After being a member of these boards for several months now, and perusing them for even longer, it seems that everyone is correctly in agreement that water is the primary concern after any sort of catastrophe.

I searched the boards and couldn't find anything similar to what I am trying to do with this thread. In here I want to put all the information you would need or like to know about water from storing it, to finding it, to using it.

Since its such a large topic I feel like I should give the conversation some direction. So lets start with some immediate questions. How much water will you need? I have heard figures like a gallon per person per day and that humans can live for 3 days without water and so on, but these are estimates. I was wondering if others know (and I will be doing some research so I can contribute as well) how long the effects of dehydration take to kick in. What is the minimum amount of water you need to take in to stay alive for say a month (or more)? Would this reduction in water intake still give dehydration like symptoms? At what point do the symptoms become so unbearable that you are literally unable to look for any more water? And on the other end of it, how much water will we use for cooking and cleaning on average?

And the other starter question I have is, based off of the above question, how much water should you have saved up? What type of storage containers are you using and where are you keeping them? What sort of distribution system are you using?

Threads for food, shelter, heat etc could also be created similar to this, but since water is undeniably our primary concern I thought it would be best to truly tackle this topic first. After the first two questions stop generating positive dialogue, I will post more questions like what is the best way to find water (urban or rural), what are some alternative uses for water if it is in abundance, what is best way to purify water, and so on.

I can't see storing more than 10 or 15 gallons per person. For emergency use (drinking).

Obviously you want a water source nearby. Boiling or using the tablets is the way to purify. For washing, etc. you just need a stream or river nearby.

How much water you need depends on your health and how much work you do and how much you lose in sweat, urine and poo. To replace that water on a normal person would take about 2 liters or 8x8 cups of water a day (a cup being about 8 fl ounces) You sweat more thru exertion, exercise, heat or fever, then you need a bit more. Remember, when you are thirsty it already means the body has started to dehydrate so always drink before you get thirsty not after. Also, 20 percent of your water intake can be from foods. Eat lots of juicy watery fruit. Dont eat or drink things that will make you urinate like coffee of alcohol as you will lose water faster than you can absorb it.

You must learn Google, my young paduan candidate. It searches the information you seek and trains you rely on yourself rather than others for help.

These are just a couple of links that I found that can answer your questions about dehydration

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dehydration/DS00561
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig& ... f&aqi=&oq=

Dehydration starts on the first day. Minor symptoms start at the end of the first day. Major symptoms start at the end of the second day. Depending on your fitness, after the third day there might not be any symptoms other than the lack of blood pressure and heartbeat.

So, start by allocating a minimum of 2 liters of water per person a day (adjust for size, age and fitness of person) for drinking, another liter for minimal hygiene and anything over than that is bonus as far as survival is concerned.

I've read that one quart of water is needed to be drunk by an average human per day depending upon activity leval. The other 3 quarts recomended (one gal per person per day) are for food preparation and sanatation. Two liters would be a bonus. Question is how much do you drink now? Have you done a research on this?
Water source is one reason I am where I currently am located. A short walk to 1/3 of the worlds fresh water supply.
Many are using those blue 55 gal drums in their shelters. Army surplus has 500 gal square water bladders avalable. I currently am looking for shelter so water storage is still in the planning stages.
Good idea for a topic, hope we get much varied imput.
Cheers, Dutch

Everyone is going to need at least two quarts of water a day to survive without stress. Less than this and they are going to be risking dehydration and attendant problems. I would multiply the # of people in the shelter by # of days intended for reserve X 2 quarts and you have your capacity requirements.

Along the lines of storage, I can recommend no expedient vessels better than decommissioned home boilers with stainless steel interiors. They have to be cleaned out and connected to piping but pricewise they are the very best option you will find, including solutions you could spend a lot of money on.

The average home boiler will usually have at least three inlets and two outlets making them tappable from any angle, either standing up or resting on their side. It also makes them fairly easy to drain and clean out. Beware of rust sediments in the very bottom that may have accumulated for many years.

I have purchased some HPDE and I have to say despite all the recent propaganda assuring us they are a safe form of plastic storage, I still don't trust them long term. They contribute a weird taste to the water and they smell funny. They are used in my water storage system but mostly intended for short term. Also consider that adding 2% hydrogen peroxide to water to make it viable long term could do who knows what to HDPE linings.

Stainless steel is much safer and stabler but expensive and a decent sized SS tank will run you a couple of thousand. A dozen boilers linked together will usually be free and made as good or better internally, although they take some work to strip down and repair.

