Berkey Water Filters

Short history

A Berkey Water Purifier has its roots with Royal Doulton; definitely not the new kid on the street but a company with 200 years of history. As early as 1827 John Doulton was in the water filter business, using various earth and clay materials in the first Doulton water filters. In 1837 Queen Victoria had a water filter commissioned and the recognized John Doulton earned the right to embellish each of his units with the Royal Crest because of her pleasure with his product. In 1901 King Edward VII knighted Henry Doulton and honored the company by authorizing it to use the word ROYAL in reference to its products. For a bit more detail of history click here.

Fabrication

Diatomaceous Earth [D.E.] is a fossil substance made up of tiny silicon shells left by one celled algae called diatoms over the last 150,000,000 years, then refined into exquisite porcelain and pottery. This is at the core of the Doulton ceramic filter element the Sterasyl™ Ceramic Water Filter Elements. The mechanical filtration within the Berkey Water Filter gravity element water filters is designed to clean dubious or unfiltered water into potable water.

Berkey in the US tested the Black Berkey purification elements which are made with another media than the Sterasyl ceramic filters with more than 10,000 times the concentration of pathogens per liter than is required by standard test protocol. No pathogens were cultured from the filtered water. None were able to be detected, even under an electron microscope, setting a new standard in water purification.

Certification and Accreditation

The Berkey Light™ Filter element has been tested by accredited laboratories to exceed EPA & ANSI/NSF (Std. 53) protocol, Tested by the University of Phoenix Spectrum Labs, the Department of Toxicology and Environmental Science Louisiana University. Accreditation and/or certification by ISO 9002 Quality Standard, National Sanitation Foundation standards 42 and 53, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Water Quality Association, Department of Health (Toronto, Canada), Spectrum Labs (Minneapolis, USA), Water Research Council (UK), British 5750 Quality Standard, England's Water Research council (WRc) Performance Standards, California Department of Health.

Berkey Filters and Sizes Available

Berkey System	Holding Capacity (Gals.)	Flow Rate (GPH)	Maximum # of people
Travel Berkey	1.5	2.75	4
Berkey Light	2.4	3.75	9
Big Berkey w/ 2 Filters	2.1	3.5	8
Big Berkey w/ 4 Filters	2.25	7	15
Royal Berkey w/ 2 Filters	3	4	12
Royal Berkey w/ 4 Filters	3	8	24
Imperial Berkey w/ 2 Filters	4.5	5.5	25
Imperial Berkey w/ 4 Filters	4.5	11	50
Imperial Berkey w/ 6 Filters	4.5	16.5	75
Crown Berkey w/ 2 Filters	6	6.5	40
Crown Berkey w/ 4 Filters	6	13	80
Crown Berkey w/ 6 Filters	6	19.5	120
Crown Berkey w/ 8 Filters	6	26	150

British Berkefeld w/ 2 filters	2.5	1	3
British Berkefeld w/ 4 filters	2.5	2	6

The above table considers drinking water requirements based on average uses. If your use of potable water includes re-hydrating dehydrated food and for cooking, or if weather is hotter than normal, or people are more than normally physically active, your water requirements will be greater than those in the table shown above.