Realcent.org

I have a hot water heater always full of water. 60 gallons I think. That will get us by.

Uhm, none.

I live in a one bed flat (apartment) in London - not ideal for survivalist prep.

In fact - I worry about what to do next (i.e. in what order). Storing food, water and supplies, or stocking up on PMs?

I only have so much spare cash every month...

You don't need a gallon per day. I wonder why people always use this estimate. I weigh 185 and I have to pee a lot if I drink even a half gallon a day.

HelloMeteor wrote:You don't need a gallon per day. I wonder why people always use this estimate. I weigh 185 and I have to pee a lot if I drink even a half gallon a day.

Well they figure for cooking, and washing to. but if your fending for yourself, much washing can be bypassed until it rains perhaps, or wetting a rag and wiping down...... And water from cooking can be used to drink as well.(with added nutrients from whatever you cooked) so half a gallon or less is workable.

in other forums if have seen the naivette of even the most gun-ho survivalist. i've seen some people mention when tshtf they plan to store water in garbage liners. they also plan to save water in clorox bleach containers. ok. double NOES. it's one thing to pour bleach into a peta safe bottle such as a soda bottle. it's another thing to use a bleach bottle that is leaching bleach all over! the garbage liner has pesticides in it to keep the insects away. not something i want to be drinking and taking in. think ahead folks to what you plan to use to store your water!

The clorox bottle was an old hobo's trick.
They knew a couple of drops of bleach left over in the bottom of the container would sanitize river or lake water,
making it safe to drink.
smell the water that's coming out of your own tap.
bleachy , isnt it??

My city's tap water is actually great tasting. We win awards for it all the time. I just got back from Vegas last week and I couldn't drink their water. Smelled and tasted like a swimming pool. Same goes for the water in Florida as well if it's not filtered.

Deal

I've been getting a motherlode of food-grade 1- to 5-gallon buckets from a local bakery recently. It just occurred to me that these would be useful for water storage as well. Half of my garage is basically empty, so that would be the perfect place to store water buckets.

Great having water stored both in the car and at work. dh and i have been using the one in the car for different reasons. one of the gallons i have stored at work had to be opened recently and used as the company that servies our watercooler did not show up for over two weeks. in the mean time we had no water!, at ANY OF OUR SITES! so i opened up one of the one gallon screw cap bottles so the people in my office could drink from it.

I now have 24 two litre bottles of water stored. Not a lot, but I just don't have much room tbh. better than nothing, plus aI have all the liquid in my canned food supply and a bunch of retort packaged fruit juice.

It Rains here and if we had a ongoing problem then I would have to step up to the plate. However we also have droughts. I have the large 6 gal container labled water containers and keep several at home and at work. Some 1 gal container and other smaller carry bottles as well. I bought one 24 pack of small bottles earlier as well. I have empty mason bottles and have thought to fill them up and place on shelf as backup can goods water , for tea etc.. I always carry water for working out etc.. BTW it was mentioned about the stream drinking , giaridia, chlorox as hobo cleanser, and concern of water in contanimated container. So I thought I add that water that comes from possible containamated source should be treated. Please do not use iodine unless that is all you have. It is better to use 3-4 drops of chlorox 5.25 percent per quart and wait one hour it will kill just about anything and is the aprox ratio that the cities use. This taste better as iodine makes me sick. We also have good drinking water here. However if the electricity is out then that would change things. Raw sewage does not interest me.
I'm posting for the first time and this site seems to have atreasure trove of cu, ni, other information and look forward in delving into these topics and learning from those here.
BTW is there a spell checker on this post a reply page?

Ok found this in saved searches . I'm figuring out how to navigate this very deep well here on REalcent.org

I have about 1.5 cases of store-bought bottled water in addition to almost 40 two litre plastic bottles in a very cool and dark place. My question is how long will it be before the two litre "pop" bottles need treated or replaced? How much bleach should I put in the two litre bottles if I to purify them? I was thinking a pop bottle cap full would be enough.

Thanks

Treetop wrote:Theres a water distiller you can buy out of canada, that uses ANY heat source even a fire. I have one it works well. Word of advice though, waterwise out of U.S. has one to, waterwise 4000 I think.... DO NOT buy that one. It is junk. The other one is much much better designed. Ive used it for 3 years, for all our drinking water. the waterwise broke 3 times. they do have a lifetime replacement, and did repeatedly send me the part that is the weak link in their system, but why bother? They are about the same price.

What's the name of the one from Canada?

