Hello All,

I have been reading quite a bit about storing water and i was wondering how most people approach this task. Do most people have a bunch of 55 gal drums? Looking to store enough for a family of 4.

Dave

Sorry for the noob questions.

Depends -- lots of people use 1 gal jugs, or commercial cases of water or 10-55 gal drums.

55 gal drums weigh 440 lbs (not including the drum). Unless you plan on not moving the drum, think small (remember, 1 liter of water is, by definition, 1 kilogram. In English, that's about 2 lbs per quart).

Take a look around, is there any large body of water close to you? A swimming pool,lake, creek ? It might be better to think about makeing your water. Useing filter and sanatizing it yourself.

I try to mix things up a little. Same size family, + 2 dogs. (4) 7 gallon Aquatainers, (2) 5 gallon jugs, roughly (5) 1 gallon jugs, always at least 2 cases of half liter bottles, plus (2) 40 gallon water heaters. The 7 gallon jugs are at the upper end for portability, and then for only short distances by hand. I keep a limited supply of chemical purifier pills and there's always a couple jugs of bleach in the laundry room. Bugging in, we're ok for at least a couple weeks; bug out by car, several days; on foot - limited to what we can carry, collect and purify.

I use mainly Aquatainers (7 and 4 gallon - I have begun to favor the four gallon aquatainers as they're easier for me to carry) and 2.5 gallon jugs that I rotate frequently since I drink the water. The larger aquatainers seem nice, but are just to heavy and bulky for me to carry any appreciable distance (Like two feet)

Dave in St Paul..
outside of keeping a few cases of drinking water around
i don't see any need to keep a lot on hand around here..
i'm in Mpls..we could take a short walk--or ride..to
one of the lakes for water..i think things are so stable
around here that our only worry is a winter power loss that
would last for weeks..

Ditto here. I store a lot of water in 2 liter bottles.

Hello Big Al,

Nope I am really in the middle of the city. There are lots of lakes here in St. Paul, but I am thinking that it will be a shooting match in times of trouble.

So I am thinking about getting some some 7 gal containers. Maybe I need to build some selving or something to save space.

Dave

What do people thing about building some low, low racks so the barrels are not right on the cement floor and putting a drain plug near the bottom of the barrel for easy draining?

Dave

You might be right, but to me it seems like we are heading towards some dark days with Iran and maybe N. Korea. If things went down hill, people prolly will be shooting each other in the streets, don'tcha think? There were a lot of things that happened in New Orleans that the news didn't cover.....

Dave

Well I am still pretty young, maybe not in the best of shape, but we will be digging in for the long haul, at least until we can move out to the country side. We live in the center of St. Paul and when TEOTW hits, I am thinking that it will be too dangerous for a family of 4 to make a run for it. Maybe I should get some of the 35 gal barrels.

Dave

OK, 35 gallons, at 8 pounds and change per gallon, plus the barrel. Can every member of the family move that? Open it? Can you open it with your arm in a sling or with a busted up leg?

Assume that when the worst happens, it is going to be worse than you thought.

Ya i guess your right. Well Maybe I will get some of those drums and a good stash of the 5 and 7 gallon jugs. How much water do most people keep on hand? 1 month? 2 months?

Thanks for your time.

Dave

Personally, we keep three 55-gallon barrles of water on hand. They are raised up with spigots at the bottle like another member mentioned. We also have four 7-gallon aquatainers and two 2.5 aquatainers on hand (empty). In the freezer are four 1-gallon bottles of water (ice).

The aquatainers get filled if a hurricane is predicted, along with our two tubs. At the beginning of hurricane season we purchase 12-16 1-gallon bottles of water.

-Blast

Well an update of sorts. I saw a movie a short time ago where a terrorist poisoned the water supply of a larger city. T/he movie dealt with how people act when pushed to the edge, IE more like animals ect, fighting over pre-bottled water that was scarce and the highways were flooded and pretty much impassable do to people running out of gas and stealing other's water that could be seen in cars...

Well anyways I am felling that we are really in bad shape here in this country concerning other countries in this world. I am going to put up 20 months of water or so and maybe plan on scrounging more if needed after some time passes during the "event."

Dave

It seems my knowledge of aqua tainers is quite limited. I am only familiar with the 7 gallon variety. Looks like I have some more portable options available! I'll be checking into that as soon as I hit "submit"

Most of our stored water is in the 7 gallon 'tainers. These are stored on a rack in the basement. I have not upped our stock since our one year came into our lives... but before our baby, we had enough for two weeks, plus one 'tainer to use every day...so we would always have at least the two weeks worth plus what we are currently using. I am the only one who can move them in the family, so the intent is to use them for bugging in. We keep bottled water on another shelf in the basement. Conveniently, each 20 pack of bottled water is about a three day supply for one person. The weight is manageable for my wife, and I remind her often that if they need to bug out and I'm not around that she needs to load up those packs of water.

I fill up my daily water bottles from those big 'tainers so I keep rotating the stock. We're moving in late winter or early spring, and my plan is to have one of those water softeners/drinking water systems put in, so I'm not sure how that rotation will work...I'll be too lazy to go get the water from the basement instead of the spigot next to the tap.

Hi !
What's the volume of each of these 20 bottle ??

Sounds like a plan to me. I need to grab a few more containers and think about a racking option for the basement as they do take a lot of space in our only closet.


