Quick answer: Membrane Solutions sells the water problem, and the honest rule is buy for the job, not the micron number on the box. The UV countertop gravity system ($179.99) retired both a bottled-water budget and a Berkey in its review pool — with a slow spigot and a never-overfill rule as the tax. The S1 filter straw ($14.99) is the emergency-shelf staple whose sealed shelf life beats the competitor’s five years. The 5-micron whole-house cartridge ($32.98) is the 4.8-rated commodity that fits standard housings and gets restocked for years.
The three-product lineup
One filtration brand, three scales of thirst. Prices are feed values at time of writing.
Membrane Solutions UV countertop gravity filter
A stainless two-chamber gravity system with a UV stage at the spigot — the product that shows up in reviews as a Berkey replacement or a bottled-water budget fix. The documented wins are concrete: a household that spent hundreds a year on bottles now fills mason jars from city water that “tastes just like bottled”; a Berkey veteran retired his unit for this one; three top filters rated at 3,000 gallons each (9,000 total — “if you used a gallon a day, that would be 24 years”); and when one UV light arrived dead, the company shipped a free replacement off a single email. The honest boundary is design, not filtration: no seal between chambers means overfilling the top leaks onto the counter (one owner flooded hers); the spigot runs about 0.17 gpm — six minutes a gallon; and residual water sits in the top chamber, which owners dump weekly to avoid algae.
- UV stage at the spigot — bacteria insurance gravity systems usually lack
- 9,000-gallon filter life — 3,000 gallons × 3 filters — most owners never change one
- company replaced a dead UV free — one email, no receipt theater
- no inter-chamber seal — never overfill — the leak is the 3-star story; fill the top less
Membrane Solutions S1 personal filter straw
The product with the deepest pool in this article (14,538 ratings) and the strangest review profile: most buyers are stockpiling, not sipping. “Bought several just in case something happens to my water” is the genre — emergency packs, bug-out bags, hurricane shelves. The standout spec the preppers cite is shelf life: indefinite, as long as the straw stays sealed, dry, and away from extremes — versus roughly five years for the main competitor’s product. That single line converts the “just in case” buyer. Actual field reports are thinner but consistent (camping, travel, backcountry), and at $14.99 with a 4.7 across five figures of ratings, the failure mode is mostly forgetting where you packed it. Buy two; one for the kit, one to actually test.
- indefinite shelf life, sealed — the spec the emergency-kit crowd cites over the competitor
- 14,538 ratings at 4.7 — the most-owned filter straw on the shelf
- $14.99 each, often less on sale — cheap enough to stockpile in multiples
- mostly stockpiled, not field-tested — buy a second one and actually use it
Membrane Solutions 5-micron string-wound whole-house filter
The unglamorous workhorse: a 5-micron string-wound cartridge for standard 10″×2.5″ whole-house housings, with a 4.8 rating across 5,476 buyers who mostly review it in one sentence — “they fit perfectly in the standard housing” — which is exactly the job. The pool’s wins: no odor in the water, good taste, easy swaps, multi-year repeat buyers (“2nd time I have ordered”), and one reviewer who standardized his in-line system on them. The honest boundary: a sediment cartridge is a first stage, not a purification claim — it catches particulate, not bacteria or lead; pair it with the right downstream stages. And mind your micron: the same body ships in 10, 20, and 50 micron — 5-micron flows slower and clogs faster on sandy wells, which is the trade you’re choosing.
- 5-micron sediment capture — fine particulate for standard 10-inch housings
- 4.8 across 5,476 ratings — a commodity cartridge with commodity reliability
- multi-year repeat buyers — the pool’s most common review is a restock
- first stage only — sediment capture — not a bacteria or lead claim
Who each Membrane Solutions product is for
The split is the water problem — what you drink daily, what you’d drink in an emergency, and what your pipes carry.
The bottled-water escapee — UV countertop system ($179.99)
City water you don’t trust the taste of, a bottle budget you’re tired of, or a Berkey you want to retire. Accept the slow spigot and the never-overfill rule.
