Anyone know if Aqua Blox is out of business or still around?

Seems like every online retailer I check is out of stock (if they even have active page for the product anymore). And the Aqua Blox facebook page was super active then stopped being updated.

I don't know. The product looked innovative but I haven't heard a peep either.

Hmmm. Looks like Datrex/Mayday water pouches for the car kit then... Not sure I trust those "blue cans" not to burst when they freeze in the trunk.

Aqua Blox is just package water in small cartons right?

You don't have a brand of water in cartons at the supermarket? They are generally bigger, but not a big issue in a car.

Thanks, Tjin. Will check out that idea.

Aqua Blox was claiming stability of their packaging... no bursting when frozen, no leeching of chems from liner in hot car.

But to your point, could be other brands out there using similar packaging. Will take a look!

I bought a case of their Aqualiterz a few months ago online from Costco. I've had some Aquablox stored in my truck for four years. No leaks and still tastes good.

Hi,
how much water for how many dollars?

10.5 cents per oz
http://www.amazon.com/Mainstay-Emergency-Drinking-Water-4-225/dp/B000GFJV7M

Hi,
You bought some? Your rationale?

Checking your math I get a different number
$34.95 shipping included / 4.225 oz (60 Pack)

$34.95 / 253.5 oz ( 1.980 gallon )
0.137869822485207 dollars per oz
or 14 cents per oz
or 7.253 oz per dollar

At ten cents an oz you're looking at $25.35 for 253.5 oz / ~2 gallon

Compare to bottled water for $1
1 gallon jug
or six 16.9 fl oz bottles ( 101.4 fl oz or 0.7922 gallon)

No doubt that that USCG/SOLAS certified emergency drinking water is waaaay more expensive. Not sure if anyone has read the specs for testing, but they are pretty impressive.

I think for many of us being able to store some water in a vehicle without worrying about it freezing and bursting on cold nights, or leeching chemicals on hot summer afternoons, and being free from the hassle of constant rotation, is well worth the price for the small amount of water we are talking about.


Would I spend that kinda money for my main water stash at home? Certainly not! But limited quantities for the vehicles? For sure.

Do you have more details? links?

I bought the Aquablox/Aqualiterz specifically for keeping in my truck for worst case scenario, emergency use only. I needed something that could withstand the high temperatures that we encounter during the long hot summers here in Houston, TX. I liked that it met the U.S. Coast Guard requirements for drinking water stored in a life raft that state that "The water in the container must be sterile and free from organic matter, sediment and odor" and "The water must be suitable for storage in the container and retaining its sterility for a period of five years in temperatures ranging from -30°C to +65°C (-22°F to +149°F)". I haven't seen anything in the grocery store that would compare.

EMP,

You sound like someone who likes to research things themselves. So here's a link to get you started and you can check all the sub documents from there.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg5214/survivalequip.asp

Scroll down about 2/3 of the page to see the emergency water overview.

Note the details about seem sealing, drop testing, tumble testing, temperature and more.

Hope this helps and good luck in your research.

Ok, which part of that talks about chemical contamination from the packaging, ie leaching?

Does this address what you had in mind??

Found under Procedures for Approval, part B

9. Internal corrosion. If the container is a metal can, two filled and sealed cans of water must be immersed in boiling water for 6 to 8 hours. At the end of the boiling period they must be cooled to room temperature. The cans must then be placed upright in a freezing compartment at approximately -20 C (-4 F) for 16 hours. The cycle of alternating boiling and freezing must be continued until six cycles have been completed. After the freezing portion of the cycle, the frozen cans may be immersed directly in the boiling water for the next cycle, or held at room temperature until it is convenient to start the next cycle. At the completion of the six cycles, the water in the cans, and the water in two cans not subjected to the temperature cycling must be chemically analyzed. The water in the cycled cans must not show an increase in products of corrosion as compared to the uncycled cans.

Yep, just my bad math
(probably, a sporadic value stuck in the calculator earlier and was used in addition to the numbers above 34.95/60/4.225).

Hi, not really no
as far as I can tell,
the standard/tests are mostly about preserving flavor/taste,
and making sure the seals don't fail, the can doesn't rust , mechanical stuff


You can also see this part of same page/document


None of those are tests for leaching of chemicals.
The advertising for all these different emergency drinking water
says "U.S. Coast Guard Approved" but they don't mention leaching.

I imagine if there is zero leaching, that fact would be advertised.
The salt could be used to maintain the taste.

I understand that water is essentially the universal solvent - more compounds will dissolve in water than in any other liquid (there are probably chemists on this forum who will blast away at this statement and further edify us).

What I do is fill canteens with plain old tap water and throw them in my vehicle (and other locations), where they remain for some months until consumed. They are generally in the dark. I have done this for years, if not decades, with no ill effects.

Are there reports of anyone suffering ill effects from consuming water that met USCG standards? I suspect that in the usual emergency you would be in much worse shape if you did not consume the water, even if some chemical had leached into it.