Inserting a plug for automated systems, you will also find that putting a pressure line into a boiler to use a digital sensor for measuring capacity is much easier than modifying other kinds of stainless steel tanks. On some boilers you can use the actual copper pipe running in the interior as a chamber to cap with a pressure sensor. You take a reading when it's empty, a reading when it's full and bingo you can generate the % water remaining digitally with a cheap I2C pressure sensor that costs about $1.40 on the net. If your automated system does the projections for you, it will be able to caution you when you only have two months remaining water at current usage or tell you when you should rotate. Being able to project forward into the future like this could be life saving in telling you that you will need to refill long before it becomes a worry, instead of simply waiting until you turn the tap and nothing comes out.

http://www.protankms.com/
http://www.providentliving.org/content/ ... -1,00.html

http://www.arizonabarrels.com/275_gallon_totes.html

Here are a few links that may help you. I personally will be using the third link. I have use these before were water was not available. They can be simply converted to what ever type pluming you have or need. I used a 12 water pump (available at Harbor Freight for around 30 dollars US) to pump water to sink shower and toilet. The two I used were stored on below ground in a concrete box I buried to minimize pressure on the bladder by the Earth. I kept it there to keep sun light from starting allege growing. Another reason was to the limited space I had. I used simple guttering with top screens to feed the bladder and a lateral line system at the top of tank for over flow, witch fed the garden tank also stored in 55 gal. tanks underground. I used a basic 4 foot filter used by public swimming pools for filtration. The recommendation on filter cleaning is once a week for public pools. However I found that cleaning my filters or replacing then on my application was only needed once A quarter (3 month period). The filters are kinda expensive but can be bought in bulk to reduce cost. I will see if I can find a website for the filters. The other tank I kept in a trailer for transport to a water source and then in the dry months I use gravity method to transfer water form mobile tank to the under ground tank. With a family of 5 doing 2 loads of laundry, normal showers, dishes (note we did not use a dish washer, we used kid power lol), and cooking. We used apox. 500 gal. every 3 to 4 days. During the rainy season we has much more water and had this time to do major cleaning and winter/spring washing. The same in the fall. I find I had to change the pump at least twice in a two year run. This is a very useful system and works well. People still use this type of system today in areas with out an adequate water source. Camping areas is the most common place to see one in action.

Oh and on a side note; by baring your tank it reduced the risk of freezing witch will destroy a tank left to the element. And at 100 to 300 dollars US that is a costly lesson I learned.

Wile living at the lake with little or no utilities I learned to conserve on things I now take for granted like water, electric, and gas. I recommend to anyone who has any idea of becoming a survivor to live for a summer or better yet a year in a situation like this. In Eufaula Oklahoma there are several “camping areas” that house what we called “full timers” in one unparticular area “Piney Creek” there was no water source at all. Some who could afford it had wells dug. But most haled water in these big 250 gal. tanks. Although there is electric in the area it was spreatic at best. Most had generators and solar panels on there cabins or trailers. There is not a natural gas pipeline in that area so most have to use propane stored in 250 to 1000 gal. tanks. This is very expensive. Unlike natural gas you don’t use then pay for what you used. You have to pay a truck to come out and fill it before you use. And forking our 500 dollars for 200 gallons can set you back a month on limited income. So a lot of people use modified fire places or potbelly stoves. Thankfully in a wooded area such as a lake area there are lots of trees for fire wood.

Mostly its depends on what you consider to be a way of life in your situation. The upside to living life the way the people in Piney Creek do is the freedom from being on the grid and the solitude and nature surrounding the area. Not to mention the fact you can walk 5 min. to drop a hook. Lmao.

One day I may go back. I enjoyed living that way. The average overhead cost in the winter was less then 700 dollars a month, in the summer it was around 400 to 500 a month. Cheapest living in the US and that is included food internet and satellite TV.

I do realize everyone before me has posted pratical paragraphs on the subject of water but to be honest water is a simple concept on the theory of 2012, its going to be everywhere just as it is today. Lakes, rivers, streams, rain, and a million other forms of moisture.

I think the main concern for a global catastrophe is of contamination. Either nuclear, toxic, or biohazard I think people should be concerned with a simple system to treat ANY and ALL water before they drink it if this situations occur.

If I were to drink from water that I know had been contaminated with biological, chemical, and radioactive elements I would effectively use a systematic approach to relieve each infliction.

Boiling to kill most biological life, then running through charcoal and other toxin filters then finally adding Potassium Iodide or a similar substitute to alleviate most if not all of the radiation.

Creating your own system is key because certain people are willing to camp and take the time for this type of preparation while others are going to be going berserko when the poo hits the fan. For the latter there are complete water additive solutions that can be used to be an all in one. But I would not suggest these solutions for a long period of time because they will cause gestational problems. The simpler you keep your milk eggs and bread the better.

You put milk eggs and bread together all you get is one big cookie.


Modifilan is once supplement that could be useful in maintaining a balanced diet post nuclear catastrophe.

