Sounds like a good solution for you. You probably have the water jugs and other things in a tote or something so they will not slide around, spill, pick up POL vapors, etc.

My vehicle presents a harsher environment, and not just in terms of apparently harsher winters. Items like stove, fuel, water, and 3 days food are stowed in an aluminum tool chest that sits across the bed rails behind the cab (4x4 pick up). Tool chest is pretty full of other useful things that are for the most part heavy, sharp, or both as compared to milk jugs.

While I try to avoid stowing potential missiles in the cab, the Ready pack (no water in the wintertime) and fanny pack of additional first aid supplies are in the cab (rear seat area and clipped in when I remember to do that). I DO carry water in the cab on trips, but M-F my daily commute is less than 8 miles round trip.

We use empty milk jugs primarily for two things. Oldest (for us) use is backpacking (except wintertime). We each carry an empty partially collapsed one gallon jug on the outside of our packs. When we stop in the evenings, these are filled with potable water, along with our regular water containers. Supper, breakfast, clean-up, and minor personal hygiene are readily handled out of that water without needing to make additional trips to whatever water source we are using. By the end of a week long trip, some may develop a pinhole leak or two, but a scrap of duct tape or electrical tape takes are of that.

A couple of years ago I had one of those forehead thumping moments and made a slight improvement. Using a carpet needle, I threaded some braided dacron fishing line thru the caps and with a fisherman's knot, made the line into a loop. The loop gets girth-hitched to the jug handle and the cap never gets misplaced or lost (Yeah - only took me 30 years to think of that). At the end of the trip, the jug is tossed in the recycle bin and the cap goes in a baggie and back in the pack or personal gear tote. Certain fastidious people seem to feel better with a little dab of food-grade silicon caulk on the inside of the cap over the two holes and thread, but I don't bother. I got carried away with the idea and made up, oh, several lifetimes worth of "tether able" caps - both snap on and threaded types.

The other main use we make of empty milk jugs is simpler. My DW keeps the thermal mass of our chest-type freezer constant by adding jugs of water as the food contents fall. That really extends the time between generator runs when the power goes out for more than 24 hours (main reason), plus if we are using a cooler on the road portion of a trip, she uses a frozen jug or two in the ice chest.

But my tool chest would be an extremely lethal environment for milk jugs. As I wrote previously, I intend to try out a couple of those Guyot water bottles this year.

Regards,

Tom

The SS bottles are no doubt the right metal container to ensure water safety in avoiding metal contaminates. But I would like to see if I could get some input on aluminum water bottles. I realize that aluminum pots have been cited by a number of research type efforts and have concluded that cooking in aluminum pots may cause alzheimers and maybe some other ailments. But what if they are just used to hold water and not heat it up? If the bottle is only used for the typical canteen purposes, what's the harm? There are a lot of aluminum canteens including Boy Scout, GI, foreign surplus canteens, etc. that have been made of aluminum. Are they all out as a result of cooking in aluminum fears?

IMO, aluminum water containers (and cook pots) are fine. I suggest you take the alleged dementia hype with a huge dose of salt. Speaking of which, the only hesitation I have about scouts using a SIGG or other aluminum canteen is that most beverage powders have some citric acid / ascorbic acid in them. Aluminum can react with that.

Aluminum typically gains a protective oxide coating over time - otherwise we couldn't use it, as it's a fairly reactive metal. But it's almost an apples-oranges comparison to, say, drop shiny new aluminum foil in vinegar and erroneously extrapolate that a little orange beverage powder is going to dissolve your canteen - t'ain't so. But to be on the safe side, avoid putting acidic stuff in aluminum canteens - stick to water. Acidic beverage in aluminum canteens does get a little whang to it after a while, as any old former scout or GI can attest.

I think that HA-III (hard anodizing) finishes are pretty resistant to that sort of mild acid attack.

I remember/used surplus GI aluminum canteens - even preferentially carried one for a few years in Alaska (see discussion about thawing). I use an aluminum pot for melting ice/snow. Have / occasionally use other uncoated aluminum cookware. Use non-stick coated aluminum cookware on some backpacking trips. Absolutely love my GSI HA 12" dutch oven - more than my cast iron ones for 90% of my uses. I don't do stupid things with aluminum, but it's not measurably harmful.

What were we talking about... seriously, if you want to use aluminum canteens, there's nothing particularly dangerous about that. Use common sense and don't leave it full of V8 juice for a week. And remember to loosen/remove cap before thawing out a frozen one on a stove... saw that once - fairly exciting moment inside the arctic tent...

Tom

My number one water carrier is a WW II, SS canteeen, cup and stove combo. Carried in a molle canteen pouch, Solves all the problems. The molle pouch even has two side pockets to carry fuel tablets and matches in.

Two Wolves Outdoors

Single wall, 38 oz, stainless steel, will mate with all of your standard Nalgene add-ons for $17.00 Which means you can pick up an Olicamp space saver mug to fit on the bottom for around $5.00. Check out the review at the bottom of the page on the link.

No financial interest, yada, yada, yada...

Those are the same bottles that Hikin_Jim posted earlier from Guyot Designs. Their website also has an online store, and if anyone has them in stock it will be them.

The Wiggy's web site says 1/2 liter, which is not 32 oz!

I had found this, and thought it looked wonderful. So I called them, and they told me it was just a smidgen over 16 oz.

Sorry! $51.60 for a single cup, bottle, and cover is too much...

Dave

Check this out: http://www.dhki.com/Defense/p_solbotle.htm

Oh, that was cruel...

-Blast, bottle junkie