I'm not sure why the big concern with buying packaged water for your vehicle. For a longer term emergency situation - OK but AquaBlox is awfully expensive to go that route.

I use regular bottled water bought by the 35-40 500 ml bottles in slats. The other day I paid ~$4.50 for 40 bottles. I can store 7 litres in my car at any given time and I do all year round. I consume then recycle the bottles. They hardly ever freeze - even on the cold prairies of Canada since I garage the car in an semi-heated 0*C garage every night. The vehicle has to get to -15*C for an extended period before I have ice forming. That may seem to deny the laws of physics and chemistry but really it takes a while to chill the car off and secondly water in a closed container doesn't freeze at Zero. However, if you take the same bottle of water that has been in freezing temperatures and give it a good shake, ice will form. Or if you release the cap and change the air pressure, the water will instantly create some ice. Even when the bottle is frozen solid, I have never had a bottle burst yet. If it is frozen I simply swap it out for a thawed one.

Summer time is no big deal either - even when the car is 40*C or higher inside, the only thing the water does is get warm and the plastic gets a bit more malleable.

I drink water quite often while driving (especially on long trips) and I don't care if it teeth chattering cold or coffee hot. I have a constant turnover of the water in the car between myself and my passengers.

Store Roarmeister's bottled water in a simple cooler and the added insulation will extend the time needed to freeze that water. Even if the water did freeze and a bottle burst, the cooler would contain the water so nothing in the car trunk would get wet. I keep a cooler in my truck with water year round -- warmer in winter, cooler in summer. FWIW

No doubt there are lots of options for water storage in vehicles. That's a good thing.

I'm not a rich man, but I find <$3/year pretty darn cheap actually to be free from concern of having water go bad, leak, forgetting to rotate or restock, etc. Especially so for family members where "set and forget preparation" is the best one can hope for.

Your mileage may vary of course... and that's just fine.



((Before someone asks since it seems important to the discussion: Case of Datrex/Mayday/et al is around $24. Split between two vehicles and over 4 years let's say... 24 /2 = 12 /4 = $3 per vehicle per year ))

One thing to keep in mind - "Any water is better than no water." I started fairly serious outdoor trips in SE Arizona some years ago, and I soon adopted the notion that however sick this water makes me, by the time that happens I will at least be able to return to town where I can be cured. This has worked just fine for me in the back country - industrial waste situations closer to civilization might be somewhat different.

Indifferent water can be boiled and that will take care of the pathogens, although it won't deal with toxins, etc. I have boiled for years and never regretted doing so.

Yes, psychology often trumps all other considerations and if "bag water" is strange enough to be left alone wherever its stored then mission accomplished

Yes, extreme pain in the wallet for poor comparison shoppers

Also, think about the kinds of water rations that inspired the USCG standard in the first place The water either leaked away or turned to rust soup or worse, eew

Also, the way I understand concerns with leaching , they are about chronic/pervasive/cumulative exposure, resulting in an increased risk of "something", ie an everyday/lifetime concern, not an emergency concern

The way I figure, restocking a commercial kit, for a business, I'm going with USCG water

If i'm making a car kit, its bottled water, powdered drink mix for super sensitive tasters, maybe rotate once a year at the end of summer ...

• Don’t drink the (warm) water left in a plastic bottle, UF/IFAS study says | IFAS News
  
  Originally Posted By: https://news.ifas.ufl.edu/2014/09/dont-drink-the-warm-water-ufifas-study-says/

  UF soil and water science professor Lena Ma led a research team that studied chemicals released in 16 brands of bottled water kept at 158 degrees Fahrenheit for four weeks, what researchers deemed a “worst-case scenario” for human consumption.
  The UF scientist warned against leaving bottled water in a hot garage for weeks on end or in your car all day during the summer.
• A Spring Spent Inside A Car Trunk: Tracking Temperature for 3 Months in the Midwest
• 16470261 Contamination of Canadian and European bottled waters with antimony from PET containers. - PubMed - NCBI
• PMC4245802 Effects of storage time and temperature on the antimony and some trace element release from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into the bottled drinking water
• ucm077079 Buy, Store & Serve Safe Food > February/March 2002 Ask the Regulators -- Bottled Water Regulation and the FDA
• PMC3222987 Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved
  Percentage of unstressed plastic products having detectable EA (> 15% RME2) in two extracts.
• Post175260] Hmm, 256 nanograms equals 0.000256mg, so someone would need to drink 5859.4 liters of BPA-contaiminated water per kilogram of their weight daily for nine months to suffer these effects. -Blast, Ph.D.
• tetrapak.pdf Aseptic packages are made of several laminated layers, including paper, aluminum and low-density polyethylene.
• More Trunk Temperature Data
• Study: Car Interiors Reach Dangerous Temps All Year - Story
• PMC4245802 Effects of storage time and temperature on the antimony and some trace element release from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into the bottled drinking water
  
  Originally Posted By: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4245802/

