Everyday Prepper

Water is very important for life (how profound was that?) so we all need to figure out how to have it during an emergency. A good idea would be to have some stored at your house. Almost all people say you should have at least 1 gallon of water per day per person in your family. My backpacking experience tells me that might be a little to conservative so I would recommend having 2 gallons of water per day per person so that you are more than able to cover all your needs. Keep in mind that with only 1-2 gallons of water per day you aren’t going to be taking a shower or flushing the toilet so you will be “roughing” it with the Luggable Loo and sponge baths.

I currently keep four 7 gallon containers (from Wal*Mart) full of water in my house for emergencies. I choose to use this size of container because they can be picked up and moved if needed pretty easy unlike the 55 gallon drums that some folks keep on hand.

When the stored water runs out we will all need a way to purify more water. You can buy filters, purification pills or many other methods but my personal preference is the good old fashioned boiling method. If you can bring water to a boil for 1 minute it will be clean to drink when it finally cools off. Now as nifty as boiling is sometimes people want clean water without having to boil it. House hold bleach will work but has a very limited shelf life so an alternative is to use Calcium Hypochlorite. Another great system for purifying water is the Slow Sand Filter (SSF). The SSF requires no mechanical parts and is easy to assemble in an emergency.

Lastly I want to mention something I just found out about. It’s the Water Bob and it fits in your bathtub so you can fill it up before an emergency and have 100 gallons of clean water. Now while that is cool, I can think of other uses for this thing if you build a frame and took it to your bug out location. Think along the lines of catching water from your roof.

Links and References:

Water Purification 101

How Long Do You Need To Boil Water?

How Long Must Water Be Boiled Revisited

Better than Bleach: Use Calcium Hypochlorite to Disinfect Water

Water Treatment FAQ

Letter Re: Seeking Advice on Swimming Pool Chlorine for Treating Drinking Water

Tech Brief Slow Sand Filter

The household slow sand filter

Slow Sand Filter from the World Health Organization

Water Sanitation and Health from the World Health Organization

BioSandFilter.org downloadable plans for a Slow Sand Filter

Successes, Water