Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have now been using the Big Berkey for a year and a half, and I love it. It was more moola up front, but I had tried Brita/Pur/Clear2O/refrigerator filtration and I hadn't been impressed with any of them. The filters were expensive and supposedly needed frequent replacing, and the water generally didn't even taste very good. Since this Berkey package should last for years, according to my water usage math, I decided to go for it. I did purchase the glass sight spigot after a few weeks, and it's much easier to see the water level in the tank, rather than having to pick up the top half and look down inside the Berkey. Although I did not do any scientific testing, my taste tests between tap and filtered are definitely in favor of the Berkey. I have a standing reminder on my calendar to disassemble and clean it with soap and water once a month and I haven't had any problems with gross water or rust. Is it my favorite chore? Absolutely not, but it's totally worth the time to have clean and easy water filtration for the next month. Pro tip: the filtration slowed waaaaayyyyyy down and after about 8 months the water would just sit in the top half of the Berkey and take hours to filter. I used the rubber washer on the black filters to "re-prime" them (like you do during first assembly) and the filtration was fast and amazing again! Now I prime them during the monthly cleaning and haven't had any trouble since.