minimum ONE GALLON per person per day??!!??!?

hi folks im putting together a basic diaster-preparedness kit for my home.

in doug's article he recommends at least one gallon per person per day. now im not familiar with gallons but according to onlineconversion.com 1 gallon = 3.785 litres (there are actually several types of gallons!)

anyway, considering my household has 12 mouths to feed (6 human, 2 canine, 4 feline), that works out to 12*3*3.785 = 136.26litres for 72hours!!!!! thats an insane amount of water!!

granted, cats wouldnt need that much but still even if i round down to a 100litres its still a huge amount of space to occupy beneath the stairs...

is one gallon fairly conservative or am i just wholly ignorant of the true amount of water i consume a day? in fact doug actually recommends FIVE gallons, but i dont think that would be practical for my situation.

i havent even counted the many koi fish in my pond. poor guys if shtf i really dont know what i could do for them (animal lover as u can tell:)

another thing: what type of foods do you recommend? since complex carbs are recommended, will simple dry biscuits and some cans of baked beans be alright? i dont really want to spend much on specialized MREs and such.

thanks for help!

As far as food goes I stock a mixture of canned and MRE's. Canned gives you a large variety to choose from and is relatively inexpensive. I'd start there.

I figure 1/2 gallon minimum per pet, but I'll admit that is an arbitrary figure on my part. I'm not familiar with your climate. Is it hot? Humid? I live in a desert so 1 gallon per person per day seems pretty minimal to me. I am in the process of doubling my stock to 2 gallons per day. Remember, it's a lot easier to get by without food than water..... <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Part of daily water use includes essential hygiene. If you use canned goods, many will have a water % to factor in. Boiling or steaming foods will require water use. You could theoretically boil food and it again for hygiene or pet use.

Here in New Zealand's South Island we are told to store a minimum of 3 litres per person per day, for at least three days.

It may sound like a lot, but in fact it's a minimum, and really you should store more. If you have a water meter outside your house then try taking a reading every day for a week and see how much you actually use. I am sure it is more than the 'insane' amount you have quoted.

One thing we are tending to do in our house is to store canned and pouched meals. These are ready cooked, and do not require water to be added, so the store of water goes further. This only makes sense for 'bugging-in', since they are heavy. Bugging-out should dictate dried food for lightness of load, but then you are presented with the problem of where to get water at your destination.

Our major likely disaster is earthquake, followed by flooding. Our water is stored in plastic fruit juice bottles in a shed away from the house (with a combination padlock, so there's no key to lose). Each bottle holds 3l, and we also have some smaller (1l) bottles. If we had to leave in a vehicle we could grab some of these bottles easier than, say, a 50l drum. If we were on foot then all we'd have is the two 1.5l bottles in each of our BOBs.

There has been talk recently about increasing the recommendation for how much water and supplies you should store to 14 days. This came about after a recent extreme snowfall that cut off some towns and villages in the South Island for nearly three weeks. The roads were blocked and power and phone lines were down.

Your situation will differ from mine, so you need to look at the recommendations and alter them to suit yourself.

A

PS Don't forget, you might already have some water stored around you, for example, in a cistern for your household water supply; a hot-water cylinder; or a toilet cistern. If you know in advance something is going to happen you could fill your bathtub with water. Also, if it rains regularly you could have a water butt on your downpipe which collects rainwater which you can use.

Hmmm... How many liters does your Koi pond hold? A bit of filtratrion, chemical purification, or boiling, ... and you just might have a large amount of water already being stored!

Dandruff,

Welcome to the equipped forums! Being here is definately a smart way to start your preparations.

You are right that 1 US gallon = 3.785 liters (let's round up to 4 L to make things easier). Singapore's temperature stays pretty steady between 24C and 32C all year long and monthly rainfalls of 10-25cm and a daily average humidity of 80-90%. So, fairly hot and wet all the time.

Under those conditions 4 L per day per HUMAN does sound like a bare minimum. Now, not all this water is for drinking. It also includes water used to cook food, wash yourself, washing your dishes and even occasionally washing your clothes.

Your weather is similar to Houston, Texas where I live. We sweat a lot here. When I'm working outside I've drunk more than 4 liters in one day. Plus, being all sweaty I need a lot of water to clean up myself and my clothes (one can put that off only so long). Let's say I need 6L (more likely 8L) to stay hydrated and clean. I still haven't included water for cooking or doing dishes. Add another 2L for that.

