We have been using one at home and one at our vacation place for many years. The one at home gets used everyday, so the filters are fully wetted and it only takes a few hours to filter a gallon or so. Keep in mind the water is municipal, so there really is not much for the system to filter. The water at our vacation place is also municipal, but has a definite aftertaste, which is mostly removed by filtering the water.

We have been quite happy with ours. My only issue with the system, is you need to pickup the upper section to see how much room is available in the lower/filtered section. I think the Berkey system is no different.

Pete