During a societal chaos period, your most immediate problem is water if it is shut off. After three days without it you can no longer think clearly and are entering the dying phase of life. This will happen quicker and harder than any other problem you will face.
Preppers spend small fortunes on water filters, cisterns, life straws and a shed full of bottled water. You don’t have to. All you need to do is invest from $2 to $10 and your water problem is under control so you can go on the the next biggest problem your family faces.
First lets Define The Problem. The average 4 person family uses 15,000 gallons of purified water per month. During survival each adult needs only 30 to 90 purified gallons per month for drinking and food preparation to survive. That is 1 to 3 gallons per day.
Water Sources. Absent water stored for survival your first source is the 50 gallon hot water heater. Don’t forget to open a sink faucet to let air in as you empty from the bottom tank faucet.
Next might be shower-lined bathtub with last minute water collection stored in it.
Now we are scavenging from creeks, standing water in gullies, drainage ditches and rainwater. Sounds yummy, doesn’t it?
Water Purification Methods.
1) Boil it for three minutes. It is now purified but this requires a lot of energy.
2) Best Method Is To Use Bleach. It must be UNSCENTED. Cost for one gallon is $2.
1. Use a clean dropper to add the bleach to your water. Make sure you have one in your emergency supply kit! 2. Choose the right amount of bleach. Here’s a good guide to follow:
Volume Of Water 6% bleach 8.25% bleach
1 liter 2 drops 2 drops
1 gallon 8 drops 6 drops
2 gallons 16 drops 12 drops
4 gallons ⅓ teaspoon 1/4 teaspoon
8 gallons ⅔ teaspoon 1/2 teaspoon
teaspoon
3. Based on the above, you know now how much bleach to add to your water. However, you need to double the amount of bleach if the water is cold, colored, or cloudy.
4. Once you’ve added the bleach to the water you wish to clean, stir it well and leave it aside for 30 minutes. Smell the water. It should smell a bit like chlorine. If it doesn’t smell like chlorine, you should repeat the same dosage as before and allow the water to stand for 15 more minutes before you drink it. 5. When you taste the water, if it tastes strongly of chlorine, pour the water from one clean container into another. Let it rest for a few hours before you drink it again.
Does Bleach Make Water 100-Percent Pure?
It’s unfortunately a misconception that bleach will purify water completely.
Bleach won’t kill some disease-causing organisms that are found in surface water, nor will it remove chemical pollutants from the water.
However, in an emergency, if adding bleach to the water is the only way to prevent dehydration and stay alive, then it’s still a lot safer than drinking water without disinfecting it first.
What Happens If The Water You Want To Purify Is Very Cloudy?
If you’ve retrieved water for drinking that’s very dirty and cloudy, it might not be enough to use bleach to purify it.
You will need to first filter the water. Now, since you might not have access to electricity, such as because there’s a huge power outage, or you might not be able to make a fire, you might not be able to boil the water first.
A good way to filter water before bleaching it is to use a camping filter. Or, you could use a coffee filter. Here’s how to filter water with a coffee filter prior to bleaching it.
Start by placing the water you want to filter in a large container.
Flatten a drip-coffee filter so that it’s in a round shape.
Fold it once in half. Do that twice so you have a triangular shape.
Open one flap of the triangle and fit the filter into a funnel.
You should apply a few drops of water to the filter so that it will properly stick to the funnel.
Put the funnel into the mouth of an empty water bottle.
Carefully pour the dirty water from the large container into the bottle via the funnel.
The filter will collect impurities that are in the water, such as sand and dirt.
You’ll find that as you continue pouring the water the filtration will slow down. This is because the filter will be getting full of dirt that’s been removed from the water.
When you can see that the filter can’t do its job anymore, you should replace it with a new, clean filter.
Once you have completed filtering all the water you need, you can then start the process of bleaching it.
Jim’s Filter Method:
Get a tube sock and fill it with sand. Slowly pour water through it.
Purchase a bag of play sand from a hardware store. Cost: $6
What are the dangers of putting too much bleach in water?
Too much bleach will irritate and harm your digestive system. However, too little won’t be enough to kill bacteria that’s in the water.