Urban survival water solutions

[kev]

After putting a lot of thought into the drinking water for urban survival topic, I have decided to break my water preps into 3 phases. Its divided 3 simple phases based on the amount of safe drinking water you have access to - short term, mid term, long term.

Short term - this is your bottled water. Regardless if its 1 pint plastic bottles, or 55 gallon drums, this is your short term solution.

Why is it short term? Because its in limited supply - sooner or later its going to run out.

Mid Term - This is something like a berky water filter, something where you can take river, lake or pond water, filter it and make it safe to drink.

The mid term solution does not rely on stockpiling massive amounts of water. You keep a little water at your house, then use the filters to make water from outside sources safe to drink.

Filtration is also a short term solution - because the filters have a limited life. Even if the filter has a rating of 10,000 gallons, that is still a hard limit.

Long term - private well. You have your own private water supply of safe drinking water.

Wells have allowed mankind to have safe drinking water for thousands of years. There is no reason why they will not work today.

One of the problems faced in the urban jungle - some cities prohibit citizens from having a private well. If that is the case, then the laws need to be changed.

In some areas, such as around chemical plants, the ground water might not be safe to drink. Dumping and leaking of chemicals have contaminated the ground water in places like Port Arthur Texas and Houston Texas.

See this thread for an overview of the Berkey Light Water Filter. This is a home based water filtration system. With 2 filters, it can provide an estimated 6,000 gallons of safe drinking water.

[PartisonConfederat]

I have been thinking about building a well in the back. Been looking online to find out the basics, pumps, containers, etc. I live outside of the city so it is ok to build one there. Guesstimating since there is a small half acre pond less than a quarter mile down the road and a creek about 3/4 mile away I would not have a problem. On more of on incline so I will just have to drill a little deeper. Good post Kev.

[surfscuba]

a waterbed with some bleach added to the water.
tarps,clothespins, and buckets to collect rainwater.
desalinator for those on or near the sea.

[TrustNo1]

When i was defrosting my freezer i noticed that a fair amount of water came out.
If i had to gues around 1.5 litres.

[kev]

Over the past few weeks I have been putting a lot of thought into water storage, and safe drinking water solutions. The first post of this thread is just a short ramble of my thoughts on the issue.

Everyone knows that that people require food, water and shelter to live. From those three points it breaks down into sub categories.

Water - safe drinking water, well water, bottled water, swimming pool water, pond water, salt water, brackish water, contaminated water,,,,,,, the list goes on and on.

Out of that list, how much of the water is safe to drink as it is, how much requires filtration, boiling, purification,,,,,. It does not do you any good if the you have a pond behind your house, if the water is full of cryptosporidium.

Over the years I have seen a lot of water storage solutions discussed. Some of those solutions include - cases of bottled water, 35 and 55 gallon drums, water beds, 500 gallon above ground storage tanks, swimming pools, fish tanks, rivers, streams, private wells.

Regardless of the solution, it all goes back to - is the water safe to drink - yes or no? If the answer is no, what is required to make the water safe to drink? Is that solution a permanent solution? Or will it run out, or wear out - like a filter will do?

The next question is - is the water supply a permanent solution? Yes or no?

The final goal is to have a permanent solution for safe drinking water.

Bleach or other chemicals - not a permanent solution
Man Made Filters - not a permanent solution
Mechanical Desalination - not a permanent solution

[cranky1950]

I've got 50 gallons short term storage and a river 100 yards away from the house, I'm good.

[ms,hillbilly]

We have a well,but are lacking on short term water storage,i guess the well spoiled us,thanks kev for the reminder.........

[IH8PEPL]

I'm actually in pretty good shape with water... 30 Gallons of bottled water. Enough Scepter jerry can containers to store 60 days worth of water - a electric pumped well with a 75 gallon reserve tank, if the power goes out - 75 gallons is still under pressure and accessible. After that, my house including the well has a generator hook up - fire up the Honda Gen to pump more. After that, I have several clean spring fed streams and ponds within 1 mile of my home. Not to mention any rain that I can catch in my rain barrels.

The only thing I am weak on is filters. I have 2 gallons of bleach on hand always, but would like a quick way of cleaning water.

[Nathan H]

mans best friend to make water safe... boil it!!

and as a by product it gives you free heat


On a side note, what sort of bleach should I buy, any concentration etc.....

[manyholes]

pretty good shape in this country alot of live water in the mountains and must be a windmill every 20 miles out on the plains. just keep our katy filter handy ...

[ChrisInGa]

Originally Posted by Nathan H

mans best friend to make water safe... boil it!!

and as a by product it gives you free heat

Hummm enjoy doing that when its 100 degrees outside with no air conditioning.

[tritt007]

i have a well, anyone know of any decent and decently priced hand pumps incase power went out, im not sure how deep it is prob over 100 ft

[cranky1950]

Originally Posted by ChrisInGa

Hummm enjoy doing that when its 100 degrees outside with no air conditioning.

Summer kitchen there Bunky, only a fool or slum dweller cooks inside when it's hot.

[Nathan H]

Originally Posted by ChrisInGa

Hummm enjoy doing that when its 100 degrees outside with no air conditioning.

Sorry you feel that way friend, but personally if it was that hot I'd want as much safe drinking water as I could, as quick as I could.

Boiling it gives me both of those, and besides you don't have to sit next to it, personally if it were that hot I would have found shade some where and have the fire down wind from me.

and it rarely gets that hot over here in the UK.....

[MikeinLA]

Unfortunately, I live in a suburban townhouse complex, so a well isn't in the cards for me. I will have to store bottled water for drinking. However, it's one of those complexes with little rivers & streams and ponds running through it. About 30 feet from my house is a pond roughly swimming pool size and one of the waterfalls "feeding" it runs right beside my front deck. I have figured out that I can sneak a hose from the pond through my basement window and into the garage hooked up to a pump which will work off my Honda generator. I should be able to get all the water I need for non-drinking purposes, at least for a while. I guess necessity is the Mother of invention. Meanwhile, there is no empty area of my house that doesn't have bottled water stored in it.

Mike

[AK47THUG]

Originally Posted by ChrisInGa

Hummm enjoy doing that when its 100 degrees outside with no air conditioning.

About 1.5 billions Asians (not including Pakistanis and Indians and other country ending in -tan) boil their water for drinking, cooking, and just about anything else and they tend to be healthier than us pill-popping Americans. I boil my water because I don't trust the stuffs they put in it.

If I have to guess, I say you fall into the category of people that must insist on using their precious water resource, or lack therefore, to bathe, wash clothes and even watering the lawn then SHTF. There is a strong feeling in me that says you won't make it past the 1st week. EPIC FAIL.

[AK47THUG]

Originally Posted by manyholes

pretty good shape in this country alot of live water in the mountains and must be a windmill every 20 miles out on the plains. just keep our katy filter handy ...

I envy your access to such fine reserve.

[AK47THUG]

Originally Posted by cranky1950

Summer kitchen there Bunky, only a fool or slum dweller cooks inside when it's hot.

You should have let natural selection takes its course. That would leave more resource left for the true survivalists.

[kev]

Originally Posted by AK47THUG

About 1.5 billions Asians (not including Pakistanis and Indians and other country ending in -tan) boil their water for drinking, cooking, and just about anything else

Do you have enough fuel to boil all of your water?

Go outside your house - turn off the breaker box, now boil some water.

[Jerry D Young]

Kev, have you looked into the Sawyer Point Zero Two Absolute purifier system? It has a million gallon guarantee. It is a purifier, not just filter. It takes out viruses in addition to the standard stuff.

http://www.sawyer.com/viral.htm