Product Description
Royal Berkey Gravity-Fed Water Filter System
The 3.25-gallon Royal Berkey System can be used on a countertop in your kitchen or office to transform bad-tasting tap water into delicious drinking water that’s also ideal for making your favorite beverages or cooking.
Independently Tested Filter Elements
Black Berkey Elements (the original BB9-2) are composed of a unique, proprietary blend of multiple media types backed by testing from accredited, third-party labs. Black Berkey Elements remove or dramatically reduce over 200+ typical contaminants that could be present in freshwater sources.
The Gold Standard in Gravity-Fed Water Filtration
Authentic Black Berkey Elements are capable of greater contaminant reduction and a longer lifespan than virtually any of the other filter elements on the market. Berkey systems are simple and easy to use and require no electricity, costly installation, or tools, providing economical, long-lasting water filtration for just pennies a gallon.
- 3.25 gallon storage capacity
- Includes 2 Black Berkey Elements, but this system can be expanded to 4
- 23″ tall when in use
- Diameter: 9.5″
- Versatile—ideal for medium-sized families for everyday use at home
- No electricity, tools or plumbing required
- Constructed of highly polished AISI 304 stainless steel
Royal Berkey System Specifications
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Berkey Systems are Designed to Meet the Specific Needs of Consumers Seeking Practical and Cost-Effective Water Fltration Solutions.
Berkey systems are simple and easy to use and require no electricity, costly installation, or tools, providing economical, long-lasting water filtration for just pennies a gallon. Berkey systems have been used for over two decades in homes every day around the world by discerning consumers who trust the quality of authentic Berkey systems to meet their drinking water needs. Berkey gravity-fed water systems are available in 7 sizes.
Optional accessories also available (sold separately or included with some system bundles) include our Berkey Sight Glass Spigot, Berkey Stainless Steel Spigot, Stainless Steel Berkey Water View Spigot, Berkey Base Stainless Steel Stand and Berkey PF-2 Fluoride and Arsenic Reduction Elements.
Berkey Systems Can Be Used at Home or On The Go.
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Easy and Economical to UseBerkey systems can be used at home or on the go. No electricity, costly installation, or tools required.
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Powerful Contaminant ReductionBerkey water filtration systems equipped with Black Berkey Elements have been tested by third-party labs to remove or reduce over 200+ commonly found contaminants from drinking water sources. |
Only Buy AuthenticDon’t settle for lookalike systems, accessories or filters that say “the same as Berkey”, “compatible with” or “replacement for” or “fits” Berkey products. Always go with the brand you can trust—original, authentic Berkey filters and systems that exceed the reduction capabilities of cheap knock-off and lookalike brands. |
Dorinda McCarthy –
Been told about Berkey’s for 2 years. Our water is not the best, but finally jumped on the train and got one. No more water pitcher on the counter to fill several times a day or boil to purify. (Microplastics you know.) very happy with the quality and the filtration. 6000 gallons before you need to replace the filters! If you have doubts about the quality of your water, do yourself a favor and get one. Better tasting water and peace of mind is worth it it.
