Questions for my 'Worst case scenario 'water filter

Hello, first post besides introduction, I'm very impressed with the knowledge in here! By worst case scenario I mean that both electricity and water pressure is not available. I am going with a 3 step river/lake filtration process for either car camping (very bulky, saving weight is not my goal) and/or a water emergency situation. I love the car camping option because it means that I didn't throw money away if an emergency never happens.

Step 1 is taking water out of a lake/river with my Katadyn Expedition. My first question is what would be the best prefilter mesh to wrap around the intake? I've heard coffee filters and panty hose but is there any suggestions that are more durable? And also, not just what to wrap around the intake but also how do you guys wrap prefilters around your intakes, do you guys use rubber bands?

Step 2 is to run the Expedition outlet water thru my First Need Base Camp. Maybe people think this is redundant but I wanted a step before the First Need to prolong each cartridge's life (they are expensive). They are each rated at 500 - 1,000 gallons, my hope is that going thru the Expedition first will let me get the full 1,000 gallons every time.

Step 3 I want to buy carbon filtration. The Katadyn carbon filter is too small (I went with Expedition & Base Camp for fast flow multi person convenience), however I still do realize that step 3 will by far be the slowest step, that's ok. So a poster in here mentioned a distiller website and I noticed they had a Berkey type carbon filter bucket set up, BUT it is insanely less expensive than Berkey!! Granted it is only 1 carbon filter vs 2 but the replacement filters are UNDER $5??? What do you guys think of it...

http://ift.tt/1TQr65f

I mean it flat out seems too good to be true, 10 replacement filters for under $50! Am I missing something? 2 replacement Black Berkey filters at Amazon are $107!! Maybe the reason is that Berkey filters tower over the EZ filters...well if that's the case than I like the EZ filter over the Berkey filter even more because it seems like the Berkey filter is so tall that the bottom of it will reach the end of it's life span before the top is even half way done.

So other than those questions do you guys think my set up has good coverage for safe drinking water? Thanks!!

By the way, at home, with the fuoride and all, my set up will be a totally different animal (Durastill with carbon post filter). But these are just river/lake emergency/camping questions. Thanks.

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Questions for my 'Worst case scenario 'water filter