DIY Charcoal Water Filters

“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.” Proverbs 5:15

How far-seeing was the wise man when he counseled about securing your water source! From nuclear submarines at the bottom of the oceans to the International Space Station and everywhere in between, pure, clear, sweet, odor-free, chemical-free, germ-free water is invaluable. And it can all begin right now with you and me … and charcoal water filters.

The Problem – The Water We Drink

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.[1]

More and more, this famous ancient rhyme rings true for much of the world.

In her sobering article, Drugging Our Water: We Flush It, Then We Drink It,[2] Melissa Knopper reviews some startling realities. Birth control pills, estrogen replacement drugs, ibuprofen, bug spray, sunscreen, mouthwash, and antibacterial soap all pour into our drinking water supplies every single day. What’s more, they could easily turn up in your next glass of tap water. In 2002, United States Geological Survey (USGS) scientists sampled 139 rivers and streams, finding the residues of hundreds of prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs and personal care products lingering in the nation’s water supplies. Have things gotten better?

Water is called the “universal solvent” because it can dissolve more substances than any other liquid. In today’s world of thousands of manmade chemicals, that means, more likely than not, any water source is polluted. The days of drinking pure water from a cool, sparkling mountain stream are fast disappearing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates ninety percent of the world’s freshwater is unfit to drink without first being treated.

What do we do? Where can we begin? With charcoal water filters.

US Cavalry and DIY charcoal water filters

Imagine it is the frontier days of the late 1800s. You are posted with the US 9^th Cavalry somewhere in NW Nebraska. You are encamped in some wasteland, and all you have available is bog water. What do you do?

You assemble a crib with three sections. The first section you fill with small rocks; the second with clean sifted sand; the last section with a mix of coarse and fine charcoal. The swamp water nearby is cloudy, mixed with twigs, leaves, insects, and tadpoles, and smells absolutely putrid. The swamp water is directed to the crib, so it enters the bottom of the first section. As the water rises, the rocks do a great job of removing the large debris. The water then flows over into the top of the sand section and filters down, removing virtually all the fine contaminants. The now clear water passes through holes into the third section from the bottom and rises up through the bed of charcoal. Here is where the magic of charcoal science happens. No chrome, no PVC, no chemicals, but outcomes clear, sweet-smelling, spring-tasting water. Boiling finishes the process. I can testify to the wonderful working power of plain charcoal as a water filter.

City Electrical Engineer and ultra-simple DIY Charcoal Water filters.

Almost fifty years ago, we lived in the jungle of Galateo, Puerto Rico. Thankfully, pure water was not one of our worries. At the foot of our Mt. Galaad, we had a spring of the freshest, tastiest water anywhere. But that was not the case everywhere on the island.

On one occasion, my wife and I visited a friend in a distant city notorious for its dreadful-smelling, tasting municipal water. We had forgotten to bring our own water with us. Driven by heat and thirst, I was forced to ask our host for some of his. I was directed to a beaker in the fridge. The water was gray! “Attitude” kicked in. My friend, however, assured me it was okay. Since he was an electrical engineer for that city of hundreds of thousands, I had to believe him. I do not exaggerate. The water was as pure-tasting and refreshing as our mountain spring water [even if not as clear]. In another beaker, from which the gray water was poured, was a single large, unappealing chunk of charcoal. The magic of charcoal science.

This reminds me of a not-so-uncommon practice in Korea of swishing a bamboo charcoal swizzle stick around in the café cup of tea to remove the chlorine cloud from the chlorine-saturated municipal water used to make that favorite cup of green tea.

How does charcoal filter water?

Not by removing sand, grit, and other debris – for that, you first need a sediment filter. Charcoal removes the dissolved or suspended toxic chemicals, pigments, odor compounds, and bad taste.

Ancient Seafarers and DIY charcoal water filters.

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink unless, of course, you understand charcoal science. Recent studies of the wrecks of Phoenician trading ships from around 450 B.C. suggest that drinking water was stored in charred wooden barrels. This practice was still in use in the 18^th century for extending the use of potable water on long sea voyages.[1] Wood-staved barrels were scorched inside to preserve them and the water or other items stored in them.