OldGuy –
For filtering, 2-Blacks & 2-PF-2’s (4 filters) this can not be beat.Be sure to order the Stainless Works SSS012 spigot replacement.The unit, if permanent, i.e., in a kitchen, is weak in one point.. it needs manual refilling.This was not acceptable, and the glass water-level spigot is not only expensive but does nothing to solve the fill-it-by-hand inconvenience.Overcome this glaring problem by modifying the unit to Refill Automatically.[Any Warranties by any MFG involved will obviously be VOIDED]… but this Mod works!Here is the very basic method we used to accomplish a finished working Berkey Auto-Fill unit.1- Locate a Adjustable Mini Float Valve For Aquarium RO DI Reverse Osmosis System on Amazon or eBAY etc, and enlarge the Berkey lid hole for the float threads to poke from the inside to the outside. The float will be hanging in place, attached to the lid. The lid center-hole is drilled larger to fit this top float-valve, with the valve water inlet protruding through the top of the lid, and the float hanging under the lid. (effectively the float hangs downward into the Berkey’s top can. To drill the center-hole larger, cover the Lid with seran wrap or such, on both sides, to protect the finish… (any twist or abrasion may, will, mar the ‘mirror’ finish of the chrome look). ‘Sandwich’ the lid with 1/2′-inch or so wood blocks top and bottom, (having pre-drilled a pilot hole, the size of the lid-hole, and line up the wood with the existing lid hole…C-clamp wood in place with reasonable torque. After lining up the lid’s hole and two clamping blocks, use standard metal drills, (three sizes and oil, up to finished dimension to fit the valve hole needed to install the float-vale).2- Drill a screw hole to thread, on each side of the lid, for a small screw, size-6?.A screw goes on each side of the lid. The lid hole is large enough for the two screws to easily fit through.The two receiver holes in the side-wall of the Berkey must be drilled with a proper ‘tap-drill’ size to fit the ‘fine-thread’ of the 2 chosen screws.These two screws will prevent the lid from ‘lifting’ when the water in the top chamber lifts the float ball high enough to shut off the incoming water flow/pressure. The float should stop the water about 1.5 inches from the top lip of the upper tank.(A float-valve will general handle 60 p.s.i., but we had pre-regulated our pressure down to 40 p.s.i for a prior filter system, so we left that control in place for this Berkey DYI project). Remember, the Berkey cans are a thin metal, treat the ‘threads’ with a light-hand so as not to ‘strip’ them out. You are NOT tightening the screws, you are ONLY ‘holding-down’ the lid, pinning-it, so it cannot rise against the pressure of the float.Do NOT seal (air-tight) the lid to the top can. Do NOT seal the bottom can to the top can. Just let them all sit, together, as designed.3- Coming off the top of the LID, (with a copper ‘Ell’ adapter), the float-valve is fitted from the inlet to a 1/4 compression soft-copper pipe, connected via a ‘compression-Tee’ to either the Sink or Refrig. water supply inlet.With the float in place, the LID screwed on, and copper tubing connected (but not as yet turned on), this completes the Top Tank portion.Auto-FILL is no longer a problem.4- Now the Bottom Tank has to be fixed, to have the incoming filtered water stopped, before it overflows.To achieve auto-SHUT-OFF, a second float is needed to be installed, inside the LOWER Berkey tank.Do not use a second Mini Float Valve for the bottom tank, as the mini-float is too small a float to properly work in the lower tank.Instead find a new plastic (or) copper float-valve unit that is designed to control the water level of a Evaporative / Swamp Cooler’s water pan.This would be found as a 1/4-Inch Compression Evaporative Swamp Cooler float valve.This Cooler “float” is large, but not overly large as the float will be fit Vertically in the center of the lower tank, even if the Berkey has 4 filters installed. This larger size of float is “needed” to properly cut-off the water flow to the bottom tank as it fills.(The float bobs VERTICAL in the center of the tank, but the valve itself wants to be close to the tank’s bottom, thus the hoses support the valve down near the spigot)5- One short piece of medical-grade (clean) rubber (or) plastic tubing, exits out the bottom of each of the two PF-2 filters, and the other end of each of these tubes joins into a plastic (or) metal ‘Tee’ making a completed loop, water dripping from each PF-2 filter, out and down their rubber tubing into a Tee, and continuing down into the bottom float-valve.The lower PF-2 filter’s (water exit holes), are not threaded. (You may attempt to carefully thread the PF-2’s for a hose/adapter attachment if you have the proper tap and hose adapters but contamination may result without careful forethought). The method we used, considering only ‘gravity feed’ pressure is exerted on the filters into the lower tank, is to slip a tapered rubber plumbing washer over the two rubber exit hoses, and use that slip-fit (jam-it-in-fit) to hold the rubber pipe into the bottom end of each PF-2 filter.