Posted on 02/07/2012 8:53:36 AM PST by passionfruit
Some of you may have a Berkey water purifier. It is touted as the best there is.
From their wabsite:
"Berkey® Systems are the World’s Most Powerful and Cost Effective Personal Water purification Systems Providing Reliable and User-friendly Water Purification in Both Normal and Hostile Filtration Environments."
"Moreover, Berkey® systems are capable of purifying both treated water and untreated raw water from such sources as remote lakes, streams, stagnant ponds and water supplies in foreign countries, where regulations may be substandard at best. So powerful, this system is able to remove red food coloring from water without removing the beneficial minerals your body needs. Perfect for everyday use and a must in hostile environments where electricity, water pressure or treated water may not be available."
The above quote is from New Millenium Concepts website, found here:http://berkeywater.com/start.main.html
Unfortunately, The manufacturer, New Millenium Concepts has released at least three batches of defective filters.
The first batch is from late 2010. The second batch is from the first half of 2011, and after that they redesigned the filters. A number of people who received the new and improved filters, have seen those fail too. While New Millenium Concepts won't publicly acknowledge the latest round of failed filters, one of their distributors did admit it here, in post #94 http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=428442&page=4 So, they have redesigned the new and improved model. The defective filters that they will acknowledge are discussed here, in a PDF from the company. http://www.berkeywater.com/Element.pdf
I had posted an earlier thread here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2839673/posts The thread I am posting today contains new information. People's lives could depend on knowing bout these defective filters, so please don't flag this as a duplicate. It is not.
The defective filters allow untreated water to bypass the ceramic filter element entirely, and put unfiltered water into the lower chamber where only clean, filtered water should be.
I spoke with a manager from the company on Friday. I didn't accomplish anything with the call, as he wasn't one to listen. He is aggressive and talked over me as soon as I got a few words out. So I got to say a little about the fact that people weren't notified of the defective filters before he cut me off and went on and on about the PDF document that is buried deep within their website, and that was all the notice necessary.
I told him that I believe I had gotten ill from drinking unfiltered water from my Berkey water purifier before he cut me off again and explained how instructions are included with each and every Berkey that instruct the customer to do the red food color test, and if a customer gets sick, it's their own fault.
I told him that their quality control is appalling they have no clue what goes into each and every box, that I hadn't received one of the plugs I was supposed to receive, I didn't get the lid lifter knob, and I didn't get the instructions, before he cut me off and said "that's debatable", and went off on another tangent.
I said that I wanted them to do a recall of all of the filters from the defective batches, and he ended the conversation by telling me that wasn't going to happen.
I have called the EPA, the FDA, and the CPSC. They all say they have no authority over water filter manufacturers. I was finally referred to the FTC. I have filed a complaint with them. The FTC also recommended that we all file complaints with our state attorney general.
I feel very strongly that people who have these filters must know about the defect, and that the defective filters must be recalled. As I said above, according to the manager at New Millenium Concepts "that isn't going to happen." So I'm doing everything in my power to get the word out to as many people as possible.
Please forward this thread to anyone you know of that has a Berkey filter. You just might save their life!
Yep. Thanks for the advice.
A few drops of chlorox bleach then run the water through the Berkey and it takes the bleach out.
A few drops of chlorox bleach then run the water through the Berkey and it takes the bleach out.
Thanks so much for the advice. I just went on their website to check out the product. I’m open to suggestions on what one to purchase for a family of two. Need advice.
We used this filter for months without knowing about the defect. Apparently, glue was loose for quite a while before separating completely from the base. The adhesive they were using doesn't stick to the plastic base. You can see the dirt that got into this plastic base. That is sediment that was in the water. If dirt could get in, all of the smaller pollutants could get in too, including chlorine. 
This is the ceramic elements of two of my filters that separated. Notice how the adhesive stuck to the ceramic, but not to the plastic base. That is the problem. That is where the failures from this batch of filters come from, as far as I can tell. The adhesive comes loose, and allows unfiltered water to bypass the ceramic element entirely. Sometimes the filters fall over, but not always. When the filter candle remains upright, there is no way of knowing if the filter has failed, unless you do the red food color test. This test must be done often. As I said, I want NMC to do a complete recall of the filters that were produced in the defective batches. Right now, they are saying that isn't going to happen.
I don't know. I've never looked that closely at a Berkey. Aqua Rain filters are not cheap, and I imagine the Berkey's aren't either, so I wouldn't want to buy one just to find out.
Is that the voice of experience? :o)
Boiling and tea. A good approach for thousands of years, at least in Cathay.
Tea? Vinegar I would have thought, but TEA?
crap... but thanks for the ping buddy!
Thanks for this post as I love my Berkey and some others I know are about to order their firsts, seeing how much I like mine. Will have to alert them and keep watch to not have these filters creep in.
Does Aqua Rain have the second set of filters that filter fluoride and other smaller parts out?
I have used my Berkey Light for about 5 years with the double set of filters and have not had any problems. The bottom two filters filter out fluoride etc. The water taste great and I enjoy immensely not having to get water at the store.
I don't know if the charcoal will absorb fluoride, but it does take care of chlorine and its byproducts. Also, the filter has been successfully tested against the FDA’s standard small bacteria. A link to the company website is:
http://aquarain.com
It will be hard to know when it is safe to order. As far as I can tell, New Millenium Concepts sold defective filters for more than a year, with the first defective filters being from late 2010, until last week, when I posted this thread. We don’t know if they actually resolved the issues. We won’t know until we see how many of the newly redesigned ones fail.
Even as they were announcing that they resolved issues with the late 2010 defective filters, they were already selling another round of defective filters. They redesigned the filters after that, and the newly redesigned filters also had a high rate of failure. New Millenium concepts hasn’t admitted to that yet, but there are plenty of people around the web who are complaining about their new and improved filters failing. So they redesigned it again. I wouldn’t count on NMC to be up front about it. Not a good track record there.
This is what The Berkey Guy said: “In relation to new filter sets that we are offering even in the last few months, we have heard of some problems, and NMC redesigned the base, as soon as they heard of problems with the filters. Anyone can say that they should of done this or that, but they did replace hundreds if not thousands of sets, at no cost.”
Right. He said that on February 6, 2012, here:http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=428442&page=4 in post #94
I couldn’t recommend Berkey to anyone in good conscience, especially friends or family. Having defective water filters defeats the purpose of having water filters. In fact it is worse than not having filters. Because it lulls you into a false sense of security. NMC advertises that you can pour stagnant pond water into your Berkey, and make it safe for drinking. So you pour stagnant pond water into your Berkey, and drink it, not knowing that the filters are defective and you are drinking unfiltered stagnant pond water. If you didn’t even have the Berkey, you would either get another filter, or bring bottled water. You would make other arrangements for safe drinking water.
The problems are with the black Berkey filters. I just replaced my black Berkey filters with Aqua Cera filters. they fit in the stainless steel Berkey housing. Doultons fit in there too. As far as I know there aren’t issues with either filter. The Doulton and Aqua Cera filters cost about half of what the black Berkey filter cost.
Your friends can buy a stainless steel Doulton housing (which looks like the Berkey housing), with either Doulton or Aqua Cera filter candles here: http://www.stpaulmercantile.com/index.php?action=store&page=WaterFilters
And save a LOT of money doing it. I’m not affilited with this seller in any way, but I did order my Aqua Cera filters from him on a Friday, and the filters arrived the following Wednesday.
What does SSKI mean?
Yeah, but it’s LITE...
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