Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

I'm interested in everyone's ideas about obtaining, storing, and purification of water.

As I live in a city, I've been looking for plastic containers to store reasonable amounts of good water. A couple of places here have 5 gallon plastic containers for $5 each, and lids for $2 each. Granted this is better than having no water at all but isn't this price a bit high?

The link below sells ten 5 gallon containers, with caps, for $33.25, less than 1/2 the price of the ones at the store. Also they have a nice article about the storage and purification of water.

http://www.2kstore.com/water/ws7.htm

A friend of mine, who has a Native American heritage as I do, says the indians used bags of sand for their water purification. This is an interesting idea and I wonder how well it would work with treated or untreated water.

As to obtaining water, I am dependent on city water here, that I run through a reverse osmosis system before drinking and using in the garden. There is a river a mile from here that is usually dry, and a dam with a reservoir 12 miles away that is fenced off and used by the cattle barons for their cows.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

In the city you want this

http://www.waterbob.com/

and for filtering get a Big Berkey

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

some 5 gallon jugs with emergency water in them are fine but if you are at all
serious about survival post shtf you need to develop large amounts of your own water if that means large rainwater tanks or well or moving to a more suitable location you should consider it close to your top priority.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

+1 on the Berkey. It was the first survival item I purchased. Hard to live very long without water.

http://www.berkeywater.com/

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

rainwater tanks

How do you keep the water fresh in these?

I have a 60 x 15 x 5 foot pool and a 4 filter berkey type thing. + that is hooked up to a solar panel for heat. That is serious storage. I cannot imagine keeping this clean without chlorine or salt and power for the shark sucker. I was considering a natural pond conversion to turn it into a living ecosystem. That will still require power, but maybe solar would work for the pumps. Not sure.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

How about storing the water in anything, and then distilling as you need it?

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Great comments, keep them coming.

Adding this link about the different kinds of plastic for storage.
http://www.ci.visalia.ca.us/solid_wa...ing-labels.htm

The 5 gallon hdpe containers at the stores were dyed, which is a no no for water.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Berkeys are good. AquaRain is just as good and American made. Use Google for the best price. I got on all the mailing lists and waited. Emergency Essentials had a clearance on their AquaRain 200 for $87.50. It was worth the wait.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

During a hurricane or tropical storm, water main breaks and storm surges can interrupt or even contaminate your water supply. It is during these conditions the waterBOB� may be used for temporary water storage. Constructed of heavy duty plastic that is FDA compliant for food storage, the waterBOB� keeps water fresh and clean for up to 2 weeks.

:smokin: Nah

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

when using rain water tanks you must do everything you can to keep the water clean going into the tank while rain water starts out pure it picks up pollutants on the way down as well as dust leaves bugs and other assorted
pollutants from the roof by not allowing the first few minutes of rain to enter
your main drinking tank you can eleminate most of these and get some good
pure water that will keep a very long time.

all the places i have lived that relied on rainwater had 2 tanks 1 rainwater for drinking and cooking and another for other houshold water uses.the kitchen sinks had 3 faucets.and when heavy rains were happening old rainwater was often dumped into secondary tank kind of like rotating your preps to make room for the new fresh rain.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

If you are in the city and there is no water for 2 weeks......

:smokin:

GTFO

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

I wouldn't trust my drinking water to any plastic storage container. I'd either go for the old 5 gallon glass bottles that bottled water used to be shipped in(still available in many antique stores) or stainless steel. I found a beer keg in the woods awhile ago, 15.5 gallons of stainless steel water storage. I found a few more at a local recycler. There is also a company that makes stainless 55 gallon drums.

www.drumsofsteel.com

I found a drum recycler locally who sells 55 gallon drums refinished with a food grade lining for between $20 and $25 depending on what type of drum. That wouldn't be a bad way to go on a budget. If you have to use plastic I would rotate the water frequently, once every few months. You might not be able to taste it, but there's stuff leaching into the water. Then again people have different levels of sensitivity to this kind of thing, I also spend the extra bucks to eat organic. Heck, I bought a farm because I don't like having to trust other people in the food chain to grow and handle my food.

Sand worked better before toxic chemicals were pervasive in our environment. These days I would trust charcoal more than sand. Distillation is probably best. As far as rainwater goes don't catch the few 20 minutes or so of a heavy rain to help clear the air and wash the roof. After that, well, there is nothing in rainwater you aren't breathing already.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

I bought a couple of water barrels from US Plastics a few years ago when they were much cheaper. I chose the 30 gal size and am glad I did. I can move them around without to much trouble.

I also bought 7 or 8, five and seven gal size water cans from Walmart.

Plus I've got a huge pond about 100 yards down the road. Unlimited flushes there....

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Has anyone used the infomercial appliance the "AquaVie"?

For $40 it distills water.

I am considering it, but have not seen any user reviews.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

How would you fill up the bathtub when the water is off?

Stainless steel is nickel cadmium, leaches into food and may not be any better or as good as plastic, depending on the type. Glass is great, again depending on the type of glass. Some have metals in them.

What department and material?

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Don't know how much soft drinks you drink, but I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I was also looking for ways of storing water.

For about a year I used the empty 2 liter bottles from my DC. I would just rotate them out every 3 months. Great size if you need to move them or bug out.

I've bought some of the blue plastic water barrels since, and now I line the bottom of my deep freeze with some of the frozen DC bottles.

If you have nothing, use 2 liter bottles. Then go bigger when you can.

SilverJeep

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Here is a standard analysis for 304 stainless, also called 18/8. Your forks and spoons are made out of this, as are the drums from the site I linked.

