LifeStraw Family 1.0 Portable Gravity Powered Water Purifier for Emergency Preparedness and Camping

Nice buy

I haven't opened or used this yet but I've purchased other Lifestraw products in the past. The only negative I know of and read from other reviewers is that once you open the bag there is no storage case for the unit and it's pieces so, before I open it I'm going to find a plastic tool case or something to use to store it in.The reason I'm writing this review now is to get the word out about Lifestraw. This is the second best unit I know of. It filters 4,755 gallons of water down to 0.02 microns which is enough to filter out viruses and bacteria etc. The absolute best filter I found (the Survivor Filter PRO) was twice as good bc it went down to 0.01 microns and did like 25,000 gallons or something and they both cost about the same. The reason I chose Lifestraw is because it's gravity fed and you can hook up a large water bladder or tank etc to it to feed it... The 0.02 micron level is way good, much better in fact than most water filters sold (which are generally rated at 0.20 microns) and so safe to use and have sold like 5 million units worldwide. The Survivor Filter PRO's .01 micron filter has to be hand pumped 50 times to get a 500ml (about a pint) little water bottle full of water and it uses multiple filters that need replacing etc. There is no way I could see the tiny looking hand pump lasting long enough to pump 100,000 liters. That comes out to 379 pumps for one gallon of water. 100,000L's = 10,000,000 pumps. Wow! The pump in the picture looks plastic but I seriously doubt that if it was metal and with ball or roller bearings, that it will last that many pumps, lol. But seriously, I don't see myself pumping this thing 50 times every hour to get some safe water. I'd rather just dump some water in the feed hopper (my words for it) and come back in an hour and get 2.4 to 3.2 gallons of purified water. That's an average of 2.8 gallons of water in an hour with no work, no pumping.

We purchased a Lifestraw Family and 2 Lifestraw Personals. Got them home then decided to test them before writing a review. First off, the directions are very clear, concise and simple to follow. We went down to the river here in town and got a large bottle full of river water and a large bottle of water from a small adjacent pond. We got home, followed the directions precisely and ran the river water through the lifestraw family. A note about the river and pond water. The Poudre River, where we got the water, was involved in the recent disastrous floods here in Weld County, Colorado, so it and the pond water saw a huge increase in the contamination that results from these floods. We poured a small glass. The water was perfectly clear, no odor, so I took in a mouthful. It tasted like it had just come out of a kitchen commercial water filter. I waited about an hour, no effects at all, then finished the glass. Couldn't let good water go to waste! The real test was coming up, doing the same thing with the nasty pond water. I performed the same test with it, following the directions to the letter. Absolutely no ill effects at all. The water tasted great!! My girlfriend and I highly recommend the Lifestraw Family! Just please run your own test because everyone's system responds differently to germs. We plan on getting 2 more Lifestraw Family filters and several more Lifestraw Personals.

It gives me peace of mind having this. We have some small LifeStraws that will work great for some applications but to be able to hang this one is more convenient for someone my age. I was going to order another one but the price has increased $47.00 since I order mine three weeks ago.

Quick shipping

Good thing to have in case of an emergency seems like it will work well not overcoming

The LifeStraw is good filter for camping, but we're using this to filter collected rainwater for use on houseplants and an Aerogarden hydroponics unit. We have well water here, very hard, which is generally not so good for houseplants and definitely not recommended for the Aerogarden. But we collect a LOT of rooftop rainwater for the gardens (like nearly 3000 gallons).The water itself is pretty clean, but I didn't trust it. Plus we did want to be able to filter rainwater for drinking in an emergency. The LifeStraw Family 1.0 Water Purifier came well-packaged and with fairly easy to understand instructions. Mostly it's a matter of knowing what valves to turn when. The other thing was we really needed to do flushing several times before the bits left in the filter by the manufacturing process were all cleaned out.Flow rate was/is good, but seems to work best if the tank is mounted on a wall so that the tube hangs vertically down. I recommend putting a tray or something under whatever bottle you're filling if you're going to leave the area, to avoid spills.We already had a couple of the portable LifeStraws from these folks in our backpacks, and so are familiar with the instant-availability concept of these kinds of filters. Only in this case, you can filter a whole lot more water than just for personal drinking. We'd definitely buy again, and might actually do so for our 'emergency kit.'I tested the water with various meters and strips, and it seems to be perfectly safe to drink. So I'm guessing my plants will like it better, too.

Produces microbe-free water that is also free of micro-plastic particles found in all brands of bottled water. Time will tell how harmful those particles are. I filter my algae-laden well water thru a 1 micron sediment filter and two 10" 1 micron charcoal filters before it's poured into Lifestraw bucket. Collect in glass and stainless steel containers. Live alone, so slowness is not a problem & 0.02micron pore size provides the safest water you can produce. Amazon price much lower than factory-direct.