Now, I guessing in your situation not all six people will be working hard, sweating, etc... Let's say only two of your are and the rest are just sitting in a shady spot trying to keep cool. This suggests you'd need at least 8*2+4*4=32L per day for the humans or 96L for 72 hours.

Four of these will give you that plus a little extra. They are 35.56cm by 38cm by 28cm and hold about 26L each. That's not really much space. As Haertig mentioned, add the water from your koi pond (treated first) for cleaning and those water containers will last you even longer.

As for the pets, I don't know what sort of dogs you have but I do have two cats. I would say combined they use about 4L each per week, though probably a bit less. As for the dogs, measure how much water they drink to work it into your plans.

Now, on to food. Are there certian canned or boxed foods that you already enjoy, eat on a regular basis, don't require refrigeration and are easy to prepare? Things like pasta, dry beans, canned stews or soups, cereal, peanut butter, raisins, etc? Buy more of that. The trick with "survival foods" is to stock what you eat. To get extra calories add foods such as honey, peanut butter or plain sugar. Don't forget seasonings to spice things up. Make sure you do have a mix of carbs, fruits-veggies and protein. Also, if you are sweating you'll need to take in more salt so have a container of that on hand. Carbs in the form of oatmeal are a favorite in our household. With the right seasonings added you can make oatmeal taste like anything (I like it mixed with either peanut butter or barbecue sauce).

An easy way to build a stockpile of food is just buy a few extra cans/boxes/packages each time you get groceries. It'd be nice to get it all at once, but that's beyond the means of most of us. Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt to throw in a bottle of multi-vitamins.

-Blast

p.s. Do you have any good way of catching rainwater off your roof?

One thing to remember is that pets will spill some water, so I would have some margin of error there.

As for 4L/day, that's not a lot. Sure, if you are sitting in an airconditioned office and pounding a keyboard every day, you'll sweat out less than that, but if the stuff hits the fan, you'll probably have to do "some" manual labor. For Singapore, typhoons, maybe some seismic risks? All of those will require a lot of grunt work, and I know from previous experince that even if you "acclimate" to it, you can burn through three quarts per day no problem. And that's just to drink. Add in cooking water, toothbrush water, a reserve for first aid needs, and you've got the four liters and maybe a bit more.

Also, keep in mind that a lot of shelf stable food uses salt as a preservative- it is going to increase your water intake.

Six people x 3 days = 18 people-days = 18 gallons/72 liters.

I have one active 50-lb (110kg) dog that drinks 1.5 quarts/liters a day, probably more in hot weather.

I have six cats that probably drink a total of one quart/liter per day (a generous estimation, and they eat dry food).

So, you could probably add one full gallon per day (total) for all your animals.

18 gallons for 6 people for 3 days + 1 gallon per day for pets = 21 gallons.

In your climate, I would call those 21 gallons 'drinking water'. You would need more for washing people and clothes.

Look more closely around your home -- there are often unused or awkward spaces that could be used for water storage. Water stored in several places would be safer than putting them all in one place. And it would spread out the weight.

A fifty-five gallon rain barrel at each corner of your house could easily be the answer to washing water, if not drinking water. How much value do you think those 4 barrels would have if all drinking water stopped flowing from the usual sources?

Sue

Can you eat them?

If you are planning on staying put during an emergency, than having water in your house put away is not a problem. Perhaps only finding space to keep it. If you are planning on leaving the premises during an emergency, then consider getting a water filter and some MP1 tabs for water desinfection.
One can't carry that much water around! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I was to mention that, you beat me to it. Most people, in America at least, have fifty gallons stored in their hot water tank. As for cleaning up, recently I was in a situation where I had to quickly take a shower, get dressed and go. However someone else was in the bathroom so I cleaned up using moist towlettes. Stock up on towlettes and you can save space or make your supply of water go further.

Also apply sunscreen, if you will be in the sun, and lip balm to reduce dehydration.

Jeanette Isabelle

Thanks for all the replies.

Wow there’s quite a lot to consider! I'm starting to see how one gallon per day per human is a minimum.

My dogs are both quite large, 33 & 37kg (approx 70 & 80lbs), so would expect their consumption to be significant.

As for likely scenarios, I think I am quite lucky. Singapore isn’t really near any fault lines so that pretty much rules out seismic activity. We are also sheltered by the huge land masses of Indonesia so hurricanes/typhoons would normally dissipate before they could ever get here. Singapore was completely spared in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and earthquake even though many place nearby were hit very badly.

