Need advice on water filter

[Kevin L]

Hi Guys:

I purchased a Katadyn pocket filter a few years ago for more than $350.00 . . . not counting the extra ceramic filter and spare parts.

Why are they now suddenly being sold for $80.00. I'm thinking of purchasing another one for $80.00, but I feel like there's a catch of some kind (you get what you pay for). What does everyone think? Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Proud Prepper]

Those sites selling them for $80 are questionable at best. That's below the wholesale cost of a new one.

 

[Kevin L]

Those sites selling them for $80 are questionable at best. That's below the wholesale cost of a new one.

Thank you.

 

[Oddcaliber]

If I could have gotten them for $80 I'd have a lot more of them! Probably a mistake on the price. Got mine from Cabelas years ago and it still costs me $400.

 

[Mountain Dragon]

Is it the complete unit or just the ceramic part? Because the costs for an replace ceramic element is around this price.

 

[Buttoni]

This is our main Berkey filter: Buy The Big Berkey Water Filter - USA Berkey Filters

We also have a smaller Travel Berkey we got a good deal on at an trade show a few years back.

We haven't actually had to use them (yet). Hope they are as good as fooks say when the time comes.

 

[Oddcaliber]

Got the Travel Berkey too. Used it for hurricane season when the Parish issued a boil water alert. They work.

 

[Proud Prepper]

This is our main Berkey filter: Buy The Big Berkey Water Filter - USA Berkey Filters

We also have a smaller Travel Berkey we got a good deal on at an trade show a few years back.

We haven't actually had to use them (yet). Hope they are as good as fooks say when the time comes.

I use mine everyday. Do you think the water your drinking now is pure?

 

[Buttoni]

No, not really. But I recently put PUR water filters on all my sinks in my city home and also at our cabin. We also sprang for the 'extra contaminants filtration' cartridges they sell for them.

 

[tmttactical]

We use the PUR filter pitcher. keep extra boxes of filters on hand. Works very well. Only need to filter what we consume.

 

[Buttoni]

We have a Brita filter pitcher also at our cabin, so we're filtering at multiple levels when SHTF.

 

[DrHenley]

The standard Brita and PUR filters do not filter out microbes, they just make water taste better.

 

[Buttoni]

I just bought the Pur filters to catch other stuff the city misses. also put them on the sinks at our BOL to improve water taste mostly. We would be boiling water or using the Berkey exclusively if our well were to become suspect (determined by smell/taste). Last well water check was 2 months ago and contaminants are not an issue at this time, but ya never know. Smell, taste or illness would be our only way of knowing if it had become contaminated. When SHTF, we will probably put all water through the Berkey to catch/kill microbes. Better safe than sorry.

 

[tmttactical]

The standard Brita and PUR filters do not filter out microbes, they just make water taste better.

When it hits the fan, then we will shift to the Berkley. keep it for when it is really needed. Water is fine for now.

 

[Buttoni]

When it hits the fan, then we will shift to the Berkley. keep it for when it is really needed. Water is fine for now.

That was our feeling.

 

[ShadowWolf 13]

If for any reason I'm suspicious of my water I'll boil it, but if I'm on the move say in a bug out senecio I've got a Sawyer mini kit (filter, collection bag & drinking straw) just in case

 

[DrHenley]

Hi Guys:

I purchased a Katadyn pocket filter a few years ago for more than $350.00 . . . not counting the extra ceramic filter and spare parts.

Why are they now suddenly being sold for $80.00. I'm thinking of purchasing another one for $80.00, but I feel like there's a catch of some kind (you get what you pay for). What does everyone think? Any ideas would be appreciated.

View attachment 16747

They may be showing the wrong picture. The Katadyn Vario filter is about that price on Amazon:

 

[rainingcatzanddogs]

They may be showing the wrong picture. The Katadyn Vario filter is about that price on Amazon:

I love, love, love my Katadyn. Used it many times while in the Rockies. I think I paid around $40 for mine but that was over a decade ago. $350 is still way high I think.