  
  Antimony concentration was the main concern in our study. The concentrations increased in each of the sample during storage period at all temperatures. The results for different conditions were as follow: at 40°C, in outdoor and at room temperature the Sb concentrations were below the MCLs, i e. 6 ppb. However, at 65°C and 80°C for longer storage times Sb concentration exceeded the MCLs, and variations between the samples were significant (p?=?0.05). Storage time and temperature effects on the content of some other trace elements such as Al, Fe were also significant (p?=?0.05).
  Conclusion
  By increasing the duration of storage time and temperatures, antimony leaching from the PET bottles into the bottled water increased. The concentration of Al demonstrated an increase in higher temperatures and storage duration, whereas the content of Fe demonstrated no significant differences.
  Last of all, the consumer should not leave the bottled waters inside their vehicles’ and/or closed areas due to the high temperatures which occur in these conditions.
  The five storage conditions designed for the investigation of the samples were, storage at room temperature (25?±?2.6°C), outdoors and sunlight (31?±?4.6°C) and 40°C and the experiment intervals were defined as follows, weeks 0 (immediately after receiving), 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 were performed. Storage at 65°C, and the experiments was done in days zero (immediately after receiving), 3, 7 and weeks 2, 4 and 6. Storage at 80°C at test days zero (immediately after receiving), 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 was considered for the other storage condition.
  
  
  40 celsius is 104 farenheit, 65 is 149, and 80 is 176
• trihalomethanes / chlorine Disinfection By-Products
• Emergency rations for storage in a car? - ETS Forums
• How much hotter is a black car than a white car in the sun?
• S095671351200299X Temperature increase of foods in car trunk and the potential hazard for microbial growth

This is truly an impressive compilation of research. Superficially, it would appear that one of potential problems involves the use of PET bottles as containers, unrelated to the water itself. Would you be better off by storing tap water in a stainless steel container?

Yeah, plastic bottles may make the water iffy after a time. How well does a typical water filter such as the MSR MiniWorks remove the unwanted chemicals? Having water in your truck that's tainted isn't a great idea and having a filter alone only works if there is a source of water somewhere. Having tainted water and a filter to untaint it may be a viable solution.

Yeah, I have the filter above in my truck too

Ceramic or carbon filters cannot remove inorganic stuff from the water, e.g. the mentioned in the above studies Antimony molecule size is several millions times smaller in diameter than a typical Cryptosporidium, which is the smallest particle these filters can stop. You need a distillator or a reverse osmosis filter.

On other hand, I don't see any problem drinking water contaminated with chemicals from a PET or any other food grade bottles in an emergency. The adverse effect will be seen only if you're doing that on a regular basis for years.

Kinda sort
Sure ,
stainless steel won't leach BPA/EA/Estrongenic
or lead/antimony ( as long as it isn't brazed),
...
so stainless steel is "better" naturally,
but is the difference important?
I don't think so

Blast puts it in perspective, you'd need to drink 5859.4 liters of BPA-contaiminated water per kilogram of their weight daily for nine months to suffer these effects. -Blast, Ph.D.

So, you're storing your platic bottled water,
in deadly heat (100 Fahrenheit and above)
and sunshine for more than 8 weeks,
the leaching worst case results in exceeding the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 0.006 mg/L by 30 times,
well all that means is after you deploy that drinking water in an emergency,
cut out the bottled water for the month after

Also consider this old data point Antimony Toxicity The average intake of antimony from food and water was estimated to be roughly 5 µg/day ( 0.005 mg )
which is just under the drinking water MCL of 0.006 mg/L
compared to the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 0.006 mg/kg bodyweight/day

Somewhere it also said most of this exposure comes from plumbing
the more acute exposure is from work where OSHA should protect you
... or self-poisoning from folk medicine

If you have a physical or blood test coming up,
ask your doctor/technician about your lead/antimony... levels

My family drinks lots of bottled water (1-3 0.5L bottles daily),
even the "baby",
often stored outside in sfbayarea sunshine,
or in hot garage (not as hot as car/trunk),
or room temperature (avg 72, never more than 82 )
... there have been no reports of elevated antimony/lead levels from our docs

I have water in the trunk that's at least 5 years old, I'd still drink it
It tastes better after all this time than regular non-filtered tap water ,
which tastes disgusting like most tap water,
but I'd still drink that too in everyday non-emergency situation
Some family members are less willing to compromise when it comes to taste
and after many many years I'm getting there too ...
this just means tea tea

Regular household pitcher/faucet/refrigerator filters, will reduce levels of lead... and improve taste

A quick peek at Consumers Reports Online revealed this tidbit:

"Bottled water, often advertised as a "pure" and "natural" alternative to tap water, is generally safe. But it's actually less regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency than municipal water supplies. Indeed, some bottled water is simply filtered tap water."

I believe they ran a double blind water tasting trial a few years ago, and Los Angeles tap water was the winner, preferred over all the bottled waters that were tested.

Taste in water leaves me puzzled - the primary sensation for me on drinking water is wetness and liquidity, the result of a long time in desert environments, and it helps that my taste buds were shot off in the war.