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For those of you who think that Harry and I are making up our stories about defective Berkey filters, would you believe New Millenium Concepts? They are the manufacturer of the Berkey.
This PDF document is buried several layers deep on their website. You will never find it unless you are specfically looking for it.
The silver impregnated bacteriostatic ceramic ones sound pretty good but if you are on city water or if you are worried about radioactive fallout, radon or chemicals from chemtrails getting in to the water, you need some sort of carbon for that. Then also for people like me who want to get rid of flouride, you need something for that too. If I were you, I wouldn't bother with a system just to prevent or reverse kidney stones. You can do that taking vitamin C or Raw apple cider vinegar, Vit B and Magnesium and avoiding acid producing foods(meat, dairy and starches).
I think getting rid of the radio-active fall out; chemicals and bacteria are more important.
It seems to me that bacteriostatic impregnated carbon combined with a fluoride filter AND a bacteriostatic silver impregnated ceramic filter would do everything. That is what I'd like but I'd like it to not take up more space on a counter than a tall thermos would.
Emily, the Doulton, genuine British Berkfeld and Aqua Cera filters have the white ceramic exterior (impregnated with silver), made from diatomaceous earth That is the shell. Inside, there is activated carbon. There is a much better description and a diagram here: Imperial Super Sterasyl Ceramic Candle For Gravity Water Filters
If you visit the red food color test thread, I have pictures of my Berkey filter candles that fell off their bases. They are hollow, and there was nothing inside.
The silver impregnated bacteriostatic ceramic ones sound pretty good but if you are on city water or if you are worried about radioactive fallout, radon or chemicals from chemtrails getting in to the water, you need some sort of carbon for that. Then also for people like me who want to get rid of flouride, you need something for that too. If I were you, I wouldn't bother with a system just to prevent or reverse kidney stones. You can do that taking vitamin C or Raw apple cider vinegar, Vit B and Magnesium and avoiding acid producing foods(meat, dairy and starches).
I think getting rid of the radio-active fall out; chemicals and bacteria are more important.
It seems to me that bacteriostatic impregnated carbon combined with a fluoride filter AND a bacteriostatic silver impregnated ceramic filter would do everything. That is what I'd like but I'd like it to not take up more space on a counter than a tall thermos would.
Tried the vinegar, it reacts poorly with my type-O blood. The magnesium does help and I do use that, vitamin C can PRODUCE kidney stones. With type-O, avoiding meat and dairy is more likely to make me sick. Been there, done that. Every person has a unique metabolism and what works well for one person may not for the person next to them.
The distilled water is easy to make, since I have had the distiller for years. There are side benefits in having it available, in that cleaning chemicals diluted with distilled water retain potency, whereas when diluted with tap or "regular" water, the calcium ions destroy a lot of the effectiveness.
Most fallout is extremely short lived, and we do have a slow well that could be pressed into service to fill our cistern until things cooled down. It is way low on priority lists. Prevailing wind patterns put us on the evacuation route of any local nuke issue anyway.
In a chemical issue situation, the distiller (which has a small carbon post filter) would take care of that.
There is no ideal water treatment solution. Each has positives and negatives.
For those of you who think that Harry and I are making up our stories about defective Berkey filters, would you believe New Millenium Concepts? They are the manufacturer of the Berkey.
Your fighting an uphill battle
1. The fact that the word "Government" is somehow involved int he story that started this, will automatically mean that the conspiracy is so deep against berky that they will not beleive anything except that some government black helicopters with men in black are swooping down on berkly as we speak and confiscating all their carbon to make it impossible for berkey to continue in business.
2. Band loyalty is blinding many on the issue of physical product. They are so into the brand loyalty support that even if it turns out that its cow manure inside the filters, its worked in the pass so the crap must work now. They are not hearing or seeing "a defective product", they are only seeing and hearing a challenge to the reputation of the brand name.
