Water Storage Question: How long?
 

How do I store water and how long?
The is what I have gleaned from my research.
Do not add bleach.
Refill/replenish every six months.

I don’t understand.
Why refill every six months?
Who decided this?
What happens if the water is left sitting for longer?
I suspect that water can be store for much much longer than 6 months if properly stored.
Perhaps indefinitely.

Be well.

Re: Water Storage Question: How long?
 

I've always read that you need to add a small amount of bleach or chlorine for it to keep relatively clean for 6 months to a year.

I suppose what you do will depend on how much you want to store and for how long.

IMHO, a small amount of bottled water and a filter is the way to go. Also consider containers to store water in. Plastic barrel or maybe a bladder to lay in bathtub etc. Most people cannot store sufficient amounts of water to last for very long.

Re: Water Storage Question: How long?
 

You may be right, and your situation may be different. But here, where I live water is less than a penny a gallon. Why chance it?

Re: Water Storage Question: How long?
 

Water for long term storage(5 years plus) is boiled,sealed airtight, airless, in a sterile container.(found in aircraft survival kits)Bleach 5.25%,chlorine,is a disinfectant, and kills germs but loses strength after 1 year,turning into neutral salts.Want long term storage? Boil water and put into a sterile stainless airless tank.Keep chlorine tablets(3 inch-pool supply house)on hand to use upon opening, apply tablets, filter through activated charcoal-drink.
Remember-we are drinking the same water Noah did.It did not leave Earth.

Re: Water Storage Question: How long?
 

I got this from the internet:

If you are storing in opaque airtight containers, bacteria-free tap water can be kept indefinitely. They key question: is it bacteria-free? To be truly safe, treat with chlorine, iodine or stabilized oxygen. Store in a dark area and check your water for taste every 6 months. Water stored under these conditions need not be replaced for several years. If your storage container is light permeable, plan to change the contents every 6 months

Be well.

Re: Water Storage Question: How long?
 

If you freeze it and hide it in polar craters on the moon, it will keep for hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of years.

On the other hand, if you store it in a jug at your house, it will tend to grow algae after a year or two. The algae may not kill you but it sure won't make you want to drink the water. If you have a good filter, then you could run the slimy water through that I guess,,,,, but then, if you had a filter and lived near any natural source of water, you wouldn't really need to store water at all anyway.

If you're storing water and on municipal water anyway it's easiest to just dump the stuff every 6-8 months, bleach out the container, and refill. I don't know about where exactly you are, but in the US, tap water costs much less than a penny per gallon.

If you could pasteurize it in the container, it could probably go a couple years okay. The hotter you get it, the better the process would work. Figure that 175F is the minimum temp to reach for 15 minutes, and good luck finding a container that's cheap and can withstand that.

(you need to pasteurize it in the storage container, you can't pasteurize it in one container and then pour it into another--it will get re-contaminated)




-end-

Re: Water Storage Question: How long?
 

how about just storing the water in plastic bottles and then smelling it & taste testing it when you open it ?

i suppose you could boil it if you're not sure but in a STHTF situation, you are likely to have to ration your energy sources (firewood, money for the electricity bill swollen by Cap & Trade, etc.)

so i would just drink a small amount if it passed the taste test. & wait 12 hours to see if i got sick. then drink some more :coolbeer: