Originally posted by OLM-Medic:
The most important thing.
For storage it seems that the way to go is with 55 gallon drums, but that just isn't practical for me right now. What I HAVE begun to do is stock up on bottled water and store tap water in empty 2-liter bottles. It seems like a cheap way to store water. How long should this water last before going bad in 2-liter bottles?
For killing bacteria what are the best ways to do it? I know bleach, boiling, iodine, filtering, and other methods work but I really would like a good lesson in this before I feel confident in drinking river water.
I know bleach isn't an option on the go and sometimes boiling isn't either. I plan on buying a portable water filter and some type of water purification tablets to use in combination though I don't know which ones are the best.
For in home use I have a gallon of regular unscented bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and also a PUR water filter for any type of sediment. I'm not sure exactly how many drops per gallon to use though. I also know that bleach won't kill all microorganisms.
I just wanted to start a discussion on purifying water, because I would like to learn about it.
The slick system for people with homes is a couple of plastic 55 gallon drums daisy-chained into their normal water supply. When I lived in the city I had some hooked up to my water softener line - any time a tap went on or a toilet was flushed, the water ran through 4 barrels before it got into the house system so I had 200 gallons of self-refreshing water.
2 liter bottles are OK - rinse them out well. Another good and inexpensive system is to get some of these
http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Prod...8&s=sporting-goods&qid=1275317975&sr=1-1 (we get them at Wal Mart, and I don't believe they were anywhere near $30) and fill them with tap water...then put a capful of plain old chlorine bleach and seal them. We still have a few of these around and I refresh the water once a year: The water is fine when I dump it out.
You can even disinfect (but not purify) water in the 2-liter bottles, if you have a lot of sun: Fill them and put them in bright sun on a dark surface, the water will get hot enough to kill most anything growing in it.
Personally I'm not too worried about stuff leaching out of the plastic: Our ability to detect stuff is a lot better than our ability to find out if what we detect is toxic. And what people forget is that almost anything else including metal containers, glazed ceramic containers, wooden containers, rock containers, etc will also leach into the water.
