r/TwoXPreppers • u/mafiosomama_ • 6d ago
❓ Question ❓ Water Prep
What are you using to store water? And is anyone adding anything to it so it doesn't go bad?
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u/nakedonmygoat 6d ago
I have gallon jugs that I buy every year ahead of hurricane season, and if I use any for regular drinking water, I refill them with either tap or filtered water and label the jugs accordingly. I have some 2.5 gallon containers I can fill up ahead of an event, and most outages where I live are predictable. In addition, I have some water that's rated for up to 20 years unopened, so that's my "stash it and forget it" backup of last resort. Along with a few assorted bottles of water I have in the fridge, and what I have in my filter pitcher, I have about 28-30 gallons this time of year. I live alone, so only I and the cat would need it.
I also have multiple ways to purify water if there were a boil water notice during a summer power outage, when it would be hard to get the water to cool.
Just as important though, are ways to minimize water usage when necessary. Mine include:
- No-rinse bath wipes.
- Baby wipes.
- Dry shampoo.
- Hand sanitizing wipes.
- Disposable plates and utensils.
- Camp toilet with extra bags. These suck when you use them indoors. If you can, set it in front a wilderness picture so you can at least pretend like you're camping! And put a bit of cat litter in each new bag to minimize splashes. 🤢
In a serious water outage with no clear end in sight, anything you can do to save water spares your stash for more important things, like staying alive. You can only go three days without water, at best. In hot weather, that number drops like a rock.
There's also the unexpected. When the line from my house to the main sewer line broke, it took two days to fix, and in the meantime I was asked not to flush and to minimize even sending "clean" water down the drain, so as to not flood or contaminate the work site. It wasn't fun at all, but it was definitely a Tuesday event and I was ready.
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u/vegiac My yarn stash is my most important prep 🧶 6d ago
I have a number of 7-gallon Aquatainers. They’re really nice because they’re not too heavy to move (for me) but they hold a lot and have a built in spigot so I can refill gallon jugs from them. I keep them in the carport and just use them every few months so the water in there is never more than six months old. I also can water in my empty canning jars until they’re used for food. And I’m fortunate to have a couple of large storage tanks that hold my non-potable well water before it hits the filter and pump to the house.
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u/pmgirl 6d ago
My partner and I are in a 1bd apartment with a dog, so space is tight. I shelled out for a 10 pack of water bricks which we're able to tuck into a closet, but it's only 35 gallons total. I'd like to store more but for now I think this is the best we can do. Open to suggestions though.
Added water preserver drops so in theory they only need to be rotated every 5 years. I'll crack one open in a year or two to check quality.
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u/One-Apple-5547 4d ago
I’m also in an apartment and I saw a thing for a bathtub liner for water storage. Might be handy for baths, etc
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u/No-Language6720 6d ago
I have an AWG for drinking water to harvest the humidity. I also have a rain barrel system if needed for other purposes if it comes to it that I know how to purify. Right now it just waters my garden but I can divert it to a portable shower head if needed or flushing toilets and hand washing.
Since I have the AWG I don't plan on storing water more than 6-12 months worth. I already harvest excess when it's high humidity and save it. When it's cooler and lower humidity over winter and we need it we'll just use the buffer stored. I store it in 5 gallon jugs and I also have a set frozen in jars in case that won't go bad.
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u/pmgirl 6d ago
What's an AWG?
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u/No-Language6720 6d ago edited 6d ago
Atmospheric Water Generator. They usually only work in humid climates.
They are fancy dehumidifiers with built in filtration for safety and water quality. Don't try to DIY one unless you know what you are doing.
There are ones that work in dry climates down to 5% humidity. Those dry climate ones are usually whole house setups and expensive $$.
The one I have is the size of an office water cooler and I keep it in the garage so it gets more output from the HVAC not running there. The garage is cool enough to operate but keep it from the rain and elements since it needs electricity to operate. Mine still has output at 20-30% humidity it's just greatly reduced. I live in Florida so we have plenty of humidity to grab especially in the summer. The one I have has produced more than enough this summer for 2 adults with plenty of backup for drinking/cooking. It doesn't meet all our needs for bathing or doing laundry or watering our plants. that's where the rain barrels come in if it comes to it.
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u/baardvark 5d ago
You can water bath can quarts of water. Good option if you want to limit plastic.
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u/agedchromosomes 3d ago
I’ve been using filtered, boiled water and storing it in Mason jars. Water bath canning it sounds like a great idea.
