Since Spring is supposedly here (although it's sleeting this morning), I'm considering my long term storage of water in my truck to be complete, with great results.

Last summer, I bought a case of .5 liter bottles of water to put in my truck. I left them there, taking one out every couple of weeks through the winter to see how they fared. Of course they had frozen solid, but when thawed, showed no signs of weakened plastic or leaking. Now the remainder are all thawed, and no leaking occurred.

A couple of observations.
When they froze, the water expanded of course, but there is just enough air space in the bottle to allow for this expansion without rupturing. However, you can't stand the bottle up, because the bottom becomes rounded. Also, when you open it up, it tends to spray a bit of moisture out.
Now that they are thawed, the ones that fell over on their sides have contracted, I guess due to the freeze/thaw, but not the ones that stayed upright through the process.

So, no problem carrying emergency water through the winter.

I've noticed the same results with the bottles of water in the back of the fridge. It seems as though they have allowed for freezing in the bottle design.

Hot weather is the problem I have to deal with in Lousy-anna. Water has to be swapped out often, if you want it to taste best. It will stay good for consumption but will taste flat.

I keep my vehicle water and food in a soft-sided cooler. That seems to help with the daily temp swings we get here as well as the seasonal ones (-10 to 110 F), plus it provides some padding for the relatively fragile water bottles. I also crack the windows in the shell of my pickup. If your security situation allows you might try that. It really helps hold down the temps.

Sounds like a good idea to me (the soft sided cooler). I've got some and rarely use them. I almost feel as though I'm wasting them. Thanks!

Speaking of cracking the windows in your vehicle to let heat out, has anyone ever tried those solar-operated vents for cars that are supposed to do that? It sounds like a great idea, but....

Sue

I read somewhere once, that you can make water *taste* better by aerating it. Basically you pour the water from one container to another, thus allowing air into the water and making it taste better.

They work OK if you have two. Take on apart and rewire it so it turns into an intake fan. You won't be cooler than the outside, but you won't be making an oven either.

That being said, I've only used them around here- I won't speculate on thier performance other places.

The Alameda County (California) Water District has a page on storing water for emergencies:
http://www.acwd.org/faq.php5?category_id=57#22

They say bottled water bought from a store should be safe for several years, but should be stored in the usual cool, dark place protected from direct sunlight and fumes from petroleum products and pesticides. The bottles should be checked periodically for cracks and water loss due to evaporation.

I emailed them to ask about the storage. The answer was that heat and sun will likely cause chemicals in the plastic to leach into the water, and they don't know the effects of drinking water with those leachates in it. On a practical level, that's a conservative answer; they _don't_ know, and among the issues are how much of the chemicals it would take to cause any human damage and how much water you'd have to consume to get an amount sufficient to cause harm.

As an aside, I fill empty 2-liter soda bottles with tap water, freeze them, and use them instead of ice in my cooler for some camping trips. Saves me from having a sodden mess in the cooler, and gives us something cool to drink in the heat of the day. I haven't had any break in the maybe 10 years I've been doing it, although I leave room for expansion. I note, though, that the expansion is not entirely into the empty space - ice expands outward in all directions, so do have some care about the containers if your water freezes. You may have a cracked bottle even though there is air in the top.

Here's a review of the auto cooler thing.

some of them are pretty good but most are fragile trash