LIFESAVER® 4000UF Bottle

I did a one week kayak/camping trip through the Amazon rainforest and purchased the Lifesaver 4000 to supply all the drinking water for myself and the two friends who joined me on this trip. The filter performed as described on their website and I was more than happy with the quality of the water that it produced.

One thing to note is that the water won't necessarily be crystal clear - but it will be safe to drink. We were filtering 'black water' from the rainforest (ie water that is stained black due to decomposing leaf matter) and the filtered water was slightly cloudy - but only really noticeable when compared against a bottle of tap water. Taste-wise, it was fine. From what I have read, no portable water filter is capable of producing crystal clear water in these conditions so I don't count this as a negative against the Lifesaver bottle.

Pumping the water was easy and didn't require much effort. Five or six pumps and then you could sit back and watch whilst the water came out of the teat, then as the flow slowed, a few more pumps. By the time the bottle is 3/4 empty, I would have to refill it. You could let the last quarter trickle out, but it was quicker to top up the bottle again as the water flowed out quicker once you re-pressurised the bottle. I should point out that our guide commented that it was the 'best' water filter he had seen based on how little effort it took to get a steady stream of water pumping out the bottle. He said that the filters he saw other groups bring normally required constant pumping to took forever to fill a bottle.

After the kayak trip, my friends and I continued to travel throughout South America for the next 3 months where we used the bottle for all our drinking water (since we didn't trust the mains water). None of us got sick for the entire trip which I put down to the filter working effectively given other travel companions did. Admittedly not scientific proof, but good enough for me - and I would definitely take such a filter with me if I was visiting places like the countries in South America again.

If you maintain this bottle well (study the quirky instruction manual, this thing isn't cheap!) it will do better than just about any other product on the market. I say that having used many others and having witnessed lots of other products fail in the silty and highly contaminated environment where this one succeeded for me--and it has continued to succeed for a long time. I used it for two months in the Bolivian Amazon (as well as two of my friends...on the same bottle!) and it supplied ALL of my water (~2L/day for me and up to 6L/day in total) and didn't require more than a couple of rinses of the dirty water portion while in the field. My field work supervisors were shocked that it worked so well as they had long since given up trying to use pumps of any kind in this location due to the clay and silt. Instead, they boiled all their water, which resulted in just-as-silty, brown and totally flat (and when done on a camp fire, smoky) but potable water. I'll admit to being lax on maintenance the first two months, but I've since come to understand the necessity of keeping the o-rings greased and free of debris and my bottle is working as well as day 1.

Pros:
--Can filter just about any water source and maintain performance (though the life of the cartridge will lessen).
--Has a very high flow rate so filling other containers is fast.
--You can use it to store water as well.
--Air-tight cap means that when it's sealed it's safe from contamination even if it falls into a river or on the ground.
--One of the lowest prices/L for filtering solutions if you plan to actually use 4000L within the two-year life of a cartridge.
--Durable.
--Dirty water fail-safe means it'll cut off flow before you can drink inadequately filtered water.

Cons:
--$150
--Each cartridge is good for two years from when it is first opened. This is due to the makeup of the filter which ships with a glycerin coating that is removed when you prime the bottle for the first time. So once the clock starts ticking, that's it.
--The carbon filters only lasts 250L (though this is A LOT of water). But if you're using it as an actual bottle then your saliva can contaminate the carbon which means if it sits after you've used it (less than 250L) you'll need to change it out the next time you use it. I avoid this by using the bottle only to fill other bottles for storage of clean water.
--The care instructions are not written/edited well but they are crucial to figure out. This may be a problem that no longer exists (I believe I have an earlier generation of the bottle) and there are instructions online.
--Learning how to use the bottle (and, especially, teaching others) can be a bit frustrating and there are a few too many ways to contaminate your bottle if you're not careful (or a friend is not careful). For example, forgetting to completely empty, replace the bottom, and then pump 30x before removing the top cap before switching out the carbon filter can contaminate the bottle. Other annoyances include needing to do front-side washes (put water in the dirty-water end, swish around and dump back out, or remove the cartridge and soak), lube the internal pump o-ring, do membrane integrity checks (i.e. make sure the bottle will continue to flow in all directions once it is pressurized), and lube the base o-ring.

I have used every type of filter/purifier on the market and none of them have been as effective and simple to use as the Lifesaver bottle. I have two bottles, one for home and one for travel. I noticed one of the prior reviewers remarked on his discolored well water remaining discolored once it was filtered through the lifesaver. While the lifesaver bottle will filter out all microbiologicals including bacteria and even viruses it will not filter solutions such as the saline from salt water nor will it remove all of the color that is associated with a solution. For example, if you run tea or coffe through the filter the result will be clean water but the color of the water will mainsome of tea coloring. Personaly, I have drank water from some bad sources such as the great dismal swamp and stagnant ponds and the result is always the same, clean, pure water.