Self bottled water?... six months minimum, with a drop of chlorine, over a year.

The secret lies in aeration... pour about a third of the water into another container, put the cap back on, and shake the behasus out of it...this oxygenates the water, and improves the taste drastically, try it, you'll be surprised.

Troy

I checked the 2 gallons of distilled water in my garage. I purchased them awhile back for battery top-offs. Printed on the label of one of them is: "Micron Filtered and Ozonated". Stamped on the other one is simply: "Best if used by 03/20/05" (I recall buying it in the fall of 2003.) They are two different manufacturers/bottlers. So it seems that there may be variation in the purification procedure after all. Is "ozonation" what you were referring to as UV treatment? If so then that is the type I'll look to buy.

Regards, Vince

Where I live commercially distilled and bottled water is about $1.00 a gallon which is cheaper than what you pay for a six-pint pack of bottled water. Oddly enough, of the two types of bottled water I currently have in my vehicle, neither of them has a use-by date. However, one of the two types of distilled water that I have in my garage does.

It's looking like the only advantage bottled water has over distilled is the individual (pint-size) packaging, which admittedly could be useful in some circumstances.

Regards, Vince

" Water to be stored for any significant period of time, should be hyper-chlorinated to 10-12ppm."

I guess it's up to each person to define significant. I currently rotate the bottled water out of my vehicle once a year. I guess what I'm looking for is to be able to extend that to a two-year interval by going to distilled water. That would be a worthwhile improvement to me, for convenience rather than money.

I also keep a single burner white gas stove in my truck. Even if the water went bad I could always boil it. But it would be nice to not have to worry about that.

Regards, Vince

I eat significantly less when it´s hot and I need plenty of water. Eating just to get minerals isn´t too good. I experienced several situations were the loss of salt was an issue. Water from springs or tap water usually have some minerals in it without being called mineral water. Both can be essentially free.
Sometimes (maybe not in the US) water that was desalinated be other means is sold as "distilled water". As it´s not intended for drinking it´s technically clean but not neccessarily food grade. This may become an issue so checking can´t hurt.

It is not only the increase in the heat levels, but more specifically the intensity of the UV radiation from the sun at those middle latitudes that allows for the effectiveness of this technique.

In the higher latitudes, depending upon the time of year (summer with longer periods of daytime would work better), UV disinfection might be possible, but the effectiveness would be much more dependant upon the weather.

Pete

Ozonation is different from UV treatment and is another method to disinfect and even sterilize an item/material (water). Free or nascent oxygen is biocidal (that is why hydrogen peroxide was used for a long period of time for wound cleansing- although it is really not that great and can cause tissue damage).

There are many means to sterilize a product/material; steam under pressure, long exposure to dry heat, ethylene oxide, paraformaldahyde, peracidic acid, UV radiation are but a few. Each has advantages and disadvantages and appropriate uses. In the last 5-10 years, the industry has developed peroxide autoclaves for sterilizing certain items; similar technology is used for the ozonation of water.

Hope this helps and is not too confusing.

Pete

I recently bought one of these:
Amcor
The device prevents the build up of moisture. It keeps my storage from becoming to damp.
Every 3 or 4 days it produces about a gallon of very clear and apparently clean water. It works like a little refrigerator with the door open: moisture condenses and drips in the reservoir. Do you think this water is potable? If it is, the thing not only keeps my storage dry but is a constant source of water, as long as there is electricity of course.

As long as the electricity is working and keeping your unit in operation, then yes, it looks like a potential source of water. Personally, I would still run the condensate through a standard filtering system with an activated charcoal pre/post filter. If the water is super clean, there should be little consumption of the filter’s efficiency for future field use and if the water does retain/contain biological and/or chemical contaminants, the filter should eliminate those to provide potable (drinkable) water.

Pete