My house is also on fairly high ground, so I don’t think flooding should be a problem if we bug-in at least. But then again nothing is ever 100%.

I am more worried about things like disruption in utilities.

Yes the koi pond would be a very large reservoir of water if need be.

I certainly hope I’d never be in such a dire situation to even consider eating the koi!

I like the idea of have rain barrels at each corner of the house but they would be the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.

> If you have a water meter outside your house then try taking a reading every day for a week and
> see how much you actually use.

That would include water for flushing the loo, baths and showers etc, and presumably making no effort to economise. For example, some people leave the tap running while they brush their teeth. Surely you wouldn't do that if you were subsisting on your stored water? Similarly they throw their cooking water away, even though it's drinkable (or can at least be used for flushing).

I have a check valve at the water meter so that once I pay for the water, they're not getting it back if their pressure drops! I also have a 40 gallon pressure tank so that the water will flow for a while even with the county supply off. I have two 30gal. drums of water, & am working on a pump system to pressurize the tank. The pressure tank is one of those with the rubber bladder separating the compressed air from the water. For 2 people,1 dog & 2 cats, we should be good for a month, although generator fuel will run out before that. Also, The suggestion about reading the meter to determine your actual water usage is a good one. Thanks to Brangdon! I will have to try that.

'I like the idea of have rain barrels at each corner of the house but they would be the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.'

ACKKK! No mosquitoes! I don't mean open-topped barrels. There are ways to to let only water in, and keep debris and bugs out.

There should be some info if you google 'rainwater harvesting'.

Sue

Beating the mosquitoes is easy, and it helps keep things out of the rain buckets other than rain- put a screen over the top. Say two layers of window screen, with layer of lightweight cotton knit between them. No bugs, no leaves, no dust, no bird droppings. And it will help filter out particulates washing off the roof. If you wanted to get really spiffy, two of those, with a centimeter of clean sand between them, to catch even more in the way of pollution and general nasties, plus it will help reduce loss through evaporation.

BTW, I should point out that only the sand is really my idea, my grandfather's father built something like this with flannel and chicken wire on his water barrels for the same reason. It worked at to a Vermont farm, it should work anywhere. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Correct. My point was that whilst 72 litres (or whatever the final calculation yielded) seems like an insanely large amount it would be worth comparing it to actual unrestricted usage as a sobering exercise.

We traveled Alaska in our motorhome this summer (a trip I would recomment to everyone!!!), and spent eight days boondocking in the wilds of Wrangell-St. Elias NP. Thanks to a run-in with a local (long sad story there), we lost almost all of our fresh water on the way in. We made the 20+ mile run back to the ranger station in our towed vehicle, and bummed enough water from them to fill our two hard sided and one soft sided five gal water containers that we always carry with us (we boondock a lot. I have rigged a 12v bilge pump to transfer the water from the jugs into our fresh water holding tank, saves my bad back). Using the weeds for "number one" a bit, we made that 15+ (probably no more than 20 gal total) gals of water last us the eight days with no problem, and that included making several pots of coffee, and freezing a lot of ice using tupperware containers in the freezer (gotta have our iced tea and evening toddy too). Of course the weather was not real hot, which can have a big effect on water consumption...

Running down the list in my head of the total liquid consumed in a typical day (excluding hygiene needs, just what I drank):

1.0 liter pre breakfast water
.75 liter breakfast (2 ea 375 ml servings)
.5 liter morning coffee (2 ea 250 ml servings)
.75 liter lunch (2 ea 375 ml servings)
1.0 liter afternoon tea (2 ea 375 ml servings)
.75 liter dinner (2 ea 375 ml servings)
1 liter evening refreshment

For a total of about 5.75 liters, or 1.5 gallons per day under moderate activity. Any exertion beyond normal, such as a trip to the jobsite or relocating my hooch, and you can easily add 2 liters or more to that level.

In a hot, dry environment under normal exertion, 2 gallons direct consumption would be the minimum.

Even here in Brisbane working in an office, I likely consume at least a gallon a day, though admittedly some of that is non-essential (the trip to the pub with the crew accounts for a liter a day 3 times a week) <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

It is looking more and more like Reverse Osmosis systems are coming of age finally. Globally RO manufacturing cannot keep up with demand, and there's no other suitable technology for desalinating or recycling water. Given the amount the Middle East is investing in Desalination plants, as well as other places such as New York City and here in Australia, where the drought has just been upgraded to a 1:1000 year cycle (meaning it is dangerously low), I can foresee the need for individual water treatment systems becoming a viable option soon.

