Collection: Home Water Filtration

None of these needs a plumber. The countertop filter clips onto a kitchen faucet, the shower filter screws onto a shower arm, and a Berkey connects to nothing at all — you pour water into the top chamber and gravity draws it through the elements to a spigot below.

Ten stages between the tap and the glass

New Wave Enviro's Premium 10-Stage Countertop Filtration System reaches the tap through a thin hose with a round adapter that threads onto a standard faucet. A switch on the adapter rotates to send water either out of the tap as usual or through the filter. Fitting takes minutes. It does not work with a sprayer faucet.

One cartridge is rated for 1,500 gallons, roughly a year for a family of four. The ten stages run from a 5-micron polishing pad to a 50-micron pad for rust and larger solids, with ion exchange fibers, washed and unwashed activated carbon, cation exchange resin and a silver-impregnated carbon stage in between. Out come chlorine, chloroform, trihalomethanes, lead, mercury, PCBs, pesticides, herbicides and inorganic arsenic; the magnesium and potassium stay. It is for municipal tap water only, and hot water shortens the cartridge's life.

The gravity-fed Berkeys

The Travel Berkey System is a pair of AISI 304 stainless steel chambers assembled in the USA, sized for one to three people and good for up to 2.75 gallons an hour with the upper chamber full. The Big Berkey Water Filtering System suits one to four, goes up to 3.5 gallons an hour, and holds four Black Berkey elements rather than the two it ships with. Those 9" elements treat 6,000 gallons a pair and can be brushed clean under running water in between; replacement pairs are here on their own. The Berkey PF2 threads onto each element as a post-filter and reduces fluoride by up to 95%, along with pre-oxidized arsenic and MTBE. Berkey systems and elements do not ship to California or Iowa. The Berkey items are also gathered on their own Berkey water filters page.

The one that is not for drinking

The Premium Shower Filtration System goes between the shower arm and your shower head — hand tight, teflon tape included, no tools. Inside sit 16 oz of bacteriostatic KDF-55 and 2 oz of crystal quartz, which take out chlorine and the smell of hydrogen sulfide, reduce heavy metals and soften the water without cutting the flow. A cartridge lasts about a year, and the replacement is listed on its own.