FYI

Potassium Iodide does not remove, filter, reduce or eliminate radioactive particles other than radioactive iodine. It is used to prevent accumulation of radioactive iodine-131 in the thyroid. It doesnt cure radiation poisoning. You have to remove the source of radiation and hope your body can regenerate the parts that had died from the radiation (which when heavily irradiated, is usually impossible)

It will be everywhere as usual and it will also be virulently toxic from radiogens, blue-green algae, sulfuric acid, arsenic and heavy metals. But don't take my word for it. Soil and bone testing conducted at 11500 years, 22000 years and 34000 years ago confirms it. People living back then died because they were simply unable to find or filter any water that had not been contaminated. This is why I recommend storing it now underground.



If you can tell me what this simple system is that will run on a daily basis and convert poisonous water to drinkable water each day I'd really like to hear it.



Except those conditions are not cured as easily as videogames would have you believe. In real life, you just die, period. No Rad-Away or RadX. Not drinking such things at all is a much better policy.



Potassium Iodide is used to protect the thyroid glands and has nothing to do with water filtration.



I have no idea what that paragraph means. Doesn't really constitute a complete thought and arrives at no conclusion. Sounds like you are thinking out loud and not very well, either.

I give you 9-to-1 odds you are dead before you are able to get out your coffee filter papers. If I were you I'd try thinking a little harder about this problem.

Water is very close to the #1 concern every single day and is anything but "simple." Neglecting it in your planning is tantamount to picking out your coffin in advance.

In doing some research on water storage I read that you can store tap water in previously used (washed) plastic containers like 20 oz bottles and gallon jugs. Is this safe and if so how long would it be good for?

I apologize for having started this thread and never followed up. There were some good points brought up. (Especially about me doing my own research I still need to work on that as this post may show.)

So it seems the general consensus of what I have found is that 2 liters per day per person will keep you relatively safe from dehyrdration. Of course size, weight, environment, activity level etc will alter this but it is at least a base. Also from skinsey70's post it appears he uses roughly 25 gallons of water per day per person on laundry, dishes, showers etc. (500 gallons / 4 days = 125 gallons per day / 5 people = 25 gallons) But this is living comfortably and I'm sure the number would be lower for say just 2 people even though I am dividing it out. With drastic measures laundry, showers, dishes would be drastically reduced, so lets say 10 gallons a week to live comfortable (by survivalist standards) for extra water.

Judging by those numbers, just storing water won't last terribly long. but it can get you through the initial rough period. The options listed above are very good and gave me some thoughts, however my current situation is more urban so I dont' have the option of getting a large holding tank etc. I was considering those 5 gallon water cooler jugs and get about 5 of those or something to store under the bed or in a closet. Does anyone else have any other urban solutions?

But with the knowledge that storing water won't go hugely far, collecting, hauling, and purifying water become more important than storing, would others agree?

So perhaps the purifying part would be easiest to solve. My thoughts had been to use a process of boiling, then iodine, then charcoal filter. But i don't think this does anything to remove radiation? Would this however remove all the living (boiling) and non-living contaminents? Would a Brita filter or something similar be sufficient for a charcoal filter in the above system? Or is that overkill?

Urban environment is not my idea of a good thing so I never really think in those terms.
If you knew ahead of time there is a product called a 'Water Bob' which is a large thin blader that fits in your tub and you fill it with water. Not too pricie but not on my list.
Water in the city will be the second thing to go right after the power. Water storage is a huge space user depending on how long you plan to stay put. My best recomendation would be make all your preperations movable by wheels so you can bug out of the city before things get real ugly. I would guess the first 24 hours after shtf should be relitivly save to evacuate the city. After that people will start to understand just how bad it is and the mob will rule untill most are either dead or left town.
A single 55gl blue barrel should last two people one month if you don't get carried away with cleaning and cooking uses. Water bladers for your back or canteens with straps so you can go moble is a necessity and must be guarded with you life.
I read that water at 200 degrees F will kill all living pathogens so don't boil, just bring to a boil your water (saves fuel). When you boil it removes oxygen and tasts bad unless you re oxygenate by pouring from container to container. Pills and water purifiers are good things and not too expensive. One might also consider some sort of colapsable retreval container like a cloth bucket or colapsable plastic water jug. This stuff is avalable in Army surplus or camping suplies.
Unless the ground is radioactive, take your first oppurtunity to leave the big cities to give yourself a better chance for survival.
Glad I'm not there, see you on the other side.
Cheers, Mechanic Dutch

I have heard, but not tired that storing water in used bleach containers, is safe and it keeps the water "freasher" longer. Does anyone know if this is true?

I have read that a minuscule amout of bleach is harmless, and IMO it would be a decent way to keep mico organisms from growing in the jug for a while.

Simply storing water is not a solution to anything that lasts longer than a week. If you want to be sure in your water supply, fork out the cash for a real water purification system, it's a much better bet. http://www.allwaterpurification.com/dea ... ifier.html