Water storage

I've been contemplating how to store a supply of water for my family. I've been mulling over options for doing so and I'd like some ideas from others here. I found a Culligan 5 gallon dispenser with a spigot on it, and I was excited about it. My thought was to get several of them and to keep the supply fresh, use up the first jug (daily drinking water) and when that was empty, go to the next one in line, refill the empty one and put it at the end of the line. Unfortunately the spigot leaks quite a bit and I have decided to use something else.

I then thought about using something like a Rubbermaid water cooler. Again, probably 5 gallon size. Then the more I was reading on the forum, then more I thought it would be better to prep for two weeks of food and water in storage. For my family of four, two gallons per person per day, that's 56 gallons or 11 of the 5 gallon containers to equal 55. That's a lot of containers to shift.

I've seen 55 gallon barrels for water storage, but I'm not sure how the dispensing works, and then the potential problem of using a little of the water, then topping it off...I worried about most of it going bad.

The other thought I had was portability. If my wife were in need of taking some of this supply with her, it would be difficult for her to move the 5 gallon containers.

Also, for those of you that store water in your vehicle, how much do you store and how do you store it?

Thanks,

One recent discussion is here.

As I mention in the thread, I'm a big fan of the Aqua Tainer. But there are other solutions. The aqua tainer is hard to beat, though.

We have a blue water container that we got from Wal Mart. It holds 7(?) gallons. It has a spigot and air inlet. It cost < $10 I think. We want to pick up more for our stock.

I do NOT keep drinking water in it. We shop Costco for bulk bottled water (small Zephrylls bottles). We do it that way for several reasons. 1. Convienence 2. I don't have to 'sterilize' (read: clean exceptionally well) the container. I can have a small residue of bleach and not have to worry that I couldn't rinse it out well enough so that my family won't drink it. Hand washing.....wouldn't be a problem with a small amount left in it. It is also easier to 'cool' the small water bottles in coolers with ice. The large one.....too much to cool.

They are good for having the water you need for washing and the like. They also do NOT roll. They are hard sided "square" containers that stay put when placed on the counter. They haven't leaked on me yet. Even when we leave them on their side. We still leave them 'over the sink' just in case.

We have the collapsable 'clear' bulk 5 gallon 'camping' container with a spigot on one side of it. It's good to hold the 5 gallons.....it rolled off the counter and (luckily) into the sink. That is why we changed to the large blue one.

If you still want one for water...We have one that is from rubbermaid and sits in the fridge. I holds cold water....doesn't leak....and isn't too bad in washing out (though I do it in the bathtub since it fits well under the spout and rinses clean easier that way).....

Groo posted the ones we use.....thanks Groo. Even with this, I have a 250 aerator tank outside, 2 bathtubs, and at least 9 cases of drinking water....plus the RO system.

For non-drinking purposes I think I'd use rain barrels or fill a 33 gallon PVC garbage can and with water and add an ounce or so of bleach. Sound reasonable?

I found an online source of food grade polyethylene trash can liners a while back. If anyone is interested I can probably locate the URL again and post it here. The idea is to be able to use garbage cans to store drinking water by lining them with those bags. Of course there are 55 gal water drums, but they're ridiculously expensive compared with garbage cans.

I looked at the Aqua-tainers at REI and they seemed reasonable though there was room for improvement. The main problem I saw was with the air vent, which was just a plug that could fall out if the container got banged around (I was looking for a car container). For home use they're probably fine.

These things intrigue me but I haven't tried one: http://aquaflex.net -- flexible flat tanks, up to hundreds of gallons in size, and relatively cheap.

Finally, if it's something like a hurricane where you have advance warning, a standard preparation step is to fill your bath tub(s). Make sure ahead of time that the drain plugs don't leak.

If you have the space on your dirt, there is nothing wrong with a good old fashioned galvanized steel tank. You can put a lot of gallons on a little bit of space. If you continually circulate or flush the tank by using it for lawn watering or other use, and feed it with a trickle feed from a well of a float valve on muni system, it is always fresh, and always there. You just have to decide how tall you want it to be. 4' in diameter is a lot of water at 6' high. 80 cubic feet is how many gallons?

That air plug in the Aqua-tainers is new. It used to screw in. On the four gallon versions it is still a screw in. I don't know why they made the change - the screw in is much better.