(If you use this rubber hose/rubber tapered washer method, it works because the PF-2 exit hole is also slightly tapered. Still, the tubing, rubber washer and filter hole must all fit firmly together!)We located a couple of almost-right tapered washers, (hardware/plumbing store), and with pencil in the washer hole as an ‘axial’, hand ground the washer’s taper minimally to actually match the PF-2 taper, for a very firm and snug, hose inserted fit. If using this method, get more than two washers (to practice with), and be sure NOT to jamb the HOSE up-into the filter material of the PF-2’s.NOTE TO SELF: If either of these hoses exiting from the PF-2’s pop-off or fall-off, you will bypass the lower water cut-off float valve, and you WILL OVERFLOW the lower tank. These hoses MUST stay connected firmly to the filters…and not leak!)6- Piping continues from this PF-2 Tee with a short piece of rubber/plastic tubing that has been pressed over a 1/4″ soft-copper piece of tubing, (the rubber to copper are clamped together with a zip-tie), and the remaining end of copper pipe is compression-fit to the lower float-valve. The lower Valve is held in place by the mildly stiff hoses, Tee, and copper tubing. Basically, the valve is suspended by this “plumbing”.To counter ‘torque’ from the float wanting to ‘pull’ the valve up, insure that the combined hoses, pipes etc, will keep the valve in place (horizontal), when the float is pulled up to it’s shut-off point.If this cannot be accomplished by piping alone, and the valve itself want to lift, as in our case, then we used two tempered (stiff) wires extending from the valve’s nut and up to the two hole-plugs for support. You may find another method, for instance a bracket from a hole-nut, down to the Valve, to hold it in place horizontally, or some other method, that still allows all the added plumbing and valve to be ‘attached’ ONLY to the top tank, so that when the top tank is removed, all the modifications will stay intact with the top tank, and nothing is connected to the lower tank.By design, the two tanks can NOT be locked together, you’d have no access.7- This is the other ‘hard part’.The Evaporative/Swamp cooler float-valve is a standard 1/4″ copper compression valve, and no problem to acquire.The trick is that all float-Valves connect to the ‘Float’ via a copper (or) plastic rod, and that connection (between the two), must be modifiable by you. The LOWER Float MUST be able to unscrew off of it’s rod or plastic valve shaft. If you get a valve with a Brass rod, that rod IS threaded into a Plastic-Float, and WILL just unscrew off.You must be able to ‘disconnect’ the Valve from the actual Float. The reason is that the float must come to rest about 2-inches from the top-edge of the lower tank. That’s about 8-inches or more away from the valve it needs to control. A stock rod will either not actuate the valve to shut off properly for this application, or the rod will just not be long enough to be bent to vertical, and then reach up to were the float must come to rest when the tank is full of water, (and thus pull the valve closed).(We bent our (brass), float-rod so that it pointed up, in the center of the lower tank, and we insured that when this rod was pulled “UP”, the valve would be in it’s Shut-Off position. ( Do not make a mistake on this… PULLING ROD UP is OFF! Test it by Blowing Through The Valve! )8- We needed a ‘extender’ to connect the end of the rod to the Float. You will need to find a way to bridge/connect the float and valve also.We used a float chain (either links or the little balls variety), such as you would find in the “clean” water tank of a toilet, to, with the handle, lift the rubber-flapper, to flush the toilet… that kind of chain.One end of the chain connects to the lower fill valve’s rod, and the other end to it’s float, up at the center of the Berkey tank.A problem to overcome…. The float goes up and down, dependent on either filling (open valve) or full (closed valve), as this float controls the valve opening and closing.This Float movement is only 1-1/2 inches or so, (of rise and fall) to actuate the Valve linkage.However, if you, for instance, “drain” (or near so), the lower tank’s water supply into a ‘big pitcher’, the float will free-fall (now on a ‘loose’ chain), and hang down inside the tank, toward the bottom of the tank. If wrongly left like this, when the tank refills, the float may rise unevenly and ‘hang-up’ on the rod or valve bracket, or whatever, thus defeating the purpose of the float, which is to rise unobstructed (floating-up). If the float fails to rise properly, it will certainly fail to Shut-Off the valve, fail to shut-off the incoming water flowing/filling into the lower tank …If the Float is obstructed, you will have a flooded floor as the lower tank will overflow!So… insure that the float can only ‘drop’ 1-1/2 inches. When the water-rises, the float will lift, unobstructed, to its proper (shut-off) level.Use your imagination to accomplish control over the floats