Up until its introduction, Berkey had focused on water filters designed to meet the needs of families and small groups. Through multiple years of consumer feedback, we recognized the growing need for a water filter that could service larger groups like churches, schools, and orphanages. These unique customers had been purchasing multiple units like the Royal Berkey in order to meet the production output that was necessary to supply water to such large numbers of people. These smaller water filter systems posed several problems that made them less than ideal for their unique needs.

Our first concern was that the upper container was not tall enough to produce the water pressure needed to push large enough amounts of water through the Black Berkey elements. Each foot of height produces approximately 0.5 pounds of water pressure that is used to push the water down through the filters. So the first design feature we implemented was to make the upper container of the Imperial Berkey taller. The second problem was the number of filters the unit could hold. Each filtration element needs to have a certain amount of space around it in order to function properly.

The diameter of the smaller units was not large enough to accommodate more than four filters, so we increased the diameter of the lower storage container to accommodate up to six filter elements. The addition of the extra filtration elements increased the water flow capacity to sixteen gallons per hour when the Imperial was full. The third obstacle was the water holding capacity of the lower container. So we increased the size of the lower container enough to hold ample water to meet the demands during these peak periods for large groups.

*Not yet available in Iowa or California*