Berkey water filters

B

B Finnigan

Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
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About five years ago we had a 7.0 earthquake and it really screwed up our water well. The water smelled like sulphur and was un-usable for five days. It looked like this:
DSC00001.jpg


Our water is high in iron and maganese. We tried brita filters and they only changed the water to a slightly lighter color. Since then I bought two water distillers but I would like to have a non-electrical alternative. We have a good sized generator but the distillers use 2000 w and are very slow.

I have looked at the Berkey filters which use ceramic filters but I do not know if they would remove enough disolved minerals and sulphur compounds.

Does anyone live in a seismic active area witha water well that has used them or has any suggestions?

I tried the search feature and this is all I got was a white screen.
 
I carry the Berkey sport bottle in my backpack...I love it, it seems to clean very well, the water tastes pretty good and I havn't gotten sick yet!:D....but I could use a weight loss program and have been considering drinking from some puddles...just kidding. The Berkey is very affordable as well.
 
I don't know about the Berkey, but I have an MSR Sweetwater that does a good job with dissolved minerals, especially sulfur. The water I use it on is GA coastal water, which is not even remotely as bad as the water you show, but is still high in sulfur. It removes pretty much all sulfur smell and taste from the water. I would imagine you might have to clean the filter out more regularly than normal, but it might be worth a shot.
 
I would look into the filters with carbon in them, they remove just about everything. I went with Katadyn. I bought the ceridwyn with ceramic filters and gravidyn filter for replacements. The gravidyn is the same filter as the ceridwyn but with carbon and $20 cheaper per filter.
 
I've read the ads for those nice looking counter top water filters you asked about, but I have no experience with them. What I do have some experience with is drilling water wells for a period of my life. Yes, I know well drilling isn't cheap, but you might want to consider at least talking to a good well driller in your area about drilling your well a little deeper than it currently is and driving casing down past the point where you're picking up that nasty water. Just a thought. I've worked on wells where we had to do just that, though still on the initial drilling effort. We hit what looked like good and plentiful water only to find it smelled and tasted like sulfur. We had to drive more casing down past that point and drill deeper to get good water. Maybe earlier seismic activity in your area has damaged the casing in your well, the aquifer, or both. Your state department of geology might be available for consultation. Although the techniques for well drilling are often pretty basic, the construction of the well itself can be somewhat more complex than many people might think.
 
Our water is crystal clear but it was five days after a 7.0 earthquake that is was un-usable. It was too nasty to even shower with. It cleared up on it's own but during that time we needed better water.

The quake squeezed the ground enough to force the water into the well instead of the natural osmotic filtered flow. Every well in the South Puget Sound area was screwed up. So when another hits, perhaps even a bigger one in magnitude, I want to have a way to filter the water that does not need power and produces several gallons per day.

From what Storl said it sounds like it would be worth a try. It's hard to replicate an earthquake to test the well water though. We do keep 20 ga stored up even though we have two distillers.
 
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