A question on the freezing of water in a 1-liter/32oz Nalgene bottle with a wide mouth - how much water can I hold in there if it's going to freeze in my car and avoid breakage/leaking?

Thanks!

Dave

Water expands about 10% when freezing. More than 10% of the volume of the bottle should be air. I have not done any reliable tests of exactly how close to 10% you can safely go, but eyeballing "slightly more than 1/10" has certainly been good enough for me until now.

Most commercial bottled water comes in plastic bottles that are largely, if not entirely, immune to freezing. It is a packaging design consideration. Manufacturers and shippers don't want a semi-load of bottled water to be destroyed if the temperatures drop or the truck reroutes through a mountain pass that gets frosty. Those corrugations in the bottle are aesthetic and allow a good grip, both worthy goals, but they also allow space for the water to expand into if it freezes.

There may be brands of bottled water in plastic that may leak or burst if it freezes solid. But I haven't seen any. I've seen quite a few frozen bottles but none burst of leaked. An interesting experiment is to take various bottles of water and place them in a freezer to see what happens.

You might want to protect some of your water to keep it from freezing so you have some ready to drink when you need it.

I have accidentally frozen both 2-litre soda jugs dead full of water and 1-litre Nalgene polycarb bottles dead full of water. (Whoops.) Neither of them burst, though I suspect it shortened their service life.

In my vehicles, 2-litre soda bottles 80+% full have withstood years of freeze/thaw cycles. Not a single leak. I set them on their sides so there is some room for expansion as the ice forms on top of the liquid.

yes cell phones a must point blank..........

I usually go for generic one-liter bottles of water. I buy them in eight-packs. The size is handy and generally fit in cargo pockets and pouches. The weight of a liter of water, a kilo, roughly two pounds, is not unmanageable. Once used the one liter size is handy if you refill and need to use a chemical treatment. Those are usually standardized at one or two tablets per liter.

I have carried canned foods in my vehicle emergency stash for years. Just rotate them out of that duty after a year or so and consume them normally. I prefer items that can be eaten with little or no preparation - canned fruits are great, since they also give you quite a bit of water. I keep my freeze dried items for trips where weight is critical (e.g.,backpacking)

With extremes of heat,the biggest problem is growth inside the bottles. Refresh them regularly and keep them out of sunlight, if at all possible.

Vehicle interiors are a tough area in which to store foodstuffs - solar cookers in the summer and iceboxes in the winter

Re food:

I stashed a 1 kg factory-sealed jar of cheap peanut butter in the trunk of each vehicle. It's not high end stuff, but it's concentrated calories -- very helpful if we're ever stuck in a vehicle overnight. I opened one jar after a year of winter freeze and summer heat. It was fine.

My 32oz and 64oz Nalgenes are a decade-old and I routinely freeze water in them -- filling the water to about an inch. No problems.

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http://www.rei.com/product/402058

I left a bunch of bottled waters in the car all last winter. Stored them in a soft-sided cooler in case they did leak. Temps down to the teens.

No problems. No leaks.

I like that peanut butter idea. I'm going to steal it, and add some MRE crackers. The crackers are generally horrible, but it beats being hungry.