Sounds reasonable to me.

Pete

Call me paranoid but after all that thinking about concrete floors and what it might do to plastics, it makes me want to park my car up off the floor of our garage now to keep the tires off it!

The containers that I owned all failed at the edge of a molded X in the side of the container a few inches (maybe a little less, it's been a little while) off the floor. The portion of the container next to the floor, including a seam, were in tact.

I was doing a bit more Googling and I ran across this. Just for reference, here's an example of a warning to keep your stored water containers off the concrete. Scroll down a bit to the "A few tips" section.

Actually, the guy also makes the point that "the concrete weakens the plastic" so it's probably something going from the concrete to the plastic, and not the concrete absorbing something from the plastic.

Actually, another interesting factoid I ran across while doing some reading--apparently concrete does not truly finish curing for a loooooong time. The concrete in the Hoover dam is still curing on the inside (I remember hearing that on an episode of Modern Marvels or some show like that on the History Channel). There are very old concrete structures that are still curing. One benefit of this slow curing is concrete's ability to slowly self-seal small cracks over time, which wouldn't be possible if concrete were totally hardened and static.

Obviously, in applications where you absolutely want the concrete cured all the way through, I'm sure that there are formulations or methods that allow that.

I think the Reliance containers I have are different from the ones you had problems with. Mine are blue, and shaped more like a "block" or cube; not a "Jerry Can style" shape.
I think I originally ordered them somewhere else; but here's a picture of the them at Aqua Pak at Amazon.com

I too had read somewhere about not placing them directly on a concrete floor; so, it put down a piece of plywood, covered that with a piece of plastic, and then placed the Aqua Pak on that.
So far, no issues with leaks or container failure.

> One of the 2.5 gallon containers of water was nearly empty when it was pulled out.

You're lucky. Louise and I buy those for safe water after and earthquake, and we keep them in the garage. We use them at Burning Man every year, then buy another set. Those containers fail on a regular basis. We have at least one fail every other year (out of 10 or 12), and they leak all over the garage floor. We have another one leak in the van every few years, wetting whatever's around it. Really aggravating getting to the campsite and finding something was soaked on the drive there.

The packaging is made well enough to get it to the store and on to the shelf, but that's about it. We store them with the spigots up, because that's where most failures are, but they'll develop cracks just about anywhere there's a crease in plastic.

I'd like to suggest something more costly, but perhaps more cost-effective in the long run.

What I use for water storage is the Scepter GI Runt (2.5 gallons). These things are very heavy-duty plastic and intended for military, expeditions and such like. No spigot. Large pouring spout with a smaller one built into it.

I have six of them, all still in fine shape after three years.

Scepter also makes a 5 gallon version, same design.

I found them at brigadequartermasters.com.

Not affiliated ...

$23 apiece, and we buy ten to twelve 2.5 gallon packs of water a year, so we'd start off with a couple of hundred bucks invested to fill from our tap.

I have to say the price gives me pause.

Philip, I agree, the price gave me pause too. And at that time the Runts cost less, about $19 apiece. I researched alternatives and weighed the decision for weeks.

In the end I felt these would be worth the expense because (1) I'd have peace of mind and (2) they seemed likely to last many years, which would save me the cost of periodic replacement.

Another consideration (that may not apply to your situation) is that in my apartment space is tight and water has to be stored near clothing, shoes, books and files. For that reason I want the least possible risk of the containers developing leaks.

As always, YMMV.