Here is the analysis for 316, which I like a little more than 304 when I can get it.

Basically your essential vitamins and minerals. The main thing to bear in mind though is both 304 and 316 stainless are much more resistant to breaking down and leaching than any plastic. Again, if you rotate the water you have stored in the plastic every few months it's probably perfectly safe and it's certainly cheaper.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Candle type drip filters (katadyn expedition, berkey etc) are great for in-home or an extended camp setting.

But, where you gonna get the water from to feed your filter?
Just about anywhere. But, using dirty/contaminated/raw water will cause your candles to need frequent cleaning and then they don't last as long.

Probably the best resource, unless you have a swimming pool or cistern, will be rain runoff from your roof. If you have a metal roof, you're way ahead of the game because asphalt shingles will bring sand an petroleum oils down into your water collector. You can deal with that, you'll just have to pre-filter your water.

Pre-filtering can be pretty primitive; you're simply removing all contaminants possible with a couple of screenings. Maybe step 1 is to use a fine mesh screen to remove debris. Step 2 could be cotton towelling. If you have asphalt roof run-off, maybe you want to use a lot of cheap towelling or rags, anything that will absorb the oils. Clean sand will also filter and clean water, the key with any pre-filter is to have a reservoir, like a 5 gal paint bucket that will sit on top of your filtration elements.

In practical terms, maybe you gather water from the valleys of your hip roofed house in several 35 gallon HD plastic garbage cans. If you only have a used garbage can, a contractor trash bag will make a liner. You're gonna use what you have, but nice to have clean ones. Maybe store up several gallons of straight hypochlorite bleach to wipe out the can with.

Anyway, before you put your "found" water through your filter, you want it clean as possible. Good idea to dose it with a bit of chlorine to keep bacteria out of your filter elements.

Be sure not to let your filter candles freeze, they are ceramic and will crack and degrade.


If you live in an area with a high water table, you might be able to drill a well, if you have a SANDPOINT and some steel pipe. These do work in sandy soils, and if you attach a PITCHER PUMP or even a 12v RV pump, you will have an already clean source of water. Might take a day to drill a well this way. Used to be some firm sold a waterjet drill that was pretty affordable. If you own one of these, you could barter with your neighbors to drill them a well.

Pretty easy to collect water off your roof, though. Seems like an assortment of buckets and collection bins will be about all you need. Would be great to have a big CRAB BOILING POT or SS kettle to boil 5 gals of water on an open fire. Nice to have a welded steel grate for outdoor cooking, or maybe a tripod with chain and S hook for suspending a pot over a fire.

If you have an old pressure cooker, you can make it into a distiller. Just remove the valve and gasket in the lid top and rig some copper tubing wound a few times to capture the steam. Maybe you use a inverted funnel to capture the steam, rubber tubing to connect to your copper line.

Pretty nice to have an MSR backpacking type pump filter. I like MSR because spare parts are readily available and they screw to nalgen bottle and camelback bag threads. You want to pre-filter your portable filter also, maybe use a cook pot to allow raw water to settle and keep your inlet out of any muck or debris. Waterworks and miniworks are what I have experience with.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

I'm not gonna use my newly bought nalgene bottle anymore. At least not for drinking.

Just the name sounds like some kind of toxin. :thumpdown


I'll go with "sigg" aluminium bottles. Aluminium should be safe, at least it's not derived from any petrochemicals.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Actually I'd recommend the Klean Kanteen line of bottles.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out. But aluminium should also be safe for drinking.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Aluminum is very toxic.

Don't put any tomatoes in it. :wink:

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Sources? Does it leach into the water? Why not tomatoes?
:shocked_ma:

Everything is toxic if you get too much of it into your body.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

never use aluminium for water storage except for very short periods of time

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Your Sigg bottles shouldn't be a problem but my concern was always with the integrity of the lining. If there is a problem with the lining then things may get interesting. With all of the negative research about aluminum and problems like Alzheimers I'd rather eliminate that risk. Glass is my favorite however not very practical for anything other than at the dinner table.

One other benefit I forgot to mention is if stuck in a situation where you just have your KK you can use it to cook with.

dyodd

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Ditto. the berkey is Great!
</slv>

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

55 gallons is 220 quarts, or about enough for two people for three months. After thinking about it I realized this should be enough capacity to provide drinking water for two even in my recently droughtstricken area. It'd cost probably $700 to get the whole stainless steel rainbarrel system set up, which really isn't bad for a permanent independent water system. I wouldn't mind using a polyethylene tank for non-potable water as much. I think I'll be replacing my 15 gallon water storage kegs with a 55 gallon renewable rainbarrel system. I'll keep the kegs for backup, but depletable resources are nothing I want to have to rely on.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Can anyone recommend (preferably local) sources for 1 gallon or larger glass jugs or bottles?

I'm using hdpe plastic, but would like to move to glass containers, though hdpe does have the advantage of being opaque.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

^
The health food stores sometimes carry apple juice or other types of juices in 1 gallon glass jugs. Might run you $4/gallon or something.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

This might be useful: http://goldismoney.info/forums/showt...=bottled+water

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

My dad buys really bad wine in 1 gallon glass jugs. I will bet that the glass jug is worth more than the wine. I think it's called Livingston, if I remember correctly.

Now that I think about it, I should ask him to keep his empties for me.

Re: Water - obtaining, storing, and purification
 

Thanks for the suggestions.

I found these one gallon glass jugs online, $3.20 each for 4 in a case plus shipping, a little pricey overall.
http://www.specialtybottle.com/index...ROD&ProdID=238