Hard to imagine, but even Antarctica appears to be in the midst of a major drought!

I can foresee that instead of drilling wells, people will have atmospheric condensors pulling moisture out of the air to supply their households. Technology marches on I suppose.

Ooh...I'd like to add to my Aqua Tainer collection with some of those Aqua Lux...the 'Tainers are working well for me, but the Lux looks more compact...and I like the screw on vent cap. However $30 seems a bit steep...I have 9 of the 'Tainers...and paid around $9 each for them...so paying almost 3x that for a similar (albeit cool) container...ugg.

The question wasn't asked, but since we're sorta on topic. I have a place set up to dispense the water, and when we empty one, I get the empty one filled up at the store and put it back in the rotation. That way the water is constantly rotated. Not sure how that will work when we get a drinking water system installed...right now I use the 'Tainer water for drinking, making tea and Crystal Light, pets, etc.
I've been using this method for about a year now, and it's working well for us. The current supply allows one gallon per person per day for a month plus one extra 'Tainer so there is always a full supply plus the one we're using. Although in less than two weeks, we'll have another family member, so I'll have to increase that <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

ors,

Hey, congrates on the new addition!! Boy, girl, or to-be-announced?
<img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

-Blast

1 US gal of water roughly 3.78 litres is the minimum I would say, not only for drinking but food prep, brushing teeth, light face washing, etc.

I don't know what the status in Washington is but across the border in Vancouver they have a boil water advisory on that will likely continue for several more days. At one time it extended to greater Vancouver (2 million) but has since been reduced to about 1 million people involved. That's easily the largest "boil water advisory" ever given in Canada. They've reccommended a min. of 4 litres per person per day which means the stocks of bottled water are being drained very quickly and there is a lot of stinky people walking around Vancouver in dirty clothes!

BTW, the advisory was initiated because recent heavy rains have washed a lot of material into the water which makes the water appear very cloudy and muddy. Because the water plants can't guarantee the safety of the water, large bacterial organisms may still be present with the sediment so everybody boils water. To compound the situation, certain areas have been without power which reduces the ability of a lot of people to even boil it for usage.

The gallon or 4 liters per day is drinking/cooking water only. As for storage space a cubic meter b;ock holds 1000 literscall it 25 gallons that ain't that much space. Your problem with storing water is not really space but the weight.

>. Using the weeds for "number one" a bit, we made that 15+ (probably no more than 20 gal total) gals of
> water last us the eight days with no problem,

How many people? If two, then that's be about 4L per person per day.

> For a total of about 5.75 liters

Wow, to me that seems like a huge amount. Here's what I drink in a typical day:

300ml before breakfast
200ml milk with breakfast
200ml mid-morning coffee
200ml afternoon coffee
200ml evening coffee

A total of 1.1 litres. Occasionally I need another 200ml to top up (eg if I eat something salty, or drink alcohol). Cooking a 100g portion of rice takes me 300ml. Brushing my teeth can be done in 100ml. So 2 litres a day would be ample.

This is in the UK, working a desk job. My room temperature rarely strays outside 21c. Obviously a lot depends on the scenario. If you are actively working outdoors to rebuild society with a chainsaw I can understand needing a lot more. If I am cowering at home waiting for the government to sort it all out, then the above would be about right.

Edit: I guess we all need to measure our own usage rather than relying on other people's. I wouldn't want anyone to use my figures if they really needed 5L plus. On the other hand, I wouldn't want anyone to give up because 12 people x 3 days x 5L was too much to practically store and rotate.

In moderate weather, litle exercise, you might do with 1-2 liters per person per day, less for small pets

and....
If you have a basement, you can add larger storage units -- 5 gal pails, etc. ( an/ or store water in 2 l soda/pop containers)

You should also look at how to get more water -- local sources plus some sort of purification/ filter

tro

I agree, each according to his own need.

In Baghdad the temp got up to 55 degrees Celsius, but the humidity was very low, usually below 30%. We had a regimen that included wearing 40 lbs of black cordura body armor, plus moderate aerobic activity at least 2 hours a day on average. In those conditions, 2 gallons of water goes through you pretty quick. The soldiers and marines consumed even more. It sounds extreme, but as long as you had enough liquids and minerals and stayed out of the direct sunlight, it was bearable. When we lost primary power and the backups failed, life got pretty miserable in those connex trailers/sweat boxes.