How ingenious is that? How completely natural, organic, and environmentally friendly! Today, almost 2,500 years later, homes everywhere showcase hundreds of different shapes and sizes of shiny, chrome, activated charcoal water filters. Today, the technology for charcoal water filters has advanced even to outer space. In fact, no one is going anywhere in the ocean of space without charcoal. Water in space is even more precious than in the Sahara Desert. At $8,000 – $10,000 per pound of payload, whether it be some chrome technology, and especially air and water, conservation and recycling means life or death. The precious air and water are recycled over and over, and one of the revitalizing media is activated charcoal.

Africa missionary and a DIY charcoal water filter.

Water was not an issue for Suzi in Benin, West Africa. She had a rain barrel and a good well. That is, until something fell in and died, and the smell was terrible. I had thought about using powdered charcoal in it but decided that would be very messy, but the book [Charcoal Remedies The Complete Handbook] talked about someone who wanted sweet-tasting water, and they put in a chunk of charcoal. Then I remembered I had a huge bag of charcoal chunks outside, so I went and threw in several large handfuls of charcoal and within ten minutes, the smell was noticeably better, and by evening, it didn’t smell at all.” The final treatment is always boiling.

Antibiotics in ground water

Some rural homeowners who use well water near streams and rivers are at even greater risk. USGS researchers also turned up antibiotics in nearly half the sampled streams (raising other concerns about the nation’s growing antibiotic resistance problem).

Okay, so what about the water that falls out of the sky?

DIY charcoal water filter rain barrel.

Rainwater is free and holy, right? Free, yes, unless you live in a state that restricts how much water you can collect and use off your own roof! As for holy? We may live downwind from some coal-fired power plant. Rain clouds saturated with smoke and fire retardants from some forest fires thousands of miles away may blanket our skies for weeks. How about a nuclear power plant catastrophe on the other side of the world that carries radioactive fallout[1] to our doorsteps up in the pristine mountain forest?

[1] Coconut Charcoal has long been known to bind radioactive “emanations”.

Journal of Physical Chemistry, “The Absorption of the Radio-active Emanations by Charcoal” January 1908, Review of the then up-to-date research on the ability of common non-activated charcoals to “hold” “radio-active emanations.” “The writer showed that charcoal and notably cocoa-nut [coconut] charcoal is a strong absorbent of the emanations of radium and of thorium.”

If you have a rain barrel at your mountain cabin and want to get rid of that smoke flavor coming off the roof from your wood fire cook stove.

1. First, place a fine wire screen in the rain gutter or at the downspout to collect any “stuff” as the rainwater goes from the roof to the rain gutter and then down the gutter downspout into the rain barrel.
2. If you have a wood-staved rain barrel, follow the ancient practice of lighting a fire inside to scorch the wood with a fine layer of charcoal. You are almost ready to go.
3. If you have a metal or fiberglass rain barrel, insert a homemade cage (fine window screen works well) about 12 inches long, filled with ¼” to ½” pieces of charcoal (or 12×30 mesh or larger granular activated charcoal) in the gutter downspout just before the rainwater enters the rain barrel.
4. Fit a lid or fine screen to the top of the barrel to keep out insects and other debris. You are almost good to go.

Boiling: just because the water is magically clear, smells, and tastes okay does not mean it is safe to drink. It can still contain microbes and spores that can make you sick or worse! It needs to be

1. boiled – bringing it to a rolling boil is sufficient. Be careful not to re-expose your water to more wood smoke.

OR …

2. Sunlight: pour the charcoal-filtered water into clear glass or plastic containers (PET) and expose them to direct hot sunlight for a minimum of 6 hours for the ultraviolet to do its disinfection.

Homemade charcoal water filter bottle.

I have been involved in overseas development work around the world on and off for almost fifty years. One of the most inspiring short videos was produced years ago by Pastor Kurt Dahlin. Pastor Kurt is the founder and director of Water Wells for Africa, which serves upwards of half a million people a day. For the past 29 years, Pastor Kurt has been traveling to Malawi to coordinate water well drilling as a front-line effort to improve the quality of life among remote communities that suffer from little or bad water conditions. His interest in water and sanitation led him to activated charcoal and its myriad of applications in water purification. Activated charcoal is not readily available in most of Africa. “Would the plain raw charcoal work in place of activated charcoal?” he wondered. And if it would, what could be devised as a temporary solution for contaminated water while longer-term solutions are being developed? His answer was the TRUSTED Water Bottle Filter. This is the original video that has inspired hundreds of DIY homemade water filter variations.

