Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update: If you're going to buy Berkey, make sure you buy from an authorized distributor (contact the manufacturer, or buy straight from them). I bought from a seller that turned out to be unauthorized by the manufacturer, so now that the filters have failed, the manufacturer refuses to exchange them under warranty. Very funny. Why doesn't the manufacturer sell directly on Amazon? (I also bought filters from an authorized dealer and they also failed the test soon - to their credit, the manufacturer did honor the warranty for those.) Update 6 months later: By now I've gone through 4 black berkey filters and they've all failed the red dye test after just 2-4 weeks of use! (except one filter which I didn't test initially and failed on the first test I did after about 2 months). The red dye test is recommended by the manufacturer to make sure that the filter is working well. I called the manufacturer and they told me to scrub the exterior of the filters that had failed with the green part of a Scotch Brite, rinse, re-prime, and test again, and all 4 filters failed the second test again. I've been very careful when I run the tests, I wanted to avoid bad results. The 4 filters that failed came from 3 different sellers, so I can't even blame it on they all coming from the same manufacturing batch. So how can I trust these darn things to safely filter unsafe water in a long emergency if they fail after maybe 20 gallons of tap water instead of the 3000 gallons they are supposed to be good for? As you can read from my original review below, I really wanted this thing to work. Original review: You can put sewer-contaminated water into it in an emergency and drink the water that comes out. The list of contaminants that it has been independently verified to reduce with high effectiveness is almost endless. It requires no power, no tap water, just water from a source other than the ocean (assuming you have the Black Berkey Primer, which came with my Go Berkey). Priming with the Black Berkey Primer is relatively straight-forward. I saw quite a few people complaining about the priming process in the reviews but I didn't have significant problems. Due to the small holding capacity this is not the most convenient model for everyday household use, but I still use it for that purpose. Cons: It says 1 qt holding capacity, but that evidently must be before you put in the filter, which is a useless number. The real amount of purified water you get out of every batch is about 24.5oz, much less than the advertised 32 oz. Be sure to run the red dye test (described in the manual, red dye purchased separately) right after setting it up, and then every few months. I have had two black filters fail the test very shortly after installing them. It was not supposed to happen.