I bought the container below at Walmart. I am quickly reinforcing my belief that not everything should be bought from walmart. I was very proud of myself for getting 6 whole gallons of water storage achieved in a matter of minutes.



But then, after cleaning it, treating the water with bleach, and happily filling away... (to the tune of "what's that for Mama" and "Is that for watering plants") I discovered, to my dismay.... water leakage.

First, I noticed it coming from the little air vent thing:


Then, I saw another flaw, a small pinprick size hole:


SO. Now I am thoroughly frustrated. Could I preserve the quality of the water by trying to seal these weakness in the container (maybe with wax or something?).

Or should I just grit my teeth and return the stupid thing to Walmart and get my money back?

I was intending to rotate every three months, but even still, I don't know what kind of nasties could grow in there in that amount of time with it not being airtight...?

What kind of setbacks have you experienced?

(I've never posted pics before, so hopefully this worked properly)

"return the stupid thing to Walmart" -- Walmart needs to see the unsatisfactory quality of their cheap stuff.

*sigh*

I guess I will think about even being kind enough to remove the water first...

If you're otherwise happy with the container, I would try to exchange it. Now that you know what a potential pin prick hole looks like, hopefully you could inspect the replacement for one before walking out of the store.

Water does not need to be kept in an airtight container during storage. Clean water, stored in a clean container, kept out of sunlight, should not grow anything, regardless of whether the water is sealed or not. Unless you're getting a strong plastic taste (which probably would go away with a number of water changes...or not), I think rotating every three months is unnecessarily short. You could easily go six months or even a year between changes.

By the way, I wouldn't call the vent hole a defect. If water is coming out out of the vent, my opinion is that you overfilled the container beyond what the manufacturer intended.

But good for you for making the effort towards preparedness!

Arney, you are right about the vent hole, I guess I was filling it up a little too enthusiastically! And once I took out some water, it wasn't coming out of the pinprick anymore either. Maybe I should just dump out a little more of the water. I have to admit, I was nervous about the bleach, and wanted to make sure I had the measurements as exact as I could. I figured since the container said six gallons, that meant up to the top. lol. Survival's a learning process!

I keep reading varying opinions on rotations. Like you said, FEMA agrees that 6 months is good. But I came across a couple of other sites that said if you use tap water to do every 3. My logic was that if I make every three months water rotate day, I could also use that time to check my food storage expiration dates too. Make sense? Or could I push that out to every 6 months as well?

I change out my drinking water at the beginning of hurricane season...using a couple of the blue 6/7 gallon containers with spigots as they are convenient... I do add clorox at the old rate of 8drops per gallon...

I've had water leak from cheap containers before. Not worth the risk in my opinion. That container may have just done you a favor by revealing how cheap it is before you needed the water.

HJ

My preference is for airtight storage; this prevents insects from getting at the water. It's pretty yucky to open your stored water and find a bunch of dead bugs in it.

For myself, I would return it.

Make sure that you have the means to disinfect water; this makes for a good backup to stored water if nothing else.

Bummer--I hate it when something like that happens.

As for returning it, I'd calculate the dollar cost of gas for making the trip. I live about 30 miles from the nearest Walmart, so just gas alone can add up if I only go there for one thing. It may cost more to drive to return it than it cost in the first place.

This (distance) and the number of times I've gotten something not worth their low, low, price is why I've given up on them and switched to other sources, e.g. on-line.

An occasional pinhole is a problem when blow molding. The cost of manually inspecting and/or filling and draining each container would be cost prohibitive.

I would just exchange it for another one that you have visually inspected for pinholes.

If you add bleach to the tap water and store it away from direct light, 6 months should be good. You are going to get some plastic taste from just about any plastic container except for a few plastics which are too rigid for making large containers. What I do is post filter any stored water I wish to use for drinking through a Britta filter. These filters contain carbon which will absorb a lot of the plastic taste and most of the residual chlorine taste too. Don't try to filter it all through the Britta, just the water you want to drink or cook with.

Always make sure you use fresh bleach as it has a shelf life of only a few months. And don't use bleach with any additives like perfumes, etc.