How Often and How Should I Clean My Berkey Water Filter?

Having a Royal Berkey Water Filter means you can count on having healthy, clean water for household purposes. While these types of water filtration systems are easy to use, it’s important to make sure you clean the purification elements on a regular basis. This helps ensure that your water system will continue being able to provide your home with a clean source of water.

How Often to Clean Your Berkey Water Filter

This depends on certain factors, such as how clean or dirty the water in your area is. If you live in a place where your local water supply contains a lot of contaminants and other harmful particles, you should plan on cleaning your water filter more often. In fact, you might consider running water from your faucets through a clean cloth or coffee filter before you add it to your Berkey water filtration system if you’re in an area with very dirty water. This helps filter out sediment and other debris that could clog your system. 

How can you tell if it’s time for you to clean your water filter? You don’t have to clean the purification elements each time you clean your filtration system. You should plan on cleaning these elements when the water flow from your filtration system slows down significantly. This can indicate that the pores in these elements have become clogged with debris.  For most people this is about every 2-4 months, depending on your source water quality.  

You also have the option of cleaning your system’s purification elements regularly rather than waiting for the water flow to slow down. If you want to clean these elements on a routine basis, you can do so roughly every six months or more often if needed. For example, you might want to clean them every few months if you’re in an area with a dirty water supply. When you regularly clean your purification elements, you should have a lower chance of having the water flow slow down.

How to Clean Your Royal Berkey Water Filter

How should you go about cleaning your water filter? To get the purification elements clean, use the following steps:

• Wash the lower chamber once per month with soapy dishwater.
• Remove the purification elements from your water filtration system, then disassemble them.
• Hold the purification elements under cool water from your faucet while scrubbing vigorously the outside surfaces with a kitchen brush or a ScotchBrite® cleaning pad.
• Prime your water filters before putting the purification elements back together.
• Reassemble the purification elements, and put them back into your water filtration system.
• Perform a system test. Your purification elements are powerful enough to remove food coloring from water. Simply fill the upper chamber with water and add one tablespoon of red food coloring. If the food coloring is removed entirely, your purification system is working properly.  See here for all the details:  https://consciouswater.ca/berkey-water-filter-cleaning/

If you need additional information on caring for your Royal Berkey Water Filter or if you’re interested in purchasing one for your home, please contact Conscious Water. We can provide you with the cleaning information you need or help you select the right water filter system.