Water Filtration

This is one of those issues where DIY will only get you so far.
You can filter your rain water collection with a scrap of window screen to keep the worst of the bugs and leaves out of the barrel. You can set up sand-trickle-filtration in a 5 gallon bucket and get close to potable water. Add on 10 minutes of roiling boil and you're approaching what you get currently out of the tap here in the US. But, all of that can be done faster and easier and with more portability with a water filter.
These, unfortunately, are not cheap, we are saving up for one, it's on The List, but we don't have it yet. (It's battling with the grain grinder for top spot on The List) Berkey is the brand I want to invest in, as they have a sterling reputation among people in the know. They use gravity to filter water down through their crazy-good filters, which are good for 3000 gallons.

To that end, I'm trying to win a filter from a survivalist blogger I occasionally read. The following paragraph makes me eligible to win a Berkey filter. Wish me luck!

M.D. Creekmore over at the The Survivalist Blog – a survival blog dedicated to helping others prepare for and survive disaster – with articles on bug out bag contents, survival knife choices and a wealth of other survival information is giving away a Go Berkey Water Filter System (a $139.00 value)! To enter, you just have to post about it on your blog. This is my entry. Visit The Survivalist Blog for the details.


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Edited to add:
Further research has yielded another DIY method of killing bacteria in water.
Solarizing the water in clear bottles for 6+ hours. The UV-A rays in sunlight kill germs such as viruses, bacteria and parasites (giardia and cryptosporidia). The method also works when air and water temperatures are low.