Survival Water Filtration Is Priority #1

By Jeff Wise Published: March 10, 2020 Updated: August 29, 2026

Stock food if you want. Also store municipally treated tap water. A gravity filter is for that stored tap water when the pump or power is down — not for streams. Plan: emergency preparedness plan.

Boil Notices vs a Home Filter

A boil-water advisory is a utility / health-department order. Follow it. Tablets and straw filters are other product categories. A Berkey is not sold here as a replacement for boiling untreated surface water.

What a Berkey Is For in an Outage

Filter stored city tap water with no electricity. Chemical reduction includes PFOA, THMs, radon 222, VOCs, many metals, nitrates/nitrites, rust, and sediment.

Do not pour stream, swamp, or other untreated water into it.

General outdoors reading (not a Berkey use-case): offgridsurvival.com.

Berkey systems. Replacements: Phoenix filters.