tubes which use similar technology found in medical dialysis unscrew the cap filter from the bladder fill bag with water screw back on cab and filter wipe off any dirty water from the bag open push pull valve on the cap and filter squeeze bag and dispense the soya brand is made in usa close push-pull valve when finished and the sawyer didn't perform as well as the aquifer at 256 parts per million at a price of 28 dollars is this bring pure rv filter the rv inline water filter is rated at 20 microns the hose filter is nsf-42 certified to reduce 97 of chlorine odor and taste the filter can be attached to any standard gardening hose to provide cleaner safer and healthier drinking water there's no information on the rv filter packaging regarding where it's made i used a garden hose to run water through the filter for several minutes before testing it 267 parts per million so pretty close to the unfiltered tap water at a price of 28 is this pure brand reduces heavy metals mercury cadmium copper and zinc 11 cup capacity the pure filter is made in mexico the pitcher is made in usa rinse the filter under running water for 15 seconds insert filter and twist to lock fill portray with water it is normal for carbon dust to appear in your first pitcher discard and refill 260 parts per million for the pure brand also the price of 28 dollars the same price as the pure brand is this brita filter brita is the number one water filter reducing chlorine mercury copper zinc and cadmium rinse with cold water for 15 seconds before using carbon dust is normal for the first one to three fillings the pitcher is made in canada of global components and the brooder performed nearly the same as the aquifer at 234 parts per million at a price of 29 is this zero water five stage advanced filtration system 10 cup pitcher certified to reduce lead zero dissolved solids for the purest tasting water zero water claims zero dissolved solids compared to 153 particles per million for the competition we're gonna test that zero water five stage ion exchange filter water quality meter included designed in usa assembled in mexico with imported components the filter on the left is from the zero water the filter on the right is from brita and there's a huge size difference we'll soon see if size matters when it comes to filters unscrew the blue protective cap twist into the bottom of the reservoir and tighten filter to obtain complete seal with the reservoir fill reservoir by pouring and filling with cold tap water and a zero water filter lives up to its reputation zero parts per million at a price of 32 dollars is this fris life brand five stage superior filtration performance produces chlorine fluoride lead heavy metals and bad taste the friz life brand is made in china the friz life has an adjustable filter by moving clockwise the water flows faster by moving counterclockwise the filter does a better job of filtering the water i'm going to keep the filter into position to make sure we're filtering the water as good as possible 253 parts per million for the friz life at a price of 41. is this lifestraw flex multi-use water filter with gravity bag 0.2 micron pore size removes 99.99 of bacteria protozoa and microplastics does lifestraw work just as good as a household system prior to the first use of lifestraw flex open top and bottom screw cap and rinse all parts with clean water reassemble and lifestraw flex is ready to use fill the bag with water roll the top of the bag three times insert the hose in the filter connect the hose to the quick connect part on the bag the survivor filter pro outdoor water filter is made in china 259 parts per million for the life straw at a price of 65 is this survivor filter pro outdoor water filter it shows 99.999 filtration removal of tested virus bacteria parasites and reduces heavy metals unpleasant taste and odors connect water inlet hose to water inlet fixture connect the water outlet hose to the water outlet fixture fully submerge the uf pre-filter in water to be filtered hold the housing firmly with one hand and gently raise and lower the pump handle several times to start the water flowing through the survivor filter pro and the survivor filter pro performed fairly well at 231 parts per million at a price of 300 is this berkey 6 gallon water filter powerful purification perky systems equipped with black berkey purification elements purify water by addressing over 200 contaminants after following the instructions for priming the filters i filtered around 10 gallons of water before testing them 284 parts per million which is actually higher than the unfiltered water after doing some research this is pretty common in the berkey filters when the filters are new after some use to dissolve solid numbers tend to improve at 427 the aqua true reverse osmosis water system is the most expensive system we'll be testing exclusive four-stage ultra-reverse osmosis technology no plumbing or installation required insert the filters in each filter base by turning the filter in a clockwise direction when installing the filters be sure to insert them in the correct base by matching the label numbers and colors fill tap water tank with cold water and reinstall power the aqua tree using the switch located in the back aqua tree will stop filtering water when the clean water tank is full or when it's time to refill the water tank i went ahead and ran four unfiltered tap water tanks through the aqua tree according to the instructions the aqua drew is assembled in china the aqua tree reverse osmosis did very well at only 36 parts per million if you're looking for the filter that does the best job removing total dissolved solids the zero water came out on top at zero parts per million but the aqua tree did nearly as well at 36. the survivor pro aquifer and brita all performed nearly the same at 231 233 and 234 parts per million respectively the water in this container on the left is water that i pulled from a well that half of my property is used for just agricultural purposes and you can see it's very dark compared to the tap water on the right 359 parts per million to make things even more interesting i'm going to add some red dye to this water to make it really dark and then we'll see how each filter performs cleaning up the water with food coloring added 364 parts per million let's see how the homemade filter performs first the homemade filter actually cleaned up the water a little and it's now at 248 parts per million compared to 364 for the untreated water i added two cups of well water with food coloring to the aquifer aquifer actually did better than a homemade filter at 221 parts per million testing the sawyer and the water filter by the sawyer is about the same color as the unfiltered water 343 parts per million and the rv filter did quite a bit better job than some of the other brands at improving the appearance of the water however there's still quite a bit of dissolved solids in the water at 348 parts per million the water still looks pretty bright red even after it's been filtered by the purebrand 302 parts per million the appearance of the brittle looks about the same as the pure brand however the brita did a little bit better at removing dissolved solids at 265 parts per million and the zero water did by far the best job yet at improving the appearance of the water zero parts per million the appearance of the water improved slightly with the friz life but it didn't perform