cheapo water storage
 

Until I can scrape together funds for a better h2o storage solution, I'd like to save old spaghetti jars, milk jugs, etc. and fill them with water to keep in the basement.

Would it work okay to just fill them, put the lid back on and keep them out of the light? Or would I need to do anything more to the water to prepare it for storage? How long could I expect water to keep well under such conditions?

Re: cheapo water storage
 

I keep a couple 6 gallon jugs around from the old "hauling water from town days"
Mostly I store my water in the ground now, just pump out what i need at the moment.

Re: cheapo water storage
 

Storing your own water is is an excellent idea. Think Katrina.

You need to use the right type of containers (clear plastic soda, Gatorade, or juice bottles are good; milk jugs are bad), and you need to add a small amount of unscented household bleach (sodium hypochlorite), roughly 16 droplets per gallon of water.

First, clean the containers with soapy water; once clean, rinse the container with a 50% solution of bleach. You can re-use the bleach solution to rinse multiple containers. Then, fill the container half full with drinking-quality tap water. Add the droplets of bleach (get a cheap medicine dropper from your drug store), then fill container to top. Shake it up a bit, close the bottle and label it with the date, then store in a cool, dry place. The water will be good for at least six months. Accumulate your water in stages, so that you can swap a portion of it out periodically as it exceeds 6 months, rather than having to replace it all at once.

Here is an excellent site that provides more details:

http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/ext...atersuppl.html

Re: cheapo water storage
 

one of the best containers to store drinking water in is old clorox bottles,

with a little thought im sure you can understand why