The just-in-case planner — S1 straw ($14.99)
Emergency kits, hurricane shelves, camping bins. Indefinite shelf life sealed — buy multiples, test one, shelve the rest.
The whole-house maintainer — 5-micron cartridge ($32.98)
Standard 10″×2.5″ housings on well or city supply. First-stage sediment only — pair with proper downstream stages for anything a sediment filter can’t claim.
Side by side
Prices and ratings from the brand’s affiliate feed at time of writing.
| UV countertop | S1 straw | 5-micron cartridge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Job | Daily drinking water at the counter | Emergency / backcountry sipping | Whole-house first stage |
| Signature feature | UV stage at the spigot | Indefinite sealed shelf life | Standard 10″×2.5″ fit |
| Best documented win | Bottled-water bill retired; Berkey retired | Prepper spec math; 14.5k ratings | Multi-year repeat buyers |
| Documented weakness | Slow spigot; leaks if overfilled | Mostly stockpiled, not tested | First stage only — not purification |
| Price | $179.99 | $14.99 | $32.98 |
| Rating history | 4.5 · 314 | 4.7 · 14,538 | 4.8 · 5,476 |
Not the right pick if… you’re on a truly contaminated source. Gravity filtration plus UV handles taste, odor, and many microbes — it is not a lab-certified answer to chemical spills, heavy metals, or active boil notices. The well-water owner in the pool pre-filters with a sediment stage AND runs a faucet filter downstream. Match the stages to the contaminant, or get your water tested first.
Not the right pick if… you want fast flow. The UV countertop’s spigot runs about 0.17 gpm — six minutes per gallon, measured by an owner with a stopwatch temperament. The 5-micron cartridge flows slower than its 20 and 50 micron siblings and clogs faster on sandy wells. If speed is the priority, go coarser micron or a powered RO system, not this lineup.
Not the right pick if… you can’t tolerate design quirks. The countertop’s inter-chamber leak (no seal — never overfill the top), residual water you dump weekly, and the slow spigot are documented by fans as well as critics. If “just works without rules” is your buying style, the quirks will outweigh the water.
Not the right pick if… you need certified claims on the box. The straw’s indefinite shelf life is a spec, not an NSF certification number; the whole-house cartridge is sediment capture only. The RO membranes elsewhere in this brand’s catalog carry NSF/ANSI 58 — if certification paperwork is what you’re buying, that’s the aisle, not these three.
Not the right pick if… counter space is scarce. The UV system is a two-chamber stainless tower an owner compared to “the Master Cylinder from Felix the Cat” — it looks substantial because it is. Apartment counters that host a coffee machine, an air fryer, and a kettle will not host this too.
What verified buyers say
Six verified Amazon reviews, paraphrased and attributed — weighted toward the boundary-setting reviews this category needs most.
The economics arc: a household spending hundreds a year on bottled water, worried about plastic, bought this a year ago and it hasn’t left the counter. City water goes in the top, comes out tasting like bottled; airtight mason jars cool it in the fridge; the Yeti gets filled all day. The family loves the water, and the filter maintenance (backwash and clean) is the only chore.
The balanced 4-star: “never had better tasting water,” filters beautifully — and then the list. The spigot is slow for daily use (accepted, because the UV needs contact time). The top chamber holds an inch of residual water after filtering, which is irritating and promotes algae, so it gets dumped weekly. Can’t wash with soap without disassembly, to keep soap off the filters. They’ll keep using it; the flaws just need to be known.
The 3-star that saves buyers money: she filled the top chamber while the bottom was nearly full, and there is no seal between the two — water leaked onto counter and floor. Her other asks are fair: a sight window to check the bottom tank without lifting the whole top, and a faster spigot (“like one of those old-time jail coffee pots”). Filtration of foul taste and smell: genuinely good. The design: lacking thought.
The honest caveat-first review: he carries them for emergencies and hasn’t used one yet. What he bought is the spec — shelf life stated as indefinite while sealed, dry, and kept from extremes, versus the main competitor’s roughly five years. For a kit that waits years and gets replaced when forgotten, indefinite shelf life is the whole decision, and he says so plainly.
The commodity-cartridge review in full: fits the standard housing perfectly, filters well without blinding (flow stays strong), no odor in the water, good taste, easy replacement. He’d buy them again — and the rest of the pool confirms he will, since “2nd time I have ordered” and “using these for over a year” are the two most common openers in the pool.
The longevity datapoint: over a year on these filters in an in-line system, still satisfied. The pool around him is the same story at scale — whole-house owners standardizing on the cartridge because it fits, flows, and doesn’t surprise them. The 5-micron grade catches the fine sediment the coarser stages wave through.
Three water problems this brand fixes
The counter that sees $50 of bottled water a month
City water with a taste you don’t trust, bottles in every fridge. The documented win: a year of mason-jar water “just like bottled” — and a delivery service on the cancel list.
The emergency shelf
Hurricane season, boil notices, the car kit. The documented win: a $14.99 straw with indefinite sealed shelf life — bought in multiples, tested once, trusted for years.
The sandy well
Sediment that chews up appliances and turns filters brown. The documented win: a 5-micron first stage in the standard housing, swapped quarterly for $32.98 — the cheapest appliance insurance in the utility room.
FAQ
Does the UV countertop system replace a Berkey?
One long-time Berkey owner retired his for this unit, citing the UV device as the difference and the build as ‘pretty heavy duty’ — though he kept the Berkey in a closet ‘just in case’ after reading rust reports and notes the Berkey’s finish is more polished. The honest answer: it replaces the function at a lower price with UV added, but the spigot is slower, there’s no inter-chamber seal, and residual water needs weekly dumping. If your Berkey workflow is sacred, you can even run third-party filter elements in this housing — one owner fits ceramic fluoride filters and skips the included set entirely.
How long do the countertop filters actually last?
The math is absurd on paper: three filters × 3,000 gallons rated = 9,000 gallons, which one reviewer notes is 24 years at a gallon a day — so most owners never change them. Real life is shorter on turbid sources; the washable design means you backwash and clean rather than swap, and one owner reports doing exactly that for a year. Treat 3,000 gallons as the ceiling on clean city water and less on well water, and let taste be your indicator.
Is the S1 straw certified for backcountry use?
It’s a hollow-fiber personal filter straw of the standard backpacking type — the 14,538-rating pool uses it for camping and travel, and the spec buyers care about is the indefinite sealed shelf life versus competitors’ ~5 years. What it is not, per our read of the listing, is a purification claim: like most straws it filters particulate and microbes, not chemicals or viruses. Standard backcountry rules apply — source the clearest water you can find, and pretreat chemically if the source is suspect.
Which micron should I pick for my whole-house housing?
Match to sediment load, not to fear. 5-micron is the fine-polish choice for relatively clean city water or as a final polish stage — the pool’s 4.8 rating comes from owners whose water runs clear-ish. On sandy or iron-heavy wells, 5-micron clogs fast and throttles your flow; start at 20 or 50 micron as the sacrificial first stage and step down only if the water calls for it. All three share the same 10″×2.5″ body, so the swap is a ring choice, not a housing change.
Why does the countertop leak?
Design, not defect: there is no gasket between the top and bottom chambers, so the top chamber can’t hold a reserve — fill it past what the filters can drain in time and the excess finds your counter (one owner has the story and the floor to prove it). The rules from the pool: fill the top modestly, don’t stack fills on a full bottom, and expect about an inch of standing water in the top chamber that you dump weekly to keep algae away.
How was this page put together?
We are an independent review site. Specs, prices and coupon states come from the brand’s official affiliate feed; review summaries are paraphrased from the public Amazon review history of each product, negative reviews included. If you buy through our links we may earn a commission — it does not change which reviews we quote or what they say.