nearly as well as a zero water 335 parts per million the appearance of the lifestraw water looks to be about the same as the friz life 343 parts per million the survivor makes pretty quick work of filtering the water but the water looks about the same as the light straw 355 parts per million the berkey did by far the best job yet at improving the appearance of the water it pretty much left all the dissolved solids in the water though at 359 parts per million and the aqua 2 did by far the best job yet at improving the appearance of the water 35 parts per million which is just about as good as the zero water while water appearance is very subjective if you're looking for a water filter that does the best job at approving appearance the aqua tree definitely seems to have come out on top but berkey was a very close second zero water also performed very well after filtering the water i measured the ph of the water and it came out to 7.9 the ph of the filtered water range from 7.4 to 8.5 so all of the water tested within the normal range for drinking water before beginning this next test i ran the distilled water through all the filters until they produced under 20 parts per million of total dissolved solids this helped clear the filters of all remaining well water the distilled water has zero parts per million of dissolved solids while i can't test everything these filters claim to remove iron is something i can test iron is considered both a heavy metal and a mineral so let's go ahead and contaminate the distilled water with ferrous sulfate or iron and let's see which filter does the best job at removing it i dissolved the vitamins and distilled water and then added the dissolved vitamins into the water container so zero parts per million before adding the iron supplement and now 691 parts per million in addition to ferrous sulfate the vitamins also contain other ingredients that'll show up as total dissolved solids let's see how well the filters work removing the iron and total dissolved solids beginning with the homemade filter 419 parts per million let's use a drinking water test kit to see how much iron is still in the water a new test strip is on the left next to the chart the third row from the top shows the iron level the test strip is showing that the homemade water filter left quite a bit of iron in the water let's test the aquifer next the aquifer left quite a bit of dissolved solids in the water at 575 parts per million the aquifer actually did a pretty good job at removing the iron it appears to be around 5 to 10 milligrams per liter just like the aquifer the sawyer had about the same amount of dissolved solids at 576 parts per million however the test strip is showing that the sawyer didn't do nearly as well as the aquifer at removing the iron the rv filter didn't perform as well as the aquifer or sawyer at 617 parts per million unfortunately the water that passed through the rv filter still has quite a bit iron left in it while the pure didn't cause the water color to change much the water doesn't look nearly as murky 630 parts per million the pure definitely seems to perform better than the rv filter at around 100 parts per million for iron the appearance of the grid of water looks very similar to the pure 684 parts per million of dissolved solids the test strip for the brita is showing that it did a better job removing the iron than some of the other brands at around 50 milligrams per liter and the zero water has done by far the best job yet at improving the appearance of the water zero parts per million very impressive the test strip is showing less than five milligrams per liter which is by far the best yet the appearance of the friz life just doesn't seem to be as clear as some of the other brands 665 parts per million the test strip showed that the frizz life actually did a pretty good job at removing the iron at 50 milligrams per liter after passing through the life straw the water looks pretty clear but it's actually a little bit darker than average the lifestraw performed about as well as a sawyer at 600 parts per million there appears to be around 100 milligrams per liter of iron content while the survivor didn't do much to change the color of the water it did a pretty good job at improving the transparency 616 parts per million which is very similar to the life straw the water filtered by the light straw appears to have around 250 milligrams per liter of iron it took the berkey about one hour to filter the water the berkey did just about as well as the zero water at improving the appearance of the water 543 parts per million of total dissolved solids the berkey water appears to have around 50 milligrams per liter of iron content and the aqua tube needed right at 8 minutes to filter the water and it came out looking crystal clear after a little bit more use the aqua 2 filters are doing an even better job at removing the dissolved solids six parts per million the test strip is showing that the aqua tree did a great job at removing the iron from the water in the test for removing ferrous sulfate from water aqua 2 and zero water came out on top at zero milligrams per liter aquaphor also did very well at 10 brita fris life and berkey 50 milligrams per liter let's see what's inside of brita filter there really doesn't seem to be too much to the brita filter other than some activated carbon let's see what's inside the rv filter the rv filter mainly includes activated carbon it also has sponge-like material on both ends of the filter let's take a look at the zero water filter there's definitely a lot more going on inside the zero water filter than compared to the other brands let's see what's inside the berkey filter the inside of the berkey filter is a hollow section that allows the water to pass down and through the valve the berkey filter media is about a half inch thick if you're looking for a water filter that's going to do a good job of cleaning up the water leaving the minerals alone but taking out some of the impurities the aquifer seems like a great option zero water did a great job of cleaning up the water removing the impurities including the iron and finally i really like the reverse osmosis that's offered by the aqua tree it does a great job all the videos in this channel including this one are viewer suggested so if you have a video idea i hope you'll take time to leave a comment thanks so much for watching please take care and look forward to next time

Channel: Project Farm

Views: 2,138,405

Keywords: project farm, Filter review, Best filter, best water filter, water filter comparison, water filter showdown, water filter review, zerowater, brita, pur, survivior filter pro, RV Filter, Berkey, Sawyer, Frizzlife, zerowater filter review, aquatrue filter review, brita filter review, lifestraw filter review, aquaphor filter review, PUR filter review, survivor filter pro review, rv filter review, berkey filter review, sawyer filter review, frizzlife filter review

Id: ja0ioX6GSz0

Length: 13min 56sec (836 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/on2muchcoffee]

We use Sawyer for camping in the mountains where we know there isn't a high contamination rate. I wouldn't recommend it for potentially contaminated sources, like heavily used lakes or areas near or downriver from farmland.

[u/xKrossCx]

This brought to you by ZeroWater! Jk, great video though because I’ve always been curious how my store bought filter holds up.