Homemade charcoal water filters can turn swamp water into safe drinking water.

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

How farsighted was the wise man when he counseled about securing your source of water. 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.

The Problem – The Water We Drink

Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

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 prescription drugs 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 is capable of dissolving more substances than any other liquid. In today’s world of thousands of manmade chemicals that means more likely than not any source of water 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 fresh water is unfit to drink without first being treated.

What do we do, where can we begin?

U.S. Cavalry and DIY Charcoal Water Filters

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

U.S. Cavalry Field Water Filter (Circa 1870)

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, tadpoles, and smells absolutely putrid. The swamp water is directed to the crib so that 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 out comes clear sweet-smelling, spring-tasting water. Boiling finishes the process. I can testify to the wonder working power of plain charcoal as a water filter.

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

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.

Simple Charcoal Water Filter

On one occasion my wife and I visited a friend in a distant city notorious for its dreadful-smelling and unpleasant-tasting municipal water. We had forgotten to bring our own water with us. Driven by heat and thirst, I was at last forced to ask our host for some of his. I was directed to a beaker in the fridge. The water was clearly 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.

Water Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

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 18th century for extending the use of potable water on long sea voyages.3 Wood-staved barrels were scorched inside to preserve them, and the water or other items stored in them.

Scorched Wood-staved Water Barrel

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, charcoal water filter technology has advanced even to outer space. In fact, no one is going anywhere in the ocean of space without… yes, 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 water or air, 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.

African Missionary and 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 bad… I had thought about using powdered charcoal in it but decided that would be very messy, but then in the book [Charcoal Remedies The Complete Handbook] it 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

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 streams that were sampled (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 from your own roof! But is it pure? We may live downwind of a coal fired power plant. Maybe our skies are laced with chemtrails. Rain clouds saturated with smoke and fire-retardant chemicals from wildfires 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 to our doorsteps up in the pristine mountain forest of …

DIY Charcoal Water Filter Barrel

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. 1.First, place fine wire screen in the rain gutter and/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. 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. 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 12x30 mesh or larger granular activated charcoal) in the gutter downspout just before the rainwater enters the rain barrel.
  4. 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.
  5. 5. Boiling: just because the water is magically clear, smells and tastes okay, does not mean it is safe to drink. Sickly/deadly microbes and spores! It needs to be boiled – bringing it to a rolling boil is sufficient. Be careful not to re-expose your water to more wood smoke. OR…
  6. 6. 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 so that ultraviolet light can disinfect the water.

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 who have limited access to clean water.

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 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, the TRUSTED Water Bottle Filter. This is the original video that has inspired hundreds of DIY homemade water filter variations.

Video - Simple DIY Emergency Water Filter Bottle

Pastor Kurt writes, “I successfully combined the charcoal water filter with the SODIS™ (Solar water disinfection) to sanitize the dirtiest water. The entire process was thoroughly tested by Test America in Irvine, California. The raw water and the charcoal filtered water both had tested positive for E. coli. 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, landslides, often leave people cut off from basic needs such as pure water when they are surrounded by a sea of polluted contaminated water. 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. 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 take out the twigs, leaves, dead things, etc.
  2. 2. Contact time: to draw contaminants out of water there needs to be a decent amount of contact time with the charcoal. Obviously 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. 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. 4. Disinfection options: Polluted water can be made fit to drink in several ways including boiling, chemical treatment, filtration, or irradiation. 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.

Reusable Refillable Water Filters

  1. 5. Some combine Off-the-shelf water filters with DIY. You can purchase single, double, or three-stage water filters that come with refillable filter 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 land fill.

If you have not discovered it already, you will find a host of charcoal filters online, available in every size and shape and designed for every conceivable water purification requirement. Thankfully, water purification technology has come a long way from charred water barrels and hunks of charcoal in glass beakers. For domestic or recreational uses, industrial or medical settings, rural communities or cities, and even submarines or outer space, there is a charcoal water filter designed just for your needs. But, if you ever find yourself up a creek, without fluoridated, chlorinated, charcoal-filtered city water, remember, a chunk of charcoal from your campfire in your pot of boiling water, will make the water as safe to drink as the water your great-granddaddy drank.

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

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.