Water Filter Comparison

Description

http://www.selfrelianceoutfitters.com

http://astore.amazon.com/davecante-20

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning folks I'm Dave Canterbury what's up for Lennox Outfitters in the Pathfinder school what I thought we'd do this morning is just take a little break from the materia medica I'm now here at one of my camps and I thought maybe we would talk today a little bit about water filters portable type of water filters and I don't do too many videos on things like that because I'm a big advocate of just boiling the water and in emergency scenario generally speaking if I can't boil the water I'm just going to drink it but with that said portable water filters don't weigh very much they don't cost very much for the peace of mind they provide and if you are a backpacker and you're going to travel over a distance or you're going into a hunting camp you're going to be on longer lengths of longer term Scouts and things like that and you can't carry a lot of water with you but you are going to cross lots of groundwater resources like you would in the Eastern woodlands and you don't want to drink directly from the stream and you don't want to start a fire to boil the water to get a quick drink on the fly then a portable water filter may be a good choice for you and we sell several water filters on our website but I want to review about four of them today and when I say review I mean just take a look at them talk about what they cost versus what they will do versus possibly even where they're manufactured and let you decide what you think is the best portable water filter for you and for your situation do it now I brought four different water filters out here with me today for this discussion and all four of them are brand new in the package so that you can look at what the packaging looks like and what accessories that water filter may come with as well okay so here is our life straw out of the package and what we have here is a simple cap on both ends one end goes into the water resource the other end draws water through the filter system and this is 264 gallons so that's basically for an individual 264 days of water now how do I look at these water filter items the way I look at them as far as kit mentality goes is that they are a convenience item yes they don't weigh anything yes they don't take up a whole lot of room you yes I could throw this in my pack any time for an emergency and it would be a great ad but it's not a necessity because I can boil water in an emergency that is short-term and we're talking three-day scenarios I don't need this for the three day scenario but for longer-term and for convenience this thing is great especially for 20 bucks all right so let's discuss my mentality or my feelings on these water filters before we move on to the next filter to me these are a good emergency kit had are they an SST no I do not believe they are I think that they are a convenience when we talked a long time ago about kit mentality when I build my kit I build it around three things core temperature control comfort or good night's sleep and convenience being the last thing do I have to have that water filter to consume water no I don't do I have to have it to carry water over distance no I don't do I have to have it because it's going to clean my water no because I can always boil my water now filtering boil is always going to be your best bet but I can filter large particulates through a bandanna full of charcoal or something like that if I want to I can be very selective about where I get my water from most of the time in eastern woodlands so I don't consider this like a 10 C type item I consider it more of a convenience item however for the longer term and for the day hiker for the backpacker for the hunter I think it is an excellent item to put in your bag because it gives you that convenience without adding a lot of weight of being able to consume ground water resources on the fly and not having to take the time to sit in one spot and boil water again emergency scenario three days versus the mentality of I'm going in here bushcrafting and to me that's the big difference right there if I'm going if I'm in an emergency scenario I didn't plan on that if I'm bushcrafting I planned on being there for a

while I'm gonna plan on being there for a while I'm gonna plan on having these convenience items that don't weigh a lot but they make life a whole lot easier on me when I'm walking around on the woods doing a scout and I run out of water I can drink from a ground water resource I don't want to carry a bunch of water with me on a hot day I can drink out of the ground water resource that makes it a convenience I to me so all right so the next filter I want to talk to you about I got from Amazon it's called the survivor folder and this one is considerably more expensive than the LifeStraw actually this one is about 28 bucks I remember right somewhere between 26 and 28 bucks as far as the filtration goes if filters about the same amount of water as the LifeStraw the percentages of

