Hi! I am thinking about stocking some food and water just in case the situation might get worse or there might be an inflation but I have a lot of questions. Hope you guys can help me out. I went to the supermarket today and checked out how long most bottled waters stay fresh and most of them only stay fresh like 6 months. What happens after they are expired? Is the water no longer useable? Do you get bacteria in it? And could this be reversed somehow through any of those tablets which clean the water? There are various of them which you get at outdoor shops. Do those tablet clean any water even rain water which you collect? You just throw in a tablet and then you can drink it without concern? But what kind of tabs do you need? There are different products and I don't know what I should look for.
Just boil it, it can't go *that* bad if it's trapped in air tight bottles. The worse thing is it will get some weird growth which can be boiled away. Boiling is your friend
Absolutely you should have some water stored. Even a small amount is better than nothing esp if you live in an urban setting without a well.
Tap water in most places is over treated and will store up to a year in air tight plastic jugs. You can always take tap water, put a couple of drops of chlorine bleach in them, and they will stay good MUCH longer, up to five years in plastic, and longer it a rigid container. Without question the best way to store water in your home is to simply install barrels that are pressure rated for your towns line pressure, 'Chain' them together, so water comes from the city street, into one side of the barrel, and out the other, into the next barrel, out the other side, then into the house. Once the barrels are full, the use of water in the home will keep the water 'Rotated', you always have fresh water in the barrels. BTW, Most food grade plastic drums are rated for upwards of 150 PSI so they work just fine.
When I was 18 I took an Outward Bounds course in the mountains of Colorado. We used iodine in liquid form (thats probably the active ingredient in the tabs you are talking about. It takes awhile to get used to the tasted of iodized wated, but it drinks just fine. We always got our water from moving sources of water, I don't know how it would clean up stagnant water. Get a jug of bleach and a camp stove for boiling your water....$40 and you'll be covered...unless you want top of the line camp stoves. If you are OK with a larger coleman model to keep at home you'll be fine. Just my 2 cents. I bought a water purifier pump, PUR, and it claims to make the most undrinkable water drinkable. I haven't used it yet so I can't recommend it, but I like the idea.
If you are going to spend the money, build a solar still. Cost is legible to build, operation costs are ZERO as long as the sun shines, and the water is clean enough for human consumption for everyone including pregnant women, sick people, children and the very old. 'Survival' water purification tablets are just that, for SURVIVAL SITUATIONS ONLY! Long term intake of Iodine or other purification chemicals is a really BAD idea. Boiling is OK, but it's energy and time consuming, and boiling also concentrates any heavy metals, minerals or chemicals that don't boil off under 212°F. ------------------ Moving water sources usually precludes insect larva and greatly reduces your chances of scooping up parasites and cysts, but bacteria, viruses, ect. will still be present... That's why they wanted you to use the Iodine tablets. The water pumps mostly use a pre-filter then a membrane type filter and they are about 90% effective. It should be a very good unit for camping and such if you get your water from a moving stream that is well aerated.
Storing water for long periods of time is not good, the main reason for the time limit or shelf life is because the containers begin to dissolve, and leach chemicals from the plastic into the water, not good. I live in the northwest, so we always have water, rain or river water is abundant. The best way to store is to purchase good , quality plastic containers that are food grade, they use a special plastic that won't break down over time and will not leach into the liquid inside of them. Next I personally suggest that you buy a Berkey water filtration system.They use a ceramic filtration system and it is excellent. They have been in use for over 100 years worldwide. They are usually stainless, but I use the new Berkey Light, which is a plastic one. You can find them on line for about $200, the one I have came with three water bottles with the ceramic filters in them, you can drink out of any stream or standing water, with no danger, amazing product. Go baby
If you are using the re-fillable large water bottles that sit on a water dispenser, you would be fine "stock-piling" the full bottles as long as you continuously rotate your stock in water. It would be fairly easy to keep track of your water (and usage) by using mechanic-style paper key-tags and label each bottle with the date that it was filled, calculate 6 months and set that as a "best before" date. When you finish off the oldest bottle, it becomes the newest bottle upon refill (FIFO = First In, First Out). Rule of thumb is 8-cups of water per 200lb person. A lighter person of 100lbs will require a little less water per day. A young child will require as little 4 cups of water per day. You will need to figure out how many bottles you can possibly store for drinking water per person / per day in your household, and then calculate out the minimum water usage required for survival for X amount of time. A small table top or floor-standing water dispenser is fairly in-expensive from places like Walmart.
I have a few water jugs frozen in the freezer. They are useful for when the power goes out for several hours and you need to help keep the freezer cool. Additionally if the power went out completely and for a long time, the water is then safe to drink. All winter long we keep a couple 7 gallon water containers stored for those times when the power goes out. Etc. It always makes sense to me to store water. Also if you have a regular flushing toilet, it never hurts to have even some non=potable water around to be able to flush the toilet. that is why we always keep one horse water tank full out side of the horse pens so that we have extra water to haul to the dogs, chickens or back to the house for the toilets.