Pastor Kurt writes, “I successfully combined the charcoal water filter with the SODIS™ (Solar water disinfection) to sanitize the dirtiest water. Test America thoroughly tested the entire process in Irvine, California. The raw water and the charcoal-filtered water both had E. coli presence. Yet the solarized water had no E. coli. I had the video created to take with me to Africa and teach in the villages. My awareness of the many benefits of charcoal and ash continues to grow and amaze me.”

While this innovation was first crafted to serve developing countries, it is not hard to picture how well it could work wherever calamities strike. Tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, and landslides often leave people cut off from basic needs such as pure water while polluted, contaminated water surrounds them. With little effort, the survivors can fashion these water bottles from the debris left behind and, in a short time, have safe drinking water. God provides hope even in judgments.

Some things Do-It-Yourselfers, Survivalists, and Preppers need to consider:

1. Physical debris: don’t waste the charcoal trying to filter out all the visible debris. Use cloth, fine screen, gravel, sand, or some combination to remove twigs, leaves, dead things, etc.
2. Contact time: to draw contaminants out of water, there needs to be a decent amount of contact time with the charcoal. The longer the contact time, the better, which means the overall flow rate will be slow – as in the US Cavalry field water filter.
3. Fluoride and Heavy Metals: charcoal removes fluoride and heavy metals (including lead) very poorly, if at all. Bone char is the preferred filter media.
4. Disinfection options: Polluted water can be made fit to drink in several ways, including boiling, treating with chemicals, filtering, or irradiating it. The method(s) you choose will depend on what resources you have at hand, including cash, how often you need to treat water, and the amount of water you want. Each of these methods has its limitations. Boiling, treating with chemicals, and irradiating may not kill, neutralize, or remove all organisms and toxins, and they do nothing for the visible pollutants and odors left behind. Many filtering systems will restore clarity to the water and remove a large percentage of pathogens but leave others.
5. Some combine Off-the-shelf charcoal water filters with DIY. You can purchase single, double, or three-stage water filters with refillable cartridges. When it is time to replace the filter media, open the cartridge, dump the used charcoal in your compost or garden, and refill with the activated charcoal media to tackle your specific problem (bad taste, color, odor, fluoride, or heavy metals). You can purchase the charcoal filter media in volume, reuse your refillable cartridges dozens of times, and save throwing all the non-reusable cartridges to the landfill.

If you have not discovered it already, you will find a host of reusable charcoal water filters online of every size and shape for every conceivable water purification requirement. Thankfully, water purification technology and charcoal water filters have come a long way from charred water barrels and hunks of charcoal in glass beakers. From domestic to recreational, from industrial to medical, from rural to civic, and from submarines to outer space, there are charcoal water filters designed for your needs. But, if you ever find yourself up a creek with no fluorinated, chlorinated, charcoal-filtered city water, remember, a chunk of charcoal from your campfire in your pot of boiling water will make it as safe to drink as it was for your great granddaddy.

“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” And so it would be for multiple millions of people if not for charcoal water filters.

John Dinsley is the author of “CharcoalRemedies.com The Complete Handbook of Medicinal Charcoal & Its Applications“. John and his wife Kimberly are owners of Charcoal House LLC, offering the most diverse line of activated charcoal products anywhere. Their business motto is “Purify Your World®.” They also travel together domestically and internationally, conducting workshops on the prevention and treatment of common diseases using simple natural remedies.

[1] The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1834

[2] E/The Environmental Magazine, Volume XIV, Number 1

[3] Charcoal Remedies, The Complete Handbook p. 41

[4] Coconut Charcoal has long been known to bind radioactive “emanations.” Journal of Physical Chemistry, “The Absorption of the Radio-active Emanations by Charcoal” January 1908, Review of the then up-to-date research on the ability of common non-activated charcoals to “hold” “radio-active emanations.” “The writer showed that charcoal and notably cocoa-nut [coconut] charcoal is a strong absorbent of the emanations of radium and of thorium.”