things that it takes out of your water removes from the water same as the LifeStraw it has a few things that are a little bit better than the LifeStraw as far as connecting to other items you can use this thing with a Camelback because you can plug it straight into a hose if you need to you could add a hose to it to get longer the length to get to a crevice water resource it has a screw top on it that will screw on to a normal water bottle so that you can drink out of a water bottle it has a really nice heavy-duty snap cap on it and it's constructed very very heavy-duty it also has a nice lanyard point right here that's much heavier duty than the live straw for a longer term type filter that you're going to carry with you again it doesn't have any cover on the bottom of it like the last drawer now so that makes a difference as well you could get the bleach inside there but it does have a nice nice cover up here at the top it comes with an extra pre-filter in the package but this particular model is made in China does that make it bad not necessarily the only problem I have with a lot of things that are made in mass quantity in China is that your quality control suffers sometimes and we see that even on the products that we import ourselves like stainless steel we have to basically hundred-percent everything before we pack it to make sure there's no defects if these are being brought into roughly from overseas and put straight to an Amazon Web site with no inspection which I assume was the case because the seal had not been broken in the box then the only thing that I would question would be what's the quality control of this item across a large lot of the same item but again convenience item 28 bucks 264 gallons removes the same amount as the LifeStraw the only thing I would question would be the manufacturing process over time over large lots and inspection of this thing before it gets shipped for mass marketing I can't say anything bad about it because the construction is very good it seems to be have good durable casing on which is a good thing and it removes the same amount as the other filter and it will also filter the same amount of water but again it's about 8 bucks more money ok the next filter I want to talk to you guys about is probably my go-to filter if you want to call it a go-to it's something that I would put in my pack I actually have put these in my pack several times for longer trucks for longer time in the woods and things like that now does the Aqua mirror front to your pro now this filter is about 23 bucks maybe something like that so the cost offset is not much from the lecture and you get a lot more accessories with this filter than you get with the LifeStraw the biggest difference between this and the LifeStraw is a this was made in the USA and B you only get 50 gallons with it but again put that into perspective because that's 50 days so for that 23 bucks this is a one trip filter I take this thing on a trip I throw in the trash that's 23 bucks up amazing the USA security I'm not going to get sick if I use this filter most likely and that's a lot of peace of mind again let's take a closer look at this filter and look at some of the things that it comes with in comparison to other filters that might sway you to understand the cost differential as well alright so here is our aqua mirror filter and we have an attachment that's already on it in the package that we can use or not use so first of all we can plug in this tube that comes with it and we already get an extended reach into the ground water resource and we have a cap on the top that covers the suction valve where we draw the water into the filter it removes the same amount of material from the water with basically the same percentages but again it's about three to five bucks more money than the LifeStraw it comes with pre filters that go inside here and what this is for is this is so that you can plug this into the bottom and this is a snap fitting for a hose like Camelback so you can just snap this filter right onto it just like that and drink straight from your Camelback

