Buy a SteriPEN Portable UV Water Purifier

Customer Reviews

• I would reccomend this product

  Review by By Free healer from South Lake Tahoe, CA on 5/17/12

  Product Rating	80%

  To Whom It May Concern,
  This product is a well conceived device that should be standard equipment in everyone's emergency kit.

• Excellent Investment

  Review by Self Sustainable Farm Gal, from Pierce County, WA on 5/17/12

  Product Rating	100%

  The Sidewinder works exactly as promised. It is lightweight & easy to pack along on any type of adventure, though I bought it for another reason.
  
  This hand-cranking water purifier is an ideal survival tool as it could be used at home or taken with you if necessary. Clean, drinkable water may not always be available in the future--this product opens up my family's options to nearby rivers, lakes, streams/creeks, water retention ponds and even ditch water.
  
  I think it is a great investment for our future.

• This should be the ticket!

  Review by Bob Champoux from Christchurch, NZ on 5/12/12

  Product Rating	100%

  While SteriPEN advertising shows people using this while camping. I bought it specifically as part of our emergency earthquake kit. Here in Christchurch, New Zealand, we've had our share of earthquakes lately. After the last earthquake when we had to "boil" all of our water, I had tried to use our SteriPEN Journey but the battery life was very poor and down here, the replacement batteries are very costly! So, that was deemed a failure. Even in the US, I'd be concerned about battery life and having fresh batteries on hand all the time.
  
  So, after some research, I opted for this unit. It is well built and well designed. The gears are plastic but are inside of a plastic housing which should protect them from dirt. There is not a lot of resistance or torque so, there is no concern of them stripping.
  
  Like other SteriPEN products, they include well thought out accessories such as the filter to keep particles out of the water. I have also been in contact with the company on a couple of occasions and their customer service is superb!
  
  One thing to make you aware of is how fast you have to crank to keep the UV lamp lit. You have to crank at 2 or more revolutions per second. If you go to their website, you can click on the video to get a feel for how fast this is. While it isn't super fast, be aware that there is some resistance to it that can give you a bit of a work out. You have to maintain this for 90 seconds which may not seem that long until you start doing it. I don't think that elderly folks would be able to keep the pace up. The good news is that you can spin, take a short break and start back up again. You can also spin the handle in either direction so if you are left-handed, you're good to go. You'll want to have the unit near the edge of the table/counter since it's easy to rap your fingers when the handle comes down and around.
  
  Overall, I'm real happy with the unit and the company. And, while none of us really plan for big events, the recent earthquakes had made me wish I had planned better beforehand!! Considering we and the house was fine after the earthquakes, I can't tell you how set back we were when we don't have potable water from the tap! Seriously, if you live in Southern California, you really should have one of these stuffed away somewhere. It's cheap insurance that will provide you with a necessity in the event of a disaster.

• Great gadget for emergency use

  Review by By Ben Crowell from Fullerton, CA USA on 5/12/12

  Product Rating	80%

  This would definitely make my list of the five coolest gadgets I own. I live in California, where earthquake preparedness is a big deal. This gizmo is perfect for making sure that my family has safe drinking water in an emergency. Since it works using a hand crank, it doesn't matter of the power is out, and I don't have to worry about periodically checking and replacing its batteries.
  
  DjPhibes's review seems off base to me. Steripen has other products (the little pen-sized ones that the company gets its name from) that are meant for backpacking use. So, yes, the bulk and weight of this model are utterly inappropriate for backpacking -- that's not its intended application. I didn't find the cranking to be particularly physically onerous, and I'm a pretty small, wimpy guy. It's true that it's loud, but I don't really think that would be my main concern in an emergency situation.
  
  They advertise it for "camping and emergency use," but I don't think I would want to use this for car camping. It would be more convenient to use the battery-operated pen-sized models for that.
  
  For third-world travel, I can only see this being useful if you're going to spend months at a time in an extremely remote area where batteries are hard to get.

• I don t recommend this product

  Review by Drakulander from Miercurea Ciuc, RO on 5/3/12

  Product Rating	20%

  We were at the Annapurna Circuit, and after 3 days the device did not work. We carried more 3 weeks without using that hoping we can obtain after we arrive home an ideea about reparing or something through warranty procedure. That is a typical [*] mist.