All About Water

DRINKING WATER STORAGE AND PURIFICATION

Next to oxygen, water is your body’s best friend. Too much of it and you may find yourself and your home in the Pacific Ocean, not enough and every room becomes the Sahara Desert. Our fellow humans can make it about three days without water but you are unlikely to remember much about the third. It is most abundant when you don’t need it and often desperately unavailable when you and everyone else you know, or don’t know, does. Solution? The tiniest bit of mental forethought and preparation.

What follows is a gathering of the various types of filters and storage mediums that you can tailor to your foreseeable circumstances. Everything from sheltering at home to hiking through the land of the walking dead, which based on television and film, is our inevitable outcome. 😕

WATER STORAGE

Bottled Water– Be sure to pick a brand you like, they do NOT all taste the same. Bottled water allows for a serving size distribution, markable for reuse, refillable, and better for sharing or barter. It easily goes into a backpack or any size container and can easily be thrown into a vehicle. Store these out of the sun and heat if possible, plastic is made of something and it will ultimately break down.

One Gallon Bottles – or – One gallon Jugs (usually distilled) are a good means of storing water in a larger, readily usable quantity on your pantry shelf. The distilled water is good to have on hand for some medical devices.

Five Gallon Bottle; Six Gallon Igloo; Seven Gallon Reliance Larger containers are useful for in home bulk storage. The six and seven gallon containers are car pack friendly. The five gallon bottles store well and are transportable but are bulky and awkward. Those purchased from water and ice wear like iron. If you already have a water and ice dispenser, or similar, then these are twofers. The seven gallon jug shown here has a spigot as well which would be very convenient. Remember, water is heavy and each gallon weighs 8.3pds and the seven gallon will take a man and a small boy to lift.

A mix of the foregoing, tailored to your needs and space, is a practical approach.

55 Gallon Closed Top Food Grade Blue Barrel These barrels provide greater storage capacity and are of a shape and size that allows placement on the side of a home, basement or garage interior. When empty they are highly transportable. Water can be stored long term with modest maintenance or periodically recycled.

IBC Food Grade Tote, Totes like this one typically hold 275 gallons, the rough equivalent of six 50 gallon blue barrels, providing 55 days of water for 5 people. It is efficient if you have a place for it. You can fill from the top and dispense from the bottom. When water is recycled by watering plants it can be easily refilled. Be sure to purchase a food grade tote, be wary of second hand totes of dubious origin.

Tanknbarrel.com Tank and Barrel is a desert Southwest company. Research should lead you to a similar local supplier

Backyard Pool? Pool water can make you sick. It might be drinkable after it is treated properly but I haven’t found an expert yet who has confirmed that. Something about stabilizers not boiling off… Remember, power is likely to be out by the time you have fallen back on pool water as a drinking source. Now, consider your pool the last time you didn’t run the pump for five days. I will be storing the recommended amount of water and using the pool to wash bodies, clothes and flush toilets. (LifeStraw reportedly recommends against using their product to drink from the pool as well)

One more reason not to drink pool water. 🙂

WATER FILTERS & PURIFICATION

Boiling Water Is an immediate means of making water safe for drinking, from waterborne bacteria including Giardia and Cryptosporidium. It does not eliminate chemicals, heavy metals or dissolved solids. So, basically, start with the best water available and stay away from water at the end of a farmer’s field or a miner’s tailings pile.

Distilling water may be necessary for some health concerns and medical equipment. Distilled water is readily available for purchase and storage at most grocery stores. If your need is ongoing then a water distiller may be needed. Here are a few listings for reference. DC House Water, H2O Labs, Remember electricity may also be out in which case you will need backup power of some type. See the All About Power tab, when it comes online, for alternative power

Katadyn Purification Tabs, , This tab is placed in water to be purified. Giardia and other bacteria are reportedly neutralized after 30 minutes’ wait time and Crytosporidium after 4 hours.

Portable Aqua purification Tabs are effective against Giardia but make no claim that I could find against Cryptosporidium. Use of these tabs in association with the Life Straw would be a good combination as the LIFE Straw screens down to .2 microns and the Cryptosporidium is 4 microns. Aqua makes an iodine taste neutralizer tab that is packaged almost identically to the purification tab. I will only purchase the purification tab to avoid confusion, otherwise I am likely to mistakenly drink good tasting bacteria.

Life Straw A very portable 10”x1.2” straw that filters lake, stream, and puddle water down to .2microns. Inexpensive and probably the single best tool to include in any emergency kit. It also claims to filter out 99.999% of bacteria, parasites, microplastics, dirt, sand, cloudiness and will filter up to 1000 gallons. A case for the LifeStraw is recommended as a dent or jarring may limit the effectiveness of the in-straw filter. Filter Straw Comparisons Do NOT use with pool water.

LifeStraw 22 fl. Oz. Go Series Water Filter Bottle Allows you to fill a bottle with water then drink purified water through the internal LifeStraw.

Sawyer Products Very similar to life straw, filters down to .1 micron. Can be attached to and used with a bottle of water. Filter Straw Comparisons Do NOT use with pool water.

MiniWorks EX Water Filter This mechanical backpacking filter is typical. I have found this one to work well in the field. This one is the smaller, less expensive and just as effective for the money as its big brother. Here is the Amazon link for a like model comparison.

RAINWATER HARVESTING

Poly-Mart 125 Gallon Storage Tank, Tanks like these come with the option of placing a screen over the top inlet, providing a bottom outlet and allowing for rainwater to passively accumulate in the tank. Installation involves placing this immediately below a shortened downspout and filling when it rains. A 1000 sq. ft. roof, accumulating a ½” rain, would yield approximately 300 gallons of water. The additional water is routed out an overflow once the tank is full.

These are pricy but AI (applied imagination) will yield a less expensive approach. More to follow. In the meantime, here is a link to Tanknbarrel. Remember, this website is not monetized.