turning river water to drinking

[Sun195]

I don't understand. If your water supply fails and you have to get water from a river or creek, how does that make a drip filter easier? Don't you have to first get the water somehow? I'm not flaming; just asking.

Doesn't solve the hauling problem, but it does solve the pumping problem.

 

[Gunner3456]

Doesn't solve the hauling problem, but it does solve the pumping problem.

What and why do you have to pump if you have the water, but no drip filter?

How many gallons per day can you make with a drip filter? (I don't know.)

What's the disadvantage of pouring it through a home made sand filter and then chlorinating it in a 5 gallon food bucket if you have several years worth of calcium hypochlorite on hand?

 

[Sun195]

What and why do you have to pump if you have the water, but no drip filter?

How many gallons per day can you make with a drip filter? (I don't know.)

What's the disadvantage of pouring it through a home made sand filter and then chlorinating it in a 5 gallon food bucket if you have several years worth of calcium hypochlorite on hand?

I'd pump if all I had was a hand-pump filter (which I do have) and questionable water source. I believe a Katadyn drip-filter has a flow rate of about 3-gallons per hour (haven't measured it).

No idea what the disadvantages are of sand/chlorine - never used that method long- or short-term.

Mostly just curious what others' real-life experiences are with various methods recommended. I can tell you that using a hand-pump filter long-term gets tiresome; boiling uses a lot of fuel/time; and iodine tastes terrible - but, that's just my experience.

 

[Gunner3456]

I'd pump if all I had was a hand-pump filter (which I do have) and questionable water source. I believe a Katadyn drip-filter has a flow rate of about 3-gallons per hour (haven't measured it).

No idea what the disadvantages are of sand/chlorine - never used that method long- or short-term.

Mostly just curious what others' real-life experiences are with various methods recommended. I can tell you that using a hand-pump filter long-term gets tiresome; boiling uses a lot of fuel/time; and iodine tastes terrible - but, that's just my experience.

Thanks. Sorry I'm a little slow there. I didn't know you were talking about a hand pump filter. I got stuck on just pumping the water (which I can do from my well and that's clean water already.)

I've never bought a commercial shtf filter because I was always prepared for the old fashioned way to make lots of dirty water clean while hunting in the fall and the river or creek was swollen and muddy.

 

[jmurray192]

Info here is awsome guys.... really turning into an awsome read.

 

[sadiesassy]

Absolutely. Boil It.

Hey - use something to take out the large pieces and organic crap ( T shirt or other)
Then Boil - kills everything.

They have been using it for centuries
Why do yo think tea is so popular - water was so bad they had to boil it - just add some tea for flavor.

Fire was around long before filters. Boiling water............

 

[Hook686]

another note, this does not work to remove radioactivity. for that you need another bucket filter with 8 inches of dirt taken from under the top 8 inches of ground, put something in the bottom of the bucket to make a voided space of 1 inch add a towel then the dirt. The dirt will filter the radioactivity. then you can filter this water in sand charcoal and bleach.

Sounds like very bad advice. I do not think you can filter out radioactive ions.

 

[Zepoll]

Boiling water is not the end all be all for water purification. It does not remove harmful metals like lead and arsenic. Actually it makes it worse because you lose water in evaporation it actually increases the level of concentration.

The best method is distilling water.

Just adding to the conversation.

 

[Gunner3456]

Actually many chemicals will boil at a lower temp than water (that's how we distill alcohol from water) and a still "still" isn't the answer.

With dirty water, only a four step process will really do it and even then I don't know about radioactivity. I've been told to dig down at least 8 inches to get radioactive free sand and then filter but if I'm in that bad of a situation...

1. Filter the water through cloth or sand to remove most junk, or settle it out and skim.
2. Boil the water which will kill most nasties, but can also release deadly poisons from some killed spores. If that happens, you're in deep doo no matter what you do.
3. Filter the water through charcoal to pick up most chemicals.
4. Chlorinate the water to kill any nasties which boiling didn't. Some nasties aren't killed by boiling and some aren't with chlorine but using both will get them.

Personally I'd just filter and chlorinate. A home make sand filter is amazing. It will grab most organic matter and dirty "stuff". The sand can be washed and used over and over. Charcoal will grab most chemicals. Chlorine will kill most disease.

Also, while we might not be able to boil (maybe we don't want smoke coming from our house advertising our presence or whatever) we can pack powdered calcium Hypochlorite easily. We can make filters.

We are stocked way up on Imodium and honey and salt (for electrolyte replacement) in case someone gets dire rear. Antibiotics are available at the grange for farm animals and at Walmart as fish antibiotics. Some googling about what's out there, and what antibiotic to use for which illness and printing it out is good.

 

[Colt Carbine]

Rain water harvesting Biosand water filter slow sand water filter

Slow Sand Filtration for Water Treatment

Biosandfilter.org - The Biosand Filter

Sand filter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/9241540370.pdf This is a 120 page pdf give it time to download.

http://www.nesc.wvu.edu/ndwc/pdf/OT/TB/TB14_slowsand.pdf

http://www.slowsandfilter.org/

 

[noshis9s]

Personally I have always planned to make camp at the source of a natural spring. There are a ton of them in this area that runoff and feed into the rivers. This is also so that nobody can dam it and cut off our water supply. The water should be entirely drinkable right at the source coming out of volcanic rock. We have some of the purest water in the world around here anyways.

Obviously this wouldn't work for someone planning to stay home, but staying where anyone can find us has never been part of my plan.