3. Pure manufaturing procument stupidity. Some have absolutely no idea that the product is built from several sources of material at various facilities and its not Ma and Pa Green-Earth anymore walking inside their barnside workshop building these filters.
I will never understand the cult-like loyalty that some people have to this product.
Having said that:
So if you are one of the many (apparently most) people on this site that have that cult-like loyalty to their Berkey, please do the red cool aid test on your Berkey often.
Your fighting an uphill battle
1. The fact that the word "Government" is somehow involved int he story that started this, will automatically mean that the conspiracy is so deep against berky that they will not beleive anything except that some government black helicopters with men in black are swooping down on berkly as we speak and confiscating all their carbon to make it impossible for berkey to continue in business.
2. Band loyalty is blinding many on the issue of physical product. They are so into the brand loyalty support that even if it turns out that its cow manure inside the filters, its worked in the pass so the crap must work now. They are not hearing or seeing "a defective product", they are only seeing and hearing a challenge to the reputation of the brand name.
3. Pure manufaturing procument stupidity. Some have absolutely no idea that the product is built from several sources of material at various facilities and its not Ma and Pa Green-Earth anymore walking inside their barnside workshop building these filters.
Give it up.
Thank you for your clarity on the issue. After some of the previous posts, I didn't think anyone here wanted to hear the truth.
My concern here is that I don't want anyone else to go through what I went through with my Berkey. People can become ill, they can get dysentery or other nasties (chryptosporidium or giardia) or they can die. People are feeding water from their Berkeys to babies and children, the elderly, people with compromised immune systems, or like I was, people who have had surgery on their stomachs or digestive systems.
While I am new to this forum, I'm not new to prepping. I am a fire breathing patriot, a small government gal, an Air Force veteran and a former federal law enforcement officer. I am smarter than a box of rocks. While too much government IS bad, not all government is bad. Sometimes, they go too far, but sometimes they protect you.
So when I had my own horrible experience with Berkey filters, I first tried to work with the company, New Millenium Concepts (NMC). They wouldn't replace the filters at first. The lady that answered the phone boasted that they "only have a 5% failure rate". So lets examine that. Most of their customers aren't even aware of the defective filters, and don't know to do the red food color test. There are a lot of people out there using defective filters and aren't even aware of it. Their failure rate must be MUCH higher, and NMC is NOT making any effort to notify their customers of it. The notice that I posted earlier from NMC is BURIED deep within their website, and it is the only notice you will ever see from them, without government intervention. Right now, it is only people like me, who have had the filters fail and even separate who are trying to get the word out.
So, back to that 5% failure rate. If you have 2 filter candles in your Berkey, that doubles the probability of a failed filter to 10%, and if you are running 4 filter candles, it doubles again to 20%. Is my thinking flawed here? Consider this. If you are purifying surface water, (from a lake, stream, or stagnant pond like NMC says you can do, on their website) even a little tiny bit of contamination from even a small leak will contaminate ALL of the water in the lower chamber, the drinking water section of your Berkey.
Look at it another way. Would you buy a can of soup from a company who "only" has botulism in 5% of their cans? Here is where government helps. In this instance, they would force a recall. Right? And you would be grateful for it. Why no recall on Berkeys?
By the way, on the issue of dealing with NMC, they did eventually replace my filters. The new ones are sitting in a box, unused. I bought Aqua Cera filter candles, because I can't trust Berkey.
They were replaced after a Berkey dealer saw my rantings on the Red Food color thread and called NMC and had a manager there call me. I had to ask the manager three times for his name. He finally said "David" but refused to give his last name. I told David that I had gotten sick. He immediately interrupted me and told me that it was MY fault, for not doing the red food color test! My fault? Right.
NMC's quality control is deplorable. I didn't get the instructions telling me to do a red food color test. I was also supposed to get 2 filter candles and 2 plugs for the holes in the bottom of the top chamber. I only got 1 plug. There are four holes in the bottom of my unit, so if I hadn't bought additional filter candles in, my unit would have been unusable. I also didn't get the knob for a lid lifter, and had to make my own out of a drawer pull.