vertical movement. We decided to use very heavy-duty Glide ‘dental-floss’. Yeah.. funny…we know. Others will undoubtedly come up with a better ideas… and we’ll happily borrow them! :-PSo we latched floss-lines from each PF-2 bottom nuts down to each SIDE of the float, and at the MIDDLE of the float (it’s waist-line), with enough ‘slack’ that the float would be allowed to ‘drop’ only the 1-1/2 inch, before being ‘suspended’ by the two limiting strings.You don’t want the float to flop-over when in its ‘loose’ state, so experiment attaching your float so it remains in its natural working position. (In this (Berkey) application, the float is NOT Horizontal. This float is “bobbing” Vertically, (chain-down), as the water rises and falls.When every thing is ‘suspended, (you hold the lower float up, and the top of the float is about 2-inches below the lip of the can closing the valve, and it drops about 1-1/2 inches and the valve smoothly and natural opens with no binding, your ready to go!9- If you got this far…(insure the LID is screwed on with the two screws lightly), turn on the water, check for copper line leaks to the LID float.You will hear the top float filling the upper tank…after some minutes, (you did soak the upper/lower filters with water to prime them, right?)… you will hear water that has penetrated the upper (black) filters and passed through the lower white PF-2 filters, through the rubber/plastic piping and joining ‘Tee’, into the lower float valve, and you will hear water dripping from the float valve into the lower tank.If you did it right, the lower tank should fully fill from empty to full, in under 1/2-hour, (you will/may hear the upper float-valve ‘hiss’ as it tries to reach the water stop point, since filling we have not heard that again), and when full, with normal household use you will be ready with water at any time with no further thought.If you do not hear water slowly filling after 10-min or so, consider a restriction in the lower plumbing, or the lower valve being upside-down, installed wrong and actually STOPPING water from filling.10- Thoughts on Priming Filters and such:Well, Burkey suggests “cleaning” the lower tank occasionally so they expect some maintenance. This I suspect is because people, including Berkey, believe that a couple of minutes of “cleaning-priming the Black/white filters is satisfactory, but really the filters can/will pump crud out for some time, if not overly pre-cleaned.We found that placing a protective cloth at the bottom of a quart size wide-mouth canning jar for protection, and taking each filter, using the included rubber Berkey priming washer, putting a filter in the jar and using (we used the syringe).., the sink “sprayer” hose to force water through the filter. We could easily see that up to 10~15 ‘jar refills’ were needed to adequately ‘flush’ the mfg particles out of the new filters. 4 filters=1 hour to flush, so that the water in the jar finally appeared ‘clean’. The cleaner at the start of service, the better.HINT: If your normal ‘tap’ water is no good… buy 2~4 jugs of distilled water and use a big clean plastic syringe, (online or pet/vet store etc,), to force water through the filters, still using the included priming washer.Keep the filters vertical, and don’t bounce them against the edge of the jar, or anything else!The 3~4 month ‘checkup’ for sediment/scum, whatever, is still easy to perform. Turn off the water, remove the TOP LID screws (don’t drop them!).Drain the lower tank in the morning…drain the lower tank in the evening. Lift off the lid not bumping the upper float attached.Lift the upper tank high enough to clear the lower filters. Flip the upper tank upside down onto the counter-top.Wash the tanks and inspect the spigot for cleanness. Reassemble. Turn on the water. 1/2-hour later you have filtered water again.If the upper tank needs special cleaning don’t bump the Black filters. If they Blacks need ‘sanding’ as per Berkey’s instructions for reconditioning the filters, use a tooth-brush only and NOT a green-pad, it leaves ‘green lint’ all over the filters.None Of This Modification Is Understandable:For any who are challenged by these “written steps”, consider drawing the two tanks, and sketching the inner filters, floats, piping, Tee, etc, as defined, to get a picture of what you need. Draw more or less to scale to make it easier to see the lower bracket dimension, and lower valve to vertical float height (and the connecting chain between them)….CAMPERS: The original purpose of the Berkey seems to be for outdoor camping use primarily, or if indoors, then it’s used manually inconveniently… (obviously, our opinion).BUT, this Berkey, after your successful modification to make it Auto-Fill, is still a outdoor lover, at heart.To use, just turn-off the water source, disconnect the copper coupling from the LID, and SAVE the two screws.Presto! Your Berkey is again, camp-ready! Manual refill and all!When you get home, just reverse the uninstall, (if you can find the two little screws), and your back to Auto-Refill and happy wife, happy life!.
