These containers certainly look great and sturdy, and the faucet seems practical, indeed !
Their shape also is somewhat better for storage than the 8-liters bottles I had in mind. I agree they can help saving some storage space, especially if you can stack them up.

But I haven't seen such containers here ... Will have to look for some equivalent...

OTOH, handling a 8-liter bottle is easier than a 26+ liters container....

Those containers are fairly nice but quite expensive, more expensive per gallon EMPTY in fact than buying 1 gal. bottled water bottles FULL. I'm not too concerned about ruggedness since my bottles are in the cabinet under the kitchen sink, not getting bumped around. Also not concerned about opacity since it's dark in the cabinet. If I wanted to store more water I think I'd get a 60 or 110 gallon Aquaflex bladder ( www.aquaflex.net ) and put it under my bed. I'm in a small apartment and don't have space for 55 gal drums, stacks of 7-gal Aqua-tainers, etc.

One thing I ought to do is carefully scrub out the inside of my toilet tank the next time I scrub the toilet. There's at least 5 gal of fresh water there that gets "rotated out" several times a day. I wouldn't drink toilet bowl water even after treatment unless I absolutely had to (psychological reasons; pets drink the stuff all the time with no obvious ill effects) but water from the tank doesn't have that issue. Just the same, because it's in contact with the funky old fixture and flush mechanism and standpipe, I'd use it for non-drinking or last-resort drinking purposes and would treat it before drinking.

Finally, I have a typical 13 gal. PVC kitchen wastebasket and a few 8 gal wastebaskets around the apartment, so of course if there was a warning of upcoming disaster, I'd fill those with water, plus fill the bathtub. But that doesn't help in a no-warning event.

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread with this. Further wish-list item: an auto cigarette lighter plug with the right connector to operate my Eveready CH15 NiMH charger in the car, so I can charge up my AA NiMH batteries in extended power outages. It's a 15 minute charger with 12 volt input, so it's just the right setup for in-car use. I don't understand why it doesn't come with a cig lighter plug.

I have one of those chargers, I checked several stores and finally had to go to walmart as is was the only place that sold them with the car plug already in the package, all the other stores had them without and you had to send in a form to get it and pay a little bit for shipping.

Not all water storage containers are created equal. I highly recommend the above mentioned aqua-tainer.

several years ago I purchased 5-6 different water storage containers as a test. I filled them up, closed up the caps and valves, then tipped them on their sides. Big surprise, nearly all leaked. For me that is not acceptable. Not only is there the problem of losing water if the container gets tipped (post earthquake or hasty retreat transportation), but there is also the risk of the water becoming contamined through access to the outside air.

I purchased several more of the aqua-tainers and all tested "good" before going into storage.

TR

I just did that test myself a couple weeks ago, and came up with the same result. Usually it was a crummy plastic bung for the vent hold that would leak. The Coleman and the Aqua-Tainer worked fine though. I prefer the 4 gallon aqua-tainer for 2 reasons- it's squat so it won't tip over on the floor of my mini-van, and it's stackable in case I decide to get more.

What is 5.11 pants?

I use the aqua-tainers as well. I've never had one leak when completely sealed, and I've only had one where the nozzle contraption leaked, and I simple traded it with one that I wasn't actively using to get water out of. THe 7 gallon ones are great, but I keep quite a few of the 4 galon ones too, simply because they're light and easy to lug and refill.

Yeah, after yours and Goatrider's posts, I'm thinking about getting some of the 4 gallon. Last summer, all I wanted was a way to store a lot of water in a small space. I would have bought a large water storage barrell if shipping wasn't so high. But now, I'm glad I didn't. The 7 gallon are fine, and I can distribute the containers around the house. The 4 gal would be good if I have to evacuate.

Here's a link:

5.11 Tactical Pants