Dave

Working on 4 55gal drums in basement hooked through one of the water lines so it is always full and is recycled new every time you open the faucet. Plus when the power goes out valves are built into the bottom for a gravity feed, and since i live in the country on a little farm I also have a full size hand pump by the barn that has better tasting water than the house well.

Mark

Mark - Can 55 gallon drums hold up under your water supply pressure? They are kinda thin and I'd be worried about them eventually splitting at a seam. Non-functional 50 gal water heaters might be a more reliable option plus they already have the right fittings. Just a thought.

I keep 8 cases of bottled water just for ease of use, I have a well and generator so water storage has never been a major concern, although I am looking for those blue 55 gal drums to store water in for the dogs,cleaning,clothes etc. to save on using the generator and wasting gas.

Sounds like a goos solution, but what if the water supply is poisoned or is questionable?

Dave

That's a good question, Dave - it got me thinking.

I guess you could plumb two tanks so that one was isolated and the other was in-line with the water supply and the rest of the house. Then remember to switch the one that was "live" every so often to keep the "stored" one fresh.

Beats wrestling 55 gaL drums...

Ya I know what you mean. I am thinking about get a couple of 55 gallon drums to help beef up my current supply of 4.5 gallon containers. You never know, the government thinks that our water supply is very vulnerable.

Dave

Then you lose. I'm being very serious when I say that.

Although, you can find inline water tanks that will probably run you less than extra water heaters.

What you use for storage, and how much water you store should be as factors of how much you think you might need, how much room you have to store water and other things, as well as other available sources. The idea of adding plumbing so that you continually refresh barrells or tanks of water is great, if you can do that. With my NYC apartment, that is imply not an option. Storing enough to get a couple of us through a week take up enough room. Storing enough to get a family of four through a few weeks is simply not an option. If we are going to need to haev water for more people for a longer period, we have to either find more sources than storage or hopefully will have bugged out.

As with any need, do not count on only one source. So, you should not count only on stored water. One source of water can and should be the stored water, and another source can and should be something you have stored. Look for more sources.
Perhaps you can collect rainwater, which over the long term should be of some benefit in Minnesota. Obtain some methods of purifying water. You could buy some chemcial purifying tablets, but a small bag of pool chlorine might go a long way. I've got instructions on how to do this at home. You can find other instructions on using bleach, such as chlorox.

As some of the other posters have mentioned, it may also be possible to have storage you normally keep empty. Our BOBs, by the front door, have water storage bags inside them, as well as some water. If there is some event going to hit that will have us buggin in or buggin out with a car, then one option is to fill those as soon as possible.

One comment, think about sources for water that provide for other needs besides drinking. I live not far from one of NYC's rivers, but the water is more salt than fresh, and there is a sewage treatment plants that dump into it. Drinking it would would probably require distilling it, and then one might be drinking something you did not want to drink. However, being able to bring buckets of it inside might give me use of a toilet. Same thought with filling bathtub, it might not be worth drinking, by the time you are thinking about drinking it. Water stored like that, uncovered, static, etc, in a city, is liked to have a layer of dust of unknown origin settle over it in hours. Still, I might be able use it to flush.

Great Scott! Doug Ritter recommends a planned minimum of 3 gallons/person/day and in a family of 4 (without pets) that is 12 gallons/day * 30 days/month * 20 months = 7200 gallons!!! Or put another way...131 of those 55 gallon barrels!

Where do you put that much water Dave?

~Nemo

Personally...my wife and I have about 2 weeks of water stored (we live in an apartment) with filtration and purification tools to incorporate nearby water sources. We also have a bug out plan and packs prepared if staying put becomes impossible.

We have arrived at this solution after reading posts on this forum and Cody Lundin's new book "when all hell breaks loose (the art of keeping your ass alive when disaster strikes)". We have found both sources very useful when considering long-term emergency priorities and situations. Our next strategy is training...taking first aid courses and survival courses to educate ourselves on self-reliance and community contribution.

Thanks to you all for sharing your advice and personal solutions! I'm convinced that community is how to survive the long term.

Cheers,
Nemo

Wow did I type that? I must have been on the bottle while typing.... I will be looking at maybe 2 months or so, maybe 3.

Dave

I do the 7 and 5 gallon containers along with several cases of 1 L bottles. I believe Doug mentioned the chance of large containers getting contaminated or container failure as one reason not to keep all your water in one or two 55 gallon drums. I like the idea of circulating it via hookups to culinary, though, since that should solve the contamination potential.

I stack by aquatainers on a palette in the unfinished basement. No real need for shelving.

I store Aquatainers along with my other emergency supplies in my travel trailer. I dump the water on the lawn every June and September and refill them. They are frozen a good portion of the year which aids storage time, but also would make it pretty hard to drink (imagine spending time chipping off chunks of ice from an Aquatainer-sized block. ) So I also store a couple of cases of bottled water. They freeze too but will thaw a lot faster.

In the summer there is an extra 40 gallons in the water tank, but I'd drink this only after boiling it. It's mostly for hygeine.

Water used for personal hygeine should be clean enough to drink...

It may well be clean enough but I won't trust it. Keeping the water tank disinfected enough to reliably drink from it is a problem since in the summer it is regularly above 90 F. here. I do put bleach in it but even so I'll use it mostly for flushing the toilet. I'm counting on the water heater killing most of the other nasties when using it for hand washing/sponge bathing.

Well I would think, not that I know, but if water is disinfected when it goes into the container and the container is disinfected, then the water should last a very long time. I know that it probably isn't ever 100% bacteria free, but it really shouldn't grow.

Dave