I told David this, and when I mentioned not getting the instructions, he interrupted and said "that's debatable". He never offered to send me any of the missing items.
I told him that I wanted NMC to do a complete recall of all of their filter candles from the defect period. He said "that isn't going to happen."
Another note about my conversation with David. He blamed "the manufacturer" for the defects. What's this? Isn't NMC the manufacturer? No. According to David, they have them manufactured by a third party, in Colorado. I've read elsewhere that the stainless steel housings are manufactured for them in India. So I'm not entirely sure if NMC actually manufactures anything.
So having failed to make any headway with NMC, I looked to the dreaded government for help. You may be surprised to learn that neither the FDA or the EPA have oversight over water purifiers. After the better part of a morning on the phone with many different agencies, I finally wound up talking to the Federal Trade Commission. I filed a complaint, and haven't heard back from them since.
New Millenium Concepts is located in Texas, so I filed a complaint with the Texas State Attorney General's office too. I got a letter saying that they were looking into it.
So for now, I'm doing whatever I can to get the word out. Please help.
Last edited by Common Tator; 06-08-2012 at 12:02 PM..
Reason: Typing too fast.
I have the Berkey also with 2 filters they have detatched. NMC think it is funny. They should not be allowed to sell product anywhere in the US. Maybe they will then realize it is not so funny. I cannot even find out if their issue is resolved. No response so will take additional steps.
Noteugenic, I'm so glad that you posted! Dealing with New Millenium Concepts is one thing. Getting good safet drinking water is another. I posted a link to a supplier of other filters that will fit in your Berkey housing, but will be more reliable and unlikely to fall apart. Doulton, Genuine British Berkfeld and Aqua Cera all make filter candles that will fit in your Berkey housing. I went with Aqua Cera and I'm very happy with them so far. I've even taken them out of the housing and given them a gentle scrubbing when our creek water turned our white filters brown. They feel very solid. It took very little effort to clean them back to their original white color and I put them back in the housing without any fear that they would separate, like the Berkeys, which will sometimes fall off their bases with no handling at all!
The reason that I refer to Genuine British Berkfeld sometimes and Berkey other times is because they are two very different products. New Millenium Concepts in Texas makes (or has made for them) the Black Berkey filter. NMC has only been around since 1998. They used to sell genuine British Berkefeld filters, but at some point they started manufacturing their own and called it Berkey. Tha name is intended to confuse you into thinking that it is a nickname for Genuine British Berkfeld. It is NOT! British Berkfeld filters are manufactured at the same plant in England as Doulton. Both British Berkfeld and Doulton are fine old companies and their filters are well made and work exactly as advertised. They are made by Fairey Industrial Ceramics. Fairey Ceramics - Filter Candles & Cartridges
In re-reading my Red Food Color thread, it becomes clear that when I started it, I thought that Berkey and Genuine British Berkefeld were one and the same. If I had realized there was a difference, I would have done more research and bought a Doulton instead, and saved a great deal of money.
You are right. They should not be able to sell defective products in the US, or anywhere in the world for that matter. Especially when they make claims like "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." http://www.berkeywater.com/start.main.html
To my way of thinking, it should be criminal to tell people they can run stagnant pond water through their Berkey and get good safe drinking water from it, when they KNOW that they have filter candles that fall off their base and that unfiltered water enters the lower chamber for drinking.
As far as whether they are still manufacturing defective filters, I believe that they are. Last I heard from Jeff, the Berkey Guy in January (in the Red Food Color thread that both Harry and I posted links to), he said they were still defective at that time. He has since quit responding to questions about it, but continues to sell them to unsuspecting saps that don't know any better.
And I'm sad to say, if you read this entire thread, there are people who have blind faith in this product, and lash out at anyone who tells them otherwise.
Last edited by Common Tator; 06-12-2012 at 10:51 AM..
Reason: Correcting odd formatting errors
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