and that's what that for or you can take that off and you can screw this on to a water bottle so you have an option there or you can drink straight from the groundwater resource with some extended reach and you have versatility there now the last thing about this aqua mirror filter that I forgot to mention was you've got this heavy-duty gusseted bag that the filter comes in it's got a ziplock seal on and it's actually made to collect water hold water that you're going to drink out of if you don't want to just lay down by the stream and drink the water you can actually use this for a collection device and a holding device and drink the water directly from here with the straw so you do have that added option with this filter and then you can just put it all back in there when you're done after it dries out and throw it back in your pack okay so the last filter I want to talk to you about is the solar filter and the solar filter is very popular for lots of reasons number one it's popular because it is a product that's made in the US number two it's a product that costs right around 20 to 23 bucks sometimes you can find it on sale on Amazon place like that even cheaper than that it also filters the same amount as the other filters as far as percentages go it's small and lightweight but it filters a hundred thousand gallons of water the one filter that you have in here is good for a hundred thousand gallons so for a longer-term item 100 thousand gallons a whole lot of water alright so let's look at what this thing comes with in the package talk a little bit about this all right so the Sawyer package comes with several things first of all it comes with a water bottle a squeegee system type of water bottle that we can't put water into and carry water over distance if we have to so we have like an emergency water bottle in here but also something that we can direct directly drink from because this filter will actually screw directly onto this bottle and because this bottle is flexible we can squeeze water through the filter to filter our water very much like a pump style filter that's just hand operated it's gonna take you a little while to get a lot of water out of it but it wouldn't take very long to fill up the bush pot with that so that's an option that you've got with this filter that you really don't have with the other filters as far as out of the package or out of the box as an option as you've got that you also have an extension hose in this one so that you can get reach into a groundwater resource if you need to this one filters the same amount as the other filters do you can plug this thing directly into a Camelback as well and drink straight from it or you can plug the hose into both sides of it drink with your mouthpiece if you want to so it has that option as well it's a very very well made filter with a good gasket oh ring type seal in there this is a good filter okay so let's talk about advantages and disadvantages of these systems the LifeStraw big advantage is cost at twenty dollars the amount of water that it will filter the simplicity of it and the ease of use drawbacks on this filter for me are that it doesn't really have a bite valve it just has a suction port and it doesn't have really any way to extend the length of it to get into a groundwater resource that may be a little bit out of reach or a water bottle that I want to drink log around up in a collective watering or something like that this doesn't have that ability okay this survivor straw has advantages of being very heavy-duty as far as the construction goes it doesn't really have a bite valve on it it has a suction type port on it it does have a good cap it doesn't have anything on the bottom to protect it but that's not necessarily a giant deal because it does have a pre-filter in it and that pre-filter right there it comes with a couple extra pre-filters in an envelope in there so you have that advantage in case you do get some dirt in there it has the advantage of being able to be screwed onto a water bottle so you can put that water bottle on or squeeze that water bottle to force water through the filter as well the only disadvantage to this thing that I can see is cost and the fact it's not made in the US the frontier Pro again you know I sell the LifeStraw I saw the front tier pro I saw Sawyer so I'm not really trying to promote one of these over the other what I'm really trying to say is what my honest opinion is and my honest opinion is that if I were going to take something on a short-term scout it would be it would be this aqua mare front two reasons for that are very simple a for me I don't need any of these Mickey Mouse attachments because I don't use a Camelback so all I need is the straw or a slingshot band or piece of rubber tubing that will fit over top of this in case I need to reach a groundwater resource that's a slightly out of reach and I like the fact that this has a built in bite mount very much like a Camelback system and if I wanted to I could plug this into any Camelback system into the hose so this is a very versatile lightweight and small item that's going to give me plenty of water for up to 40 50 days if need be for about 2223 but ok the Sawyer filter to me is by far the best long-term when I say long-term I'm talking about now over 50 days obviously for 40 days because the aqua mirror will do everything that this will do for the 40 50 day mark this does a hundred thousand gallons of water but the percentages of removal of bacteria and protozoa and all my stuff is exactly the same what I like about this filter is the size of the filter versus how many gallons it will filter what I don't like about this filter is the fact that I'm almost forced to have to have a Camelback system or some type of water bladder to be able to utilize it because it's really designed almost specifically for that I can screw this on to a water bottle I can suck through this valve or through a hose that's connected to that valve if I want to connect this hose to that Val I can do that as well but that's not near as easy as a bite valve like the on the Aqua mer so again for the long term and I need something it's going to last me a long time I really like the Sawyer but back to that short term versatility easy easy on the pocketbook easy to use Eataly easy to utilize my recommendation would always be the aqua marry frontier pearl guys listen I'm dead camera with self lights out there in the Pathfinder school I appreciate you joining me today for this video I don't do a whole lot of videos like that that do direct comparisons on products and it really the reason I did today was a I've had lots and lots of questions about these types of water filters and I've never really done a lot of video work with them the other side of that coin is I wanted you to see some products that are available to you that are not that expensive and I wanted to compare even the products that I carry on my own website because I have three different water filters that really have three different capabilities in my mind and there's three different reasons for buying them depending on what you're using it for and I think it's important to understand that as well I appreciate your views I appreciate your support thank you for everything you do for school for family and for business solve our sponsors at structures affiliates and friends I'll be back to another video as soon as I can thanks