 

[Kevin L]

They may be showing the wrong picture. The Katadyn Vario filter is about that price on Amazon:

Thank you.

 

[Kevin L]

Speaking of water, have you heard about Jackson, Mississippi? Not enough water to flush the johns or to bathe.

I do not have a well, but I bought all the components and downloaded videos (along with tips from you guys--especially Doc Henley, but everyone else too--so thank you) so that I could actually sink a well on short notice if I have to.

I have the means to filter and boil this well water if I can't get it tested.

I wonder how many people in Jackson have prepared for something like this?

 

[Kevin L]

They sell all the well stuff at Rural King.

 

[DrHenley]

Speaking of water, have you heard about Jackson, Mississippi? Not enough water to flush the johns or to bathe.

Although Mississippi is mostly Republican, Jackson has been run by Democrats for 30 years. I have two sisters that live in Jackson and was there for a wedding a couple of months ago. I went to turn on the water in the kitchen and nothing came out. That only lasted less than an hour though. We were under a city wide boil alert then. The water outages were not city-wide at that time, I'm not sure about now...but the boil alerts are city wide.

A few years ago a water main under a major street in Jackson broke and water was coming up out of the pavement and a little river of water was flowing down the middle of the street. The city put a barricade in front of where the break was and cars had to drive through the water...and it stayed that way for months. What prompted them to finally fix it was when the weather got cold and the water was in danger of freezing.

It's total mismanagement by the city, plain and simple, although "mismanagement" is not a strong enough word. They spend the tax dollars on lord knows what, but everyone is sure a lot of it is making its way into some pockets.

With the few remaining whites leaving in droves because of this crap, which is shrinking the tax base, I don't know that they will ever get things fixed.

 

[rainingcatzanddogs]

I wonder how many people in Jackson have prepared for something like this?

That area is no stranger to hurricanes but, like New Orleans, has a large population that expects the government will provide.

 

[DrHenley]

That area is no stranger to hurricanes but, like New Orleans, has a large population that expects the government will provide.

We got hit bad by Camille.

 

[rainingcatzanddogs]

We got hit bad by Camille.

I am guessing though that you were doing alright after or were you not prepping yet?

 

[DrHenley]

I am guessing though that you were doing alright after or were you not prepping yet?

I was 16 years old at the time, but I remember it well. The most devastating thing I remember was that my dog ran away for three days. LOL

We managed without power for weeks. We were used to camping out and had all the gear for it.

Did I mention that to this day I hate electric stoves?

 

[DrHenley]

Speaking of water, have you heard about Jackson, Mississippi? Not enough water to flush the johns or to bathe.

I do not have a well, but I bought all the components and downloaded videos (along with tips from you guys--especially Doc Henley, but everyone else too--so thank you) so that I could actually sink a well on short notice if I have to.

I have the means to filter and boil this well water if I can't get it tested.

I wonder how many people in Jackson have prepared for something like this?

