Campr – Everything Camping

“Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink”.

Surprisingly, for a ubiquitous substance, we are quite often left without any safe source available to us except for that which we have carried with us.

Well, that worry may now be over, with the portable water purifier, “Super Delios”.

The Super Delios is a filter capped design with a soft polyethylene bottle sitting underneath the filter. The filter itself comprises of a fibrous activated carbon layer, along with a hollow fiber filter. This Japanese made device can filter up to 1,000 litres of water, though this is largely dependant on the water quality.

How the Delios works

The filters claim to eliminate harmful bacteria, molds, protozoa (microorganisms) as well as iron rust (so don’t use it on your ‘IRN-BRU’ or you’ll end up with just fizzy water), small particles and floating organic materials from the water.

It is however, important to note that the filter is not suitable for water that may contain toxic substances, organic solvents, agricultural chemicals, heavy metals, detergents and other harmful substances, salty water (seawater etc.), calcium, magnesium etc.

That said, as long as you’re not trying to drink the discarded water from your washing machine or sucking the remaining drops from a fertiliser sprayer, you will probably find that this little bottle could be very useful to you.

So, what can it be used for? Tap water, underground water, well water, rivers and lakes in which fish and other aquatic life inhabit, bath water that does not contain any bathing powders or liquids, standing water in plastic tanks or water in plastic containers that has passed its expiration date, water from toilet tanks, etc. swimming pool water, rainwater, snowmelt (the infamous ‘yellow snow’ is not specifically featured in the manufacturers notes, so I would suggest avoiding it where possible) etc.

As a rule of thumb, if you normally wouldn’t even dream of touching the water, that’s a good instinct, stay away from it; if there’s something that you would be weary of, this little device can clean it up enough for you to feel comfortable having a swig.

One of the things I really did love about this product is the bottle design, simple in itself, but the ability to be able to fold up the bottle and it not to crease and split means it’s not going to take up valuable space in my already overcrowded pack; instead, it gets shoved inside a mug ready for use (note: the bottle must be empty for this to work!).

Weighing in at 55g (1.9oz), you’re not really going to notice this; until you need it. It also comes with a nifty little carrying pouch and full instructions on how to use, clean and store.

I’m not one for instruction-reading normally, but let’s be honest, when it comes to something you’re going to ingest, you don’t take chances!

Delios has been the favoured supplier in Japan of water filtration systems for over 10 years, and it’s not surprising having seen this. More generally speaking, you can use this in place of bottled water, it’s more environmentally friendly and you know you always have it with you.

For the ‘Camprs’ among us, it means being able to rely on your surroundings more which can open up whole new areas for you to set-up base. For those times where you’ve been uncertain whether you could, or should, fill up from that stream; now you can!

So how much is portable water filtration going to set you back? There’s a couple of different items in the range, the Super Delios that we took a look at costs £34.99 with replacement filters at £29.99 (direct from www.delios.co.uk).

When you offset that against the cost of water purification tablets, the convenience of design and the volume of purification, I think the Super Delios comes out way ahead.

Ending soon on eBay

CONSPIRACIES Nick Delios PC Game CD-ROM Adventure

US $9.99 End Date: Wednesday Aug-11-2010 17:28:06 PDT Buy It Now for only: US $9.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Strategy For Success In Asia by Andrew Delios (2005)

US $10.00 End Date: Friday Aug-13-2010 23:06:21 PDT Buy It Now for only: US $10.00 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Alternate water filters

There are several alternatives on the market with the biggest consideration is frequency of use. If it’s an emergency a delios or similar is perfect but if you’re going to regularly encounter unclean water it may be worth ‘splashing’ out a little.