Berkey Light RV Water Filter
by Rayven P.
(In my RV!)
Berkey Light RV Water Filter
We've tried many RV water filters in the past. There was the Brita filter we screwed onto the faucet that was too heavy for the RV faucet and broke it.
There was the exterior Culligan water filter that we changed (what felt like) every month. And don't even get me started on our love affair with buying gallons of spring water from every grocery store in the country.
We knew there had to be a better system for full-time RVers. It's hard being on the road and not trusting your water source. We have had water in the past that has tasted sulfuric, water that felt, for lack of better work, slimy, and water that even smelled when we turned on the tap at various campgrounds. We realized early in our RV travels that water was going to be an issue.
Refrigerator water filters were simply not an option. We can barely fit four days' worth of food in our fridge to begin with! Heaven forbid if we want to have a gallon of milk AND a gallon of orange juice. No. Refrigerator filter systems were definitely out.
So that left buying water everywhere we went (which we did for several years), or investing in a quality RV water filter system. The problem was, we never quite found the right one for us. That was, until we were visiting friends on a farm in Texas.
They had a system called a Berkey Light, which sat on their countertop. It sort of look like two 5-gallon jugs sitting on top of one another (only a little smaller), and it had two charcoal filters in the top jug. They poured their water out of a spigot in the bottom, and WHAM! Clean, filtered water!
Click to order the Berkey Light Water Filter from Amazon
So, of course, I had to do my research to see if such a system would work out as an RV water filter for us. I checked into Berkey, and all the reviews I found on the actual system were fantastic. The filters are top-of-the-line, removing 99.99 percent of harmful toxins and contaminants in the water, while still retaining the necessary minerals. Plus, they last for years. Based on our usage, our set of filters should last 4.5 years for our family of four.
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Continued The RV water filters and system set up weren't cheap. It was over $200 to get started, but we justified it at the time by comparing the 10-gallons of drinking water we purchased weekly at the store. In just a few months, the Berkey paid for itself.
Now wherever we go throughout the country, our water tastes the same: consistently good. It is a little bit of a hassle to fill the Berkey every day (our farm friends had developed a system where they just turned a knob on their sink to fill their Berkey, but alas, it was too complicated in the RV). But we've adjusted to doing it when we do dishes, and it works out.
We have the Berkey light, which is plastic. There are stainless steel versions as well. On travel days, we have to dump out any remaining water, and pop the Berkey in two, putting half of it in one laundry basket and half in another, for safe keeping while driving.
We did make the mistake of keeping it in one piece, upright (empty) when we first got it. We had one day when we had a particularly rough journey, and the Berkey was thrown about the RV. The top portion, weighed down by the RV water filters, cracked. We had to replace it. So if you do use a Berkey in your RV, make sure you take it apart for travel.
All in all, it has been the perfect solution for our travels!
Read reviews of the Berkey Light water filter at Amazon