Here is an analysis from FreeRepublic of that went wrong with the Jackson water system.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4090787/posts
There is a another side to this catastrophe that has not been reported in the national news.
* Half of the plant was built in 1992. The other half in early 2007. It is NOT an old plant. It was not maintained and allowed to fall apart. Buy a Lexus but don’t replace the oil, transmission fluid, and timing belt and see what happens after 200,000 miles or so. The plant is no different.
* The city entered into a bad deal with Siemens in 2013 to replace all water meters for some new-fangled ones that would allegedly bring in more money. What it really was was a $90 million bond deal that allowed the Mayor to pass out the bond fees to his friends and stuffing minority subcontractors who weren’t licensed or qualified down Siemens’ throat. The meters didn’t work and blew up the water/sewer billing system. Bond services aren't subject to bidding laws so its an easy way to give your lawyer and consultant friends a quick $50-200,000 which the Mayor did.
* As happened when New Orleans under Landrieau installed new billing system software, thousands of residents got crazy bills or no bills at all. The Yarber administration literally told people not to pay their bills and instituted a moratorium on cutoffs. When you tell people you won’t terminate service no matter what, guess what? They don’t pay their bills. It never occurred to leadership to tell customers to pay a monthly minimum. 14,000 customers had stranded bills (no bills at all) if that tells you anything. Lumumba continued the moratorium on cutoffs. A moratorium has been in place half the time he has been in office.
* This resulted in a water/sewer department that made a profit of $7 million a year to losing $20 million a year. Public utilities are usually a money maker for cities. A city has to work real hard to lose money on these services but lose money Jackson did.
* Media says white flight decimated city finances. Uh huh. Check the city audits. On the overall budget side, the city is getting more revenue than ever. Read that sentence twice. It gets more money than every. It’s just losing nearly $20 million on its utility. The audits are on the city website.
* The city sued Siemens and settled for $90 million. $30 million went to attorneys, including the Mayors friends at a Birmingham law firm that did the real legal work and his Jackson lawyer friend, Winston Thompson, who is a criminal defense lawyer and had no business being on the case. $14 million shored up the water/sewer finances. Some was used to repaid the $90 million bonds and their ever ticking interest rates. Some was spent on other stuff.
* None of the Mayor’s staff have any management experience. He was a criminal defense lawyer in a two man firm. His Chief of Staff was a professor at JSU. His first Chief Administrative Officer was a music professor at JSU. His current CAO came from Energy but from the marketing department, not operations. The Public Works Director who was JUST reassigned after the flood was an architect. They are down to one engineer in public works and his speciality is roads and traffic. The previous Mayor had two knuckleheads for a CAO as well. One was a former deputy who never ran anything but was his bud while the other one never ran anything either. Getting the idea?
* They got caught two weeks ago not even posting online the openings for the Class A Water operators they so desperately need. They don't have Class A operators but can't seem to advertised for the jobs. They fail performing basic management tasks in the water/sewer dept.
* Worst off all. They Blew off the Health Department of years. MSDH finally called the EPA in winter of 20. EPA inspected plant in Feb. 2020. EPA was appalled at how poorly maintained and staffed the plant was. The EPA placed the city under an emergency administrative order. The Mayor hid it from the City Council, media, and public for over a year until yours truly busted it in the. Media. The Mayor refused to discuss it in the open but would only discuss it behind closed doors with the Council. He even blamed the public and media for being ill informed about it when he is the one who covered it up and refused to discuss it.
How incompetent is the leadership? A fire took place at the plant April 2021. 9 months later, several pumps were still down. The problem was the electrical panel controlling said pumps was damaged in the fire and not replaced. He blamed supply chain issues. The media filed FOIA's w/Health Dept. and found out the city had not even ordered the panel until the state told it to order the part and gave it a 30 day deadline in December. The city finally ordered the part on the last day of the deadline in January. The part arrived around May.
The city repeatedly blew off EPA mandates and deadlines in the order and continues to do so.
The plant did not flood. Period. The problem is the flooding upriver changed the chemical composition of the water entering the intakes at the reservoir. The lack of staff and failing equipment meant the water leaving the plant was barely treated.

 

[Proud Prepper]

