Fairey Industries - now Doulton - is the original creator of the Big Berkfeld - designed for the UK military. People started making knock offs called Berkey rather than the original British Berkfeld.
You can make your own system using two 5 gallon buckets and a spigot. Cheaper and you can store one bucket inside the other and put the filters and spigot inside until you need them. You need two of them to get a decent flow rate. Plenty of web articles and utube vids show the process. Just search “gravity feed water filter using 5 gallon buckets”. (make sure they’re food grade, which most are)
I lived like FR member blu did for a few years. Little house on the prairie style and like the Ingalls started out, we had two kids so I did my research before heading off to the woods with a couple of young kids. (17gb of survival info - printed out to 1500 pages)(should have heard the screams from the suburbunite relatives - you’re crazy - you’re gonna kill your kids)
This is Doulton’s latest filter and is actually cheaper than the black candles.
https://doulton.com/product/atc-super-sterasyl/
From the USA
http://doultonusa.com/HTML%20pages/portable_systems.htm
Description:
The 7-inch ATC SuperSterasyl ceramic filter candle with long mount connection can be trusted to provide high quality water. With this filters superb ability to filter 99% of contaminants, including bacteria, cysts and heavy metals, this ceramic candle is a clear choice when it comes to replacing your filter in any Doulton Gravity system. The Doulton ATC Super Sterasyl Replacement Element fits all Doulton Gravity systems. The filter uses Sintered Ceramic to remove contaminants for up to 6 months. The ceramic filter can be scrubbed clean with a brush for an extended life. Note: See owners manual for complete filter contaminant removal and specifications. 99.999% reduction of microorganisms including cysts, viruses, and pathogenic bacteria.
Filter Type: Sintered Ceramic. Filter Life: 6 months or 400 gallons.
Micron Rating: 0.9 microns.
Flow Rate: 0.005 gallons per minute.
Country of Origin: United Kingdom (GB).
Contaminant Removal:.
99.99% of E. Coli.
99.99% of Shigella.
99.99% of Cholera.
99.99% of Salmonella.
99.99% of Klebsiella.
99.99% of Cryptosporidium.
99.99% of Giardia.
99.99% of Algae.
99.99% of Rust.
99.99% of Sediment.
97% of Turbidity.
100% of Guinea worm.
95% of Chlorine Taste and Odor.
94% of Lead.
Cryptosporidium and Giardia are the two big ones. Very hard to filter and deadly.
Listeria is another one but it’s mostly food borne and basic food handling safety is the best preventative.
I’m happy to say that after 3 years of getting our drinking water from a creek, we’re all of good health. We got to the Ozarks just in time for toe two years of heat waves. No a/c and 100+ temps and we had to carry water up a long, steep hill daily. I carried 4 gallons and the wife and two kids each carried two gallons. When it came to laundry time, by hand of course, we made 3-4 trips. We still don’t have a well but we drink bottled water now. The property we finally found is in an area loaded with springs. Our closest neighbor has a spring and the previous owner set the place up to bottle water. Little bit of lime in the water and they found out that they were going to have to install a huge reverse osmosis system with a price tag of 5 digits so they scrapped the idea. Still safe to drink though. I have a water tank and we get our general use water there but if need be, we can drink it. And of course, this spring is down a long steep hill but hey, btdt.
For the original style black filters, this is about the best place to get them.
http://www.getberkey.com/black-berkey-replacement-water-filters-set-of-2/