Water filtration. Best way to cover every possibility

[drillerkiller]

Hello,

I've been trying to do research but I am a bit confused, water filtration, what is the best process to filter out most harmful things? This is if I am getting it from the stream at the end of my garden, it runs off the moor before it gets to me.
I thought the Sawyer mini water filter looks good, but it dosent filter everything does it? What about Charcoal filters as well? What are the added benefits off using one of them? Also boiling.
Can anyone recommend a product/s that would cover as many things as possible please, reasonably cheap and able to deal with high volumes without too huge running costs, there is a lot of us (7)!

Sorry if this has been asked lots before!

Thanks

[sethorly]

Bacteria and other small living creatures (quite small).
Viruses (very small).
Chemicals (agricultural, industrial waste, heavy metals, etc).

Those are the basic three categories, as I see it from my research, that contaminate your water.

Filters are more or less effective at taking out the bacteria category. The mini-Sawyer takes out the vast majority of bacteria and other small living things (protozoa etc). Some filters have larger holes and therefore filter out fewer types of bacteria.

Viruses are not often found in water, except where there are high concentrations of humans, as viruses die fairly quickly without a host. Viruses need to be accounted for if you are bugging in and taking your water from a stream that flows past an urban area. Filters do not, generally, stop viruses. There are a few filters that say they do, but they're expensive and doubts have been expressed as to how effective they really are.

Chemicals cannot be taken out by filters. They can be stopped to some degree by an active ingredient in the filter such as charcoal which, for instance, can capture heavy metals. I do not know how effective these active ingredients are at taking out the chemicals. Berkey filters, for example, can be purchased with charcoal components which take out some chemical impurities. Homemade bucket filters often are designed with a charcoal component layer. I keep a bag of charcoal in the garage for this reason.

A rolling boil of 3 - 5 minutes (5 minutes if water is brackish or dirty) will kill all bacteria and viruses. It's the best method for cleaning your water. Pass the water through a coarse filter first to get rid of the larger crap. This is why I think metal containers/water bottles are much better than plastic for prepping, as they can be set down into a fire to purify water via boiling. (As an aside, water is boiled when flames are high, whereas cooking is done on embers.) Boiling still does not take out the chemicals.

I do not know enough about water purification tablets to comment, other than chlorine dioxide tablets are superior in terms of scope of bacteria killed than chlorine tablets.

In conclusion, I will be using filters where I don't want to stop (BOB, GHB, hiking, etc) or where I have no fuel or opsec dictates I do not light a fire : and filtering and then boiling when bugging in.

I am happy to change any of these opinions, as always, when I get new information. Hope this helps - it's taken me a few months of prepping to get that info.

For myself, I have a wife and 4 kids so a large family like yourself; we each have a mini-Sawyer and a lifestraw, plenty of camping gear for boiling and also foldable plastic containers for moving water from source to camp, and intend to get a gravity-filter such as something from the Berkey range to process large volumes of water. We're also in the process of obtaining and fitting a rainwater collection system to connect with our roof.

[drillerkiller]

Bacteria and other small living creatures (quite small).
Viruses (very small).
Chemicals (agricultural, industrial waste, heavy metals, etc).

Those are the basic three categories, as I see it from my research, that contaminate your water.

Filters are more or less effective at taking out the bacteria category. The mini-Sawyer takes out the vast majority of bacteria and other small living things (protozoa etc). Some filters have larger holes and therefore filter out fewer types of bacteria.

Viruses are not often found in water, except where there are high concentrations of humans, as viruses die fairly quickly without a host. Viruses need to be accounted for if you are bugging in and taking your water from a stream that flows past an urban area. Filters do not, generally, stop viruses. There are a few filters that say they do, but they're expensive and doubts have been expressed as to how effective they really are.

Chemicals cannot be taken out by filters. They can be stopped to some degree by an active ingredient in the filter such as charcoal which, for instance, can capture heavy metals. I do not know how effective these active ingredients are at taking out the chemicals. Berkey filters, for example, can be purchased with charcoal components which take out some chemical impurities. Homemade bucket filters often are designed with a charcoal component layer. I keep a bag of charcoal in the garage for this reason.

A rolling boil of 3 - 5 minutes (5 minutes if water is brackish or dirty) will kill all bacteria and viruses. It's the best method for cleaning your water. Pass the water through a coarse filter first to get rid of the larger crap. This is why I think metal containers/water bottles are much better than plastic for prepping, as they can be set down into a fire to purify water via boiling. (As an aside, water is boiled when flames are high, whereas cooking is done on embers.) Boiling still does not take out the chemicals.

I do not know enough about water purification tablets to comment, other than chlorine dioxide tablets are superior in terms of scope of bacteria killed than chlorine tablets.

In conclusion, I will be using filters where I don't want to stop (BOB, GHB, hiking, etc) or where I have no fuel or opsec dictates I do not light a fire : and filtering and then boiling when bugging in.

I am happy to change any of these opinions, as always, when I get new information. Hope this helps - it's taken me a few months of prepping to get that info.

For myself, I have a wife and 4 kids so a large family like yourself; we each have a mini-Sawyer and a lifestraw, plenty of camping gear for boiling and also foldable plastic containers for moving water from source to camp, and intend to get a gravity-filter such as something from the Berkey range to process large volumes of water. We're also in the process of obtaining and fitting a rainwater collection system to connect with our roof.

Thanks sethorly,

I appreciate the detailed reply, very informative, really helps having in one place rather than looking on multiple posts and getting confused about waht you read before.

Cheers!

[the coalthief]

Don't forget the SODIS method,cheap as chips and technically simple.
http://www.sodis.ch/index_EN

[sethorly]

Oh yeh, solar, nice one. It's a shame there doesn't seem to be a way of boiling the water and collecting the evaporate via condensation to purify water of (other) chemicals. Unfortunately the evaporate would include water vapour which is water droplets which would still contain the dissolved (other) chemicals.