Here is an analysis from FreeRepublic of that went wrong with the Jackson water system.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4090787/posts
There is a another side to this catastrophe that has not been reported in the national news.
* Half of the plant was built in 1992. The other half in early 2007. It is NOT an old plant. It was not maintained and allowed to fall apart. Buy a Lexus but don’t replace the oil, transmission fluid, and timing belt and see what happens after 200,000 miles or so. The plant is no different.
* The city entered into a bad deal with Siemens in 2013 to replace all water meters for some new-fangled ones that would allegedly bring in more money. What it really was was a $90 million bond deal that allowed the Mayor to pass out the bond fees to his friends and stuffing minority subcontractors who weren’t licensed or qualified down Siemens’ throat. The meters didn’t work and blew up the water/sewer billing system. Bond services aren't subject to bidding laws so its an easy way to give your lawyer and consultant friends a quick $50-200,000 which the Mayor did.
* As happened when New Orleans under Landrieau installed new billing system software, thousands of residents got crazy bills or no bills at all. The Yarber administration literally told people not to pay their bills and instituted a moratorium on cutoffs. When you tell people you won’t terminate service no matter what, guess what? They don’t pay their bills. It never occurred to leadership to tell customers to pay a monthly minimum. 14,000 customers had stranded bills (no bills at all) if that tells you anything. Lumumba continued the moratorium on cutoffs. A moratorium has been in place half the time he has been in office.
* This resulted in a water/sewer department that made a profit of $7 million a year to losing $20 million a year. Public utilities are usually a money maker for cities. A city has to work real hard to lose money on these services but lose money Jackson did.
* Media says white flight decimated city finances. Uh huh. Check the city audits. On the overall budget side, the city is getting more revenue than ever. Read that sentence twice. It gets more money than every. It’s just losing nearly $20 million on its utility. The audits are on the city website.
* The city sued Siemens and settled for $90 million. $30 million went to attorneys, including the Mayors friends at a Birmingham law firm that did the real legal work and his Jackson lawyer friend, Winston Thompson, who is a criminal defense lawyer and had no business being on the case. $14 million shored up the water/sewer finances. Some was used to repaid the $90 million bonds and their ever ticking interest rates. Some was spent on other stuff.
* None of the Mayor’s staff have any management experience. He was a criminal defense lawyer in a two man firm. His Chief of Staff was a professor at JSU. His first Chief Administrative Officer was a music professor at JSU. His current CAO came from Energy but from the marketing department, not operations. The Public Works Director who was JUST reassigned after the flood was an architect. They are down to one engineer in public works and his speciality is roads and traffic. The previous Mayor had two knuckleheads for a CAO as well. One was a former deputy who never ran anything but was his bud while the other one never ran anything either. Getting the idea?
* They got caught two weeks ago not even posting online the openings for the Class A Water operators they so desperately need. They don't have Class A operators but can't seem to advertised for the jobs. They fail performing basic management tasks in the water/sewer dept.
* Worst off all. They Blew off the Health Department of years. MSDH finally called the EPA in winter of 20. EPA inspected plant in Feb. 2020. EPA was appalled at how poorly maintained and staffed the plant was. The EPA placed the city under an emergency administrative order. The Mayor hid it from the City Council, media, and public for over a year until yours truly busted it in the. Media. The Mayor refused to discuss it in the open but would only discuss it behind closed doors with the Council. He even blamed the public and media for being ill informed about it when he is the one who covered it up and refused to discuss it.
How incompetent is the leadership? A fire took place at the plant April 2021. 9 months later, several pumps were still down. The problem was the electrical panel controlling said pumps was damaged in the fire and not replaced. He blamed supply chain issues. The media filed FOIA's w/Health Dept. and found out the city had not even ordered the panel until the state told it to order the part and gave it a 30 day deadline in December. The city finally ordered the part on the last day of the deadline in January. The part arrived around May.
The city repeatedly blew off EPA mandates and deadlines in the order and continues to do so.
The plant did not flood. Period. The problem is the flooding upriver changed the chemical composition of the water entering the intakes at the reservoir. The lack of staff and failing equipment meant the water leaving the plant was barely treated.

To sum it up, Progressive Liberalism is a mental disorder.

