Review: St. Paul Mercantile water filter

Josh CentersContributor - May 23, 2020

After reading about COVID-19-related water supply vulnerabilities, I decided to invest in a long-overdue prep for my family: a heavy-duty gravity-fed
[See the full post at: Review: St. Paul Mercantile water filter]

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Thanks for such a comprehensive article, Josh!  I’ve been using water filters from St. Paul Mercantile for years and am satisfied.  I don’t think of them as DIY any more than I think of putting my own batteries into a flashlight as DIY.  Sure you can buy a flashlight with batteries preinstalled but you’re still going to have to replace them yourself at some point.  It also makes sense that you can use different brands of batteries in your flashlights because the sizes are standardized, just like with these replaceable water filter candles.

It looks like there are some words missing: “John Squires of St. Paul Mercantile, who once sold Berkey filters, told me that NSF International certification  All of these manufacturers”.  What was it that John told you?

I’m looking forward to your future article of full lab tests on the three major gravity filter brands.

 

 

Thanks for the kind words! John told me that the NSF certification can cost up to one million dollars *holds pinky up to mouth like Dr. Evil*. I’ve added that to the article. Thanks for pointing that out, such a big article is a bear to edit.

 

What’s the issue with need to filter out flouride? You ain’t one of them flouride conspiracists are you?

 

I chose it as one of the elements to compare, since fluoride is a common concern. I personally do not use fluoride toothpaste because it makes my gums sore (I learned this last year almost by accident, but it’s eliminated years of mouth pain with no increase in cavities). Philosophically, I want as few unnecessary chemicals in my water as possible. Even the filtered water from my fridge tastes like chemical soup after I got used to the water from the St. Paul unit.

 

Fluoride is a neurotoxin: https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/completed/fluoride/index.html

 

If you don’t need to have fluoride removed, the Aquacera CeraPlus candles can be purchased.  They don’t cost as much, either.

 

Thank you for the in-depth review. It was very helpful. Has anyone tried the “frankenfilter”? 

 

Our stainless filters now shIp with 100% Silicone plugs Instead of corks.  The corks were shipped for about four months when I ran out of the good plugs.  10,000 plugs in stock now.