Although by comparison to much of the world, our water is great, I just am not crazy about our city water.  (I wish we had a well, but that’s a whole different issue.)  It is technically “clean” — that is, there shouldn’t be any harmful bacteria in it that will make us sick — but there is plenty in it that I don’t want to drink.  If there’s a glitch at the water treatment plant, it could (potentially) become temporarily undrinkable.  All of these are reasons why we love our Berkey filter!

Unlike reverse osmosis or distillation, it does not remove all of the minerals from the water.  (This is a good thing.  When you put mineral-less water into your body, it can draw minerals from your body, as the whole unit – body and water – attempt to equalize.)

It does, however, remove all of the yuckies.  (Well, most of the yuckies.  If you want to remove the fluoride, you need an add-on filter, which we haven’t gotten around to getting yet since moving here.)  The photo at left is from our old house, of our filtered well water.  It was downright orange before filtration, and pretty and clear afterward.

The Berkey is very simple; the only real downside is that it isn’t plumbed into the water line so you have to fill it manually.  That makes it very affordable, though, by comparison to many built-in units.  (Which is why we have it!)

We don’t have to buy bottled water (wasting money and plastic), and if there were an emergency and we had to filter otherwise undrinkable water, we would already be set.

Our Berkey works for us.  What do you use to filter your water?  What do you like/dislike about it?

Note: This is not a sponsored post.  I already own my Berkey (thanks, Mom!), use it, and love it.