 

[Kevin L]

Here is an analysis from FreeRepublic of that went wrong with the Jackson water system.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4090787/posts
There is a another side to this catastrophe that has not been reported in the national news.
* Half of the plant was built in 1992. The other half in early 2007. It is NOT an old plant. It was not maintained and allowed to fall apart. Buy a Lexus but don’t replace the oil, transmission fluid, and timing belt and see what happens after 200,000 miles or so. The plant is no different.
* The city entered into a bad deal with Siemens in 2013 to replace all water meters for some new-fangled ones that would allegedly bring in more money. What it really was was a $90 million bond deal that allowed the Mayor to pass out the bond fees to his friends and stuffing minority subcontractors who weren’t licensed or qualified down Siemens’ throat. The meters didn’t work and blew up the water/sewer billing system. Bond services aren't subject to bidding laws so its an easy way to give your lawyer and consultant friends a quick $50-200,000 which the Mayor did.
* As happened when New Orleans under Landrieau installed new billing system software, thousands of residents got crazy bills or no bills at all. The Yarber administration literally told people not to pay their bills and instituted a moratorium on cutoffs. When you tell people you won’t terminate service no matter what, guess what? They don’t pay their bills. It never occurred to leadership to tell customers to pay a monthly minimum. 14,000 customers had stranded bills (no bills at all) if that tells you anything. Lumumba continued the moratorium on cutoffs. A moratorium has been in place half the time he has been in office.
* This resulted in a water/sewer department that made a profit of $7 million a year to losing $20 million a year. Public utilities are usually a money maker for cities. A city has to work real hard to lose money on these services but lose money Jackson did.
* Media says white flight decimated city finances. Uh huh. Check the city audits. On the overall budget side, the city is getting more revenue than ever. Read that sentence twice. It gets more money than every. It’s just losing nearly $20 million on its utility. The audits are on the city website.
* The city sued Siemens and settled for $90 million. $30 million went to attorneys, including the Mayors friends at a Birmingham law firm that did the real legal work and his Jackson lawyer friend, Winston Thompson, who is a criminal defense lawyer and had no business being on the case. $14 million shored up the water/sewer finances. Some was used to repaid the $90 million bonds and their ever ticking interest rates. Some was spent on other stuff.
* None of the Mayor’s staff have any management experience. He was a criminal defense lawyer in a two man firm. His Chief of Staff was a professor at JSU. His first Chief Administrative Officer was a music professor at JSU. His current CAO came from Energy but from the marketing department, not operations. The Public Works Director who was JUST reassigned after the flood was an architect. They are down to one engineer in public works and his speciality is roads and traffic. The previous Mayor had two knuckleheads for a CAO as well. One was a former deputy who never ran anything but was his bud while the other one never ran anything either. Getting the idea?
* They got caught two weeks ago not even posting online the openings for the Class A Water operators they so desperately need. They don't have Class A operators but can't seem to advertised for the jobs. They fail performing basic management tasks in the water/sewer dept.
* Worst off all. They Blew off the Health Department of years. MSDH finally called the EPA in winter of 20. EPA inspected plant in Feb. 2020. EPA was appalled at how poorly maintained and staffed the plant was. The EPA placed the city under an emergency administrative order. The Mayor hid it from the City Council, media, and public for over a year until yours truly busted it in the. Media. The Mayor refused to discuss it in the open but would only discuss it behind closed doors with the Council. He even blamed the public and media for being ill informed about it when he is the one who covered it up and refused to discuss it.
How incompetent is the leadership? A fire took place at the plant April 2021. 9 months later, several pumps were still down. The problem was the electrical panel controlling said pumps was damaged in the fire and not replaced. He blamed supply chain issues. The media filed FOIA's w/Health Dept. and found out the city had not even ordered the panel until the state told it to order the part and gave it a 30 day deadline in December. The city finally ordered the part on the last day of the deadline in January. The part arrived around May.
The city repeatedly blew off EPA mandates and deadlines in the order and continues to do so.
The plant did not flood. Period. The problem is the flooding upriver changed the chemical composition of the water entering the intakes at the reservoir. The lack of staff and failing equipment meant the water leaving the plant was barely treated.

The more I hear about things like this, the more faith I lose in humanity.