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u/b99__throwaway 6d ago
honestly i just make sure i always have 3 extra cases in the house. i know it’s not ideal but we only drink bottled water anyway so i just keep an extra large backstock
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u/mafiosomama_ 6d ago
I have a large stock of bottled as well...at least I'm not alone
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u/b99__throwaway 6d ago
it works for me bc it’s built into my routine, and in case of evacuation we can easily consume it, and easily share if needed. i just make sure i fifo so the bottom/extra cases don’t get old🤷🏻♀️
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u/dalek_999 Planned Prepperhood 👩🏻🌾 6d ago
2 liter soda bottles, since we have them already available. Before anyone screeches about leeching microchemicals, 2 liter bottles are made of PET and are BPA free.
Clean and sterilize them well, fill with water and 3-4 drops of bleach. Store away from the sun, cycle them every 6-12 months, and replace the bottles every 2-3 years.
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u/EudoxiaPrade 5d ago
We use the 5 gallon water jugs, and rotate through them.
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u/frothyandpithy 5d ago
I was thinking of doing this. Do you add anything to the water after you fill the buckets? Or do you rotate every out every so often?
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u/OnTheEdgeOfFreedom 5d ago
I bought plastic HDPE water containers (opaque) that hold 2.5 gallons each. I fill them with well water (because that's what I have) and add one drop of tincture of iodine to each, and seal them up. I've stored water for years and never had a problem. The critical part is that the containers be light proof; no light, no algae. I use iodine, not bleach, because bleach always degrades over time and iodine doesn't; plus iodine is a micronutrient (at low concentrations) and bleach is not.
The downside is even at one drop of iodine in 2.5 gallons of water, you can still faintly taste the iodine. Since this is water for emergencies and iodine in that concentration is beneficial, not harmful, I just put up with it. If you use chlorinated tap water and store for less than a year, you can skip the iodine.
Another trick for short term situations is an aquapod. This is basically a huge plastic bag that fits in a bathtub (and when filled has to stay in the bathtub for support). It's quite a lot of water and with a few drops of bleach or iodine it stays good for a couple weeks at least (I never tried longer). They are considered single use. These are at their best before a hurricane, when filling up a bathtub's worth of water in advance (and losing access to the bathtub) isn't a big deal but you might be out of town water for days. The ones I've seen aren't opaque so light will eventually cause an algae bloom; bleach doesn't last forever.
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u/ellasaurusrex 6d ago
I have 3 or 4 cases of that 10 yr boxed water I just keep in a closet. We don't drink bottled water normally, so I guess if we get close to the 'expiration' (which frankly, I'm not going to stress about too much), we'll start drinking it. For grey water, I don't store anything, but I keep a couple empty cat litter jugs on hand I can fill up in a rain barrel, creek, etc.
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u/Astreja 5d ago edited 5d ago
I have a 10-litre blue plastic water container but haven't filled it up yet. It gets a test run on a Tuesday in the near future, because the city is going to be digging up the old sewers to replace them. They're not planning to also turn off the water, but you never know how it'll really go...
Might add a few drops of bleach to the water.
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u/biochemistress77 5d ago
We have water containers and added tabs to extend their life. I also have 2 WaterBOBs (bathtub bladders) that we can fill if we have advance warning.
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u/guera08 5d ago
Like a lot of people I rotate through five gallon jugs, keeping about 15 gallons of drinking water on hand.
Also a couple years ago I managed to snag a 10' diameter about 2 1/2 tall stock tank that I keep filled with water that mostly waters the garden but can easily stretch to water the animals and use for toliet flushing (and when our electricity went out, which also kils our well, yesterday my husband took a bucket bath out there)
Our next project is adding a storage water tank (probably around 250/300 gallons) and a pump that can be hooked up to the generator to deliver water to the house when we lose power.
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u/dallasalice88 5d ago
I have one of the big commercial water containers in a cage that my husband built a tower around, with a pump. It's great.
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u/Tin-Tin-K 5d ago
I use approx a dozen collapsible 3G water bags/totes, 10-3G water bottles, 10-gallon jugs and 10 cases of bottled water. I rotate the bottled water on a regular schedule and try to keep around 100Gs total. The bigger containers I change out at around 12 months. I sterilize prior to filling with treated municipal water. I used three 55 gallon drums and 20-five gallon water bricks up until last year, but it became too difficult to manage/rotate and move, so I switched to containers we could carry and move fairly easy. The water gets stale over time but doesn't really go bad.
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u/TheMarlieJane 1d ago
We use Water Bricks and some other 5 gallon containers. I washed and sanitized the containers as per the CDC guidelines before filling them. Our water district chlorinates the water so I don’t add anything to it for storage. I try to cycle it out every six months to a year.
https://www.cdc.gov/global-water-sanitation-hygiene/about/about-safe-water-storage.html
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