Sue k . –
We didn’t know our water tasted so bad before! Tastes good now and piece of mind with through filtering. Should have done it years ago! No leaks,smell or problems. Cleaning not difficult either.
Nilsa Garcia –
The absolute best way to filter your water. Water tastes like cold clean air. Wow
Lone Warrior –
Saving a lot of money not having to drive to get good drinking water, you can taste the difference, highly recommend.
Lisa Schalkham –
Amazing productExcellent quality
Ch3lloFx –
Was really eager to get this water tank and was sorely disappointed when I went online to search for replacement filters. They aren’t available. My unit has the actual company logo in the metal, in front on top, so I know it’s legit, but my unit fits 4 filters, and the unit I bought only comes with 2 black Berkey filters. I wanted to buy the other two filters so I had to go on a literal wild goose chase trying to find a seller & located a few but in Canada. They’re charging the full cost of a whole Berkey unit for TWO filters! $298 for two filters! Why? Because the owner of Berkey is dealing with company lawsuits and stopped manufacturing the filters in the US for the moment. Well if I had known that I wouldn’t have bought this thing. Anyways, one of Berkey’s former resellers here in the US now offers black carbon filters that fit the Berkey, and his is called Boroux and last I checked they’re $140 for two black carbon filters. He also offers the metal water tank that the filters go into. Hopefully that saves anybody the headache of trying to find replacement filters for their Berkey water tank.
TCDK –
We love our stylish Berkey water filter system.We live in a very old house and learned that the water pipes coming into our house from the street are made of lead.Berkey promises these filters get the lead out! We have yet to get a lead test kit to prove this.Once it’s up and running, it’s a simple matter of making a schedule of refilling it.Ours sits far from our sink – so I use a glass pitcher to fill the tank.I had ordered the see-through spigot only to find that it leaks.I’ll be returning that and trying it one more time. It may be a design flaw.We are using the simple spigot that came with the system, which does not leak a bit.Funny – the system is built for 4 filters, but they only give you 2. And the filters, sold 2 in a pack, are quite expensive. We are going to see if we can manage with only the 2 filters before investing in 2 more.The downside of only having 2 filters is that it takes longer for the water to filter through.If you have a busy, thirsty household, you might want to invest up front and get the additional 2-pack of water filters.The instructions were a bit difficult to understand so I went to YouTube and found a very easy to understand video by a young lady, Lisa at Farmhouse on Boone. Very helpful indeed! (Berkey should be paying her to do this for them!!)
KAYA –
Dommage que la notice n’est pas expliqué en français !
Dommage que la notice n’est pas expliqué en français !
petter g. –
Quick delivery and quality product
Arrived early and came in perfect condition. Our water wasn’t bad before, but since getting the Berkey our family is drinking more water.