Long Term water storage

[conklinjeremy]

So help me out..... I have tons of long term food, guns, ammo, and other supplies.... But I have very little water stored up.....

I see that most water has a shelf life of 1 year.... I have been looking online and there seems to be no clear answer.... I'm looking to simply buy cases of bottled water, I feel that 55 gal drums are to heavy to move or relocate....

If I am storing the cases of water bottles in a dark, cool place how long can I safely store, then use them....

Thanks as usual....

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[Burt Gummer]

If you are going to buy bottled water you had better plan on rotating stock and using your stores. A year flies by fast waiting on the collapse. Bottled water isn't the kind of thing you want to stow away and forget.

Perhaps a better strategy would be to use sealable food grade 5-gallon buckets, tap water, and an additive like Purodene. Not too heavy. It will store up to 5 years and except for the one-time bucket cost and additive, it is free.

The best strategy is both. Have some bottled water for short term combined with treated water for the long term. You need to store LOTS of water. At least a gallon a day for each person for the period of time that you want to cover.

For those that cannot afford food stores, or silver/gold, etc, storing WATER for FREE is the best alternative and will be a very valuable trade commodity in a SHTF scenario.

BTW, Costco will deliver bottled water to your doorstep (delivery free of charge).

 

[OFADAN]

Do a search. There was a semi recent long thread on rotating , storage, and options for treating water. There is a ton of good info in that thread.

This post seemed to have some good info for ya - http://www.northwestfirearms.com/pr...r-way-clean-blue-food-barrel-store-water.html

Disregard the thread title as it drifted at times on how to handle older expired water stores.

 

[optiontrigger]

Have you looked at Water Bricks? They're a bit expensive, but they stack up nicely to take up less space, and are easily portable. If you shop around, you can get them decently priced.

Water Containers | Water Storage | Stack, Grab, & Go | WaterBrick

 

[Burt Gummer]

You might consider these containers/filters for holding 100 gallons - Costco - H2O Reserve

 

[Gunner3456]

The average person will need more than one gallon per day. Eventually you do need to wash dishes, clothes, and yourself. You also need a lot of it for cooking anything dried or dry.

For those who don't have a ready supply of water such as a well or creek, I predict this is where many will fall short.

Powdered calcium hypochlorite when mixed in water makes bleach. Ten pounds will purify 16,000 gallons of water. I bought ten pounds at Wal mart on sale for $10. It's sold as pool shock in the swimming pool/hot tub supply section.

There are other pool shocks such as calcium hypochloride which won't work.

One heaping TEA spoon (tsp) of 78% powder makes 2 gallons of "Clorox." It's too strong for cleaning or drinking of course, but works for laundry. Dilute that mix 1 part with 9 parts of water for disinfecting buckets, counter tops, etc. If you find a weaker powder such as 52%, do a quick calculation and add more.

8 drops of the "Clorox" will purify 1 gallon of drinking water. Stir a little and let stand for at least 20 minutes before drinking. Clorox works too in the same dilution.

Liquid Clorox has a shelf life of 6 months to a year, but that powder will keep indefinitely in good dry darker conditions, and it's cheap.

 

[knuckle Head]

Here is what I found,

<broken link removed>

Water, Water, Everywhere: Long Term Water Storage - Off The Grid News

I live in a city and hate the taste of city and know that there is crap in there they do not get when filter it, so I buy distilled water gallon jugs from walmart and cases of Sams choice 24/20 ounce bottles, I take them to work every day, keep them in my truck, and at home. The gallon jusg I keep on one shelf in the basement, I take 4 into the kitchen at a time, one on the counter three on the floor, as I take them off the shelf on the left side, I slide the remaining jugs left and put the new ones on the right side.

I generally have 28 - 32 gallons on the shelf.

I do the same with cases of bottle water, one case open gets empty slide another one over put a new up.

While there are 4 cases on the shelf, I have 4 stacks of of 5 cases on the floor, it is hard to slide a stack of five so I use a stack, start on the next one, I got from right to left, a stack is used I buy five more case and put in its place, I know which is which because I use my own idiot proofing method a piece of carboard on it that says next is moved from one stack to the next as I use them.

I have the items mentioned above to treat my water, plus I have a Amazon.com: Katadyn TRK Drip Ceradyn Water Filter: Sports & Outdoors

 

[salmonriverjohn]

The average person will need more than one gallon per day. Eventually you do need to wash dishes, clothes, and yourself. You also need a lot of it for cooking anything dried or dry.

For those who don't have a ready supply of water such as a well or creek, I predict this is where many will fall short.

Powdered calcium hypochlorite when mixed in water makes bleach. Ten pounds will purify 16,000 gallons of water. I bought ten pounds at Wal mart on sale for $10. It's sold as pool shock in the swimming pool/hot tub supply section.

There are other pool shocks such as calcium hypochloride which won't work.

One heaping TEA spoon (tsp) of 78% powder makes 2 gallons of "Clorox." It's too strong for cleaning or drinking of course, but works for laundry. Dilute that mix 1 part with 9 parts of water for disinfecting buckets, counter tops, etc. If you find a weaker powder such as 52%, do a quick calculation and add more.

8 drops of the "Clorox" will purify 1 gallon of drinking water. Stir a little and let stand for at least 20 minutes before drinking. Clorox works too in the same dilution.

Liquid Clorox has a shelf life of 6 months to a year, but that powder will keep indefinitely in good dry darker conditions, and it's cheap.

What he said

 

[OFADAN]

...

 

[powersbj]

Don't use drinkable water for anything but drinking... Use roof run off for dishes, washing and flushing the toilet. Advice from my sister who made it through all the big hurricanes in Pensacola.

 

[Gunner3456]

I wouldn't wash dishes in something I wouldn't drink. If I were short of water I wouldn't flush toilets. I'd use that water to water plants, but then I'm not in the wet PNW.

We do have a good well and a good creek though. Our sand filter septic won't work at all without power. The first tank would overflow. I could quickly alter the plastic plumbing to dump gray water out in the field.

 

[Sun195]

Another option to consider is <broken link removed> - they're good for five years, easy to divvy up and carry with you. Expensive on a per-volume basis, but they're durable and there's no "whoops - forgot to fill/rotate/whatever the water supply" if something comes up unexpectedly. We do live in earthquake country, so your entire house could collapse down on top of you and your supplies - these would probably survive that, and at least you'd have something. Good for keeping in the car, too.

I also like to store water in <broken link removed> & rotate every six months. I label the expiration date on each one with a piece of making tape so I can keep track of when to pull them. I keep six of these on hand.

And, beyond that, there's always my Katadyn drip-filter and the stream by my house.