Plus One on a distiller. Guys, gals, don't forget microbular micro ahh is that a (sic) werd them damn bugs in your water ain't all you have to worry about. Heavy metals, street gunk (motor oil and God knows what all) farm/garden fertilizer, pesticide etc. A filter is needed to do the job safely, or the aforementioned distiller if your using pond , creek or lake water.

Okay, now I have two 50 gal. water barrels for drinking, and three 30 gallon barrels for washing and sanitation. Total 190 gallons. Plus, I have a backpacker's water filter and two bottles of iodine tabs. Also have about 8 gallons of Clorox to disinfect with.

If I see TSHTF coming, I also can dig a large trench in the back yard, drop in some pond liner I found, and fill it up with city water before it stops. Then cover it with plywood to keep crud out. There is a large pond within 100 yds from my front door, but it will be my last resort as it is really full of pond scum and pollutants.

rickygee wrote:Plus One on a distiller. Guys, gals, don't forget microbular micro ahh is that a (sic) werd them damn bugs in your water ain't all you have to worry about. Heavy metals, street gunk (motor oil and God knows what all) farm/garden fertilizer, pesticide etc. A filter is needed to do the job safely, or the aforementioned distiller if your using pond , creek or lake water.

Thanks Rickygee. You just provided that final little mind jog that will allow myself to go buy a copper moonshine still I have wanted for some time now. Now I can justify it to the wife that we need it for water purification (not, ahem!, moonshine ). Who knows? Maybe I can now write it off on the taxes!

http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/id42.html

I have a well and a generator, and if that fails its a 2 minute hike to a creek.

would above ground pools with a cover on it work for cheap water storage?
i was at the store and just happened to walk by them and the idea hit me then and there.
for about $40 bux, the smallest one they had holds around 650 gallons... and the top end one for nearly $350 holds almost 7000 gallons.

after looking on the net, it looks like they are made by intex...
http://www.intexcorp.com/agp.html

does not say food grade.. why would it? but would this be a safe route to go? plenty of room in the backyard for a few of the largest ones.

would just need to figure out how to secure these suckers from 2 legged varmints.

involuntary tentacle wrote:would above ground pools with a cover on it work for cheap water storage?
i was at the store and just happened to walk by them and the idea hit me then and there.
for about $40 bux, the smallest one they had holds around 650 gallons... and the top end one for nearly $350 holds almost 7000 gallons.

after looking on the net, it looks like they are made by intex...
http://www.intexcorp.com/agp.html

does not say food grade.. why would it? but would this be a safe route to go? plenty of room in the backyard for a few of the largest ones.

would just need to figure out how to secure these suckers from 2 legged varmints.

How hard are above-ground pools to set up? I'd like an in-ground pool as a dedicated storage area for water, but I don't know of any other houses in my neighborhood that have a pool, and I really don't swim much, so I wonder how strange it would look to go through the trouble of putting in a pool but never using it. Any thoughts?

based on the size of the boxes i saw, i would say they collapse pretty well
guess you just have to have level ground to put it on and fill with water.


would you feel better having an in-ground pool that you never swim in?
your cash outlay would be much greater for something that may well be the same thing in the end.
maybe dig a trench for it to sit in? might be less obvious to people peeping over your walls than a giant tub of water just sitting there.
you could probably cover it up real good too.


i just want to know if anyone thinks its a good idea from a safety standpoint... safe as in does anyone think the material this stuff is made of will leach chemicals into the water over time?

involuntary tentacle wrote:
i just want to know if anyone thinks its a good idea from a safety standpoint... safe as in does anyone think the material this stuff is made of will leach chemicals into the water over time?

Probably not as you have to remember that people are often prone to swallowing water during swimming so surely they take that into account.

Also, couldn't any chemicals be treated out of the water somehow (distallation or otherwise)?

In any case, having a big-ass pool of potentially chemically water is bound to kill you a damn site less quickly than having no water to drink at all...

I bought another four cases (six 1-gallon bottles each) of water yesterday at Sam's Club. I've got about two months worth of water for two people now. Now I need to start working on where to put a tank to harvest rainwater.

Nickelless wrote:I bought another four cases (six 1-gallon bottles each) of water yesterday at Sam's Club. I've got about two months worth of water for two people now. Now I need to start working on where to put a tank to harvest rainwater.

I'm at about 6 weeks worth. I'm going to stop there for the moment until I get more storage built, as I have other things I need to stock. We're on a well, and I have a small backup generator (gas) for pump power (as well as a large propane generator on the way), and have several large 6 gallon water containers for filling as needed.

I've only started stacking water, up to about 20 gallons.
Every time I go to the store I bring home a few gallons now.

I picked up some 3 ltr bottles of arrowhead water for $0.49 each.