The Gun Counter

I had this hit me like a ton of bricks while perusing Aquaponics forums - the 275 gallon totes that are so popular there are perfect for water storage, and can be usually found used for under a hundred bucks each on Craigslist - just make sure to get a food grade one, that has only been used to store potable liquids like wine.

Now here's the part that hit me - water supply cycling is always a hassle, and always an issue. Keeping water potable is a serious nuisance, but you can always automate. The problem is what to do with the water. Then it hit me - lawn sprinklers! If you've got lawn sprinklers, you're gonna be using a decent amount of water every day - what you do is, disconnect the sprinkler system from the house supply. then you plumb a water pump into the tank hooked to the sprinkler control, to pressurize the sprinkler system. That takes care of the exit. Now to fill it, you hook a solenoid valve to the home supply, and using a timer and a float valve(to know when it's full), you set the home supply to start filling the tank right after the sprinklers stop. Voila'! You now have an automated fill/drain 275 gallon tank that's cycled daily automatically, and you don't waste a drop of water. The only downside is winter. But with some creative plumbing, you can use the water for your washing machine if you can manage the plumbing, otherwise simply cycling the tank once in the middle of winter means you can keep it down to 4 month old water at the worst.

How long can you store a container of water like that in your basement if you add a bit of bleach to it?

rightisright wrote:How long can you store a container of water like that in your basement if you add a bit of bleach to it?

Water that has been heated enough to kill the slime and capped when hot will last years. Example bottled water.

Water that is left open will lose 20-50% of the chlorine every 24 hours, depending on water to air surface area.

My thought has always been to have bottled water and a semi potable source that can be filtered and chlorinated as needed rather than a large container of stored water that is assumed to be potable.

What is this thing called winter?

Hmm. So you'd have a small, "purified, non-potable" container? Interesting.

We keep a cistern above ground in a closed shelter, 1500 gallons. A float valve keeps it topped off. Dark and cool in there. Never had a need for any treatment....

I haul water to my house with a 425 gal tank , and keep it in a 2000 gal cistern buried about 6 feet under ground I have left it for months with out a problem , cool in summer and warm enough in winter so it doesn't freeze.
A dark cool place is best to store water, also a small 110 R/V pump with a pressure switch is easy to plumb in to a tank and then just use a length of hose from the water pump to any hydrant , and then you have water in your house, (you could also just put the pickup hose in to the fill hole).
Also check for used plastic water tanks, they can be pretty cheap used, less than .50 a gal here , eg : I bought a 500 gal tank for 200 bucks a year ago to use if my main tank gives out. So look around, you should not have a problem finding an inexpensive tank.

I heard about a similar idea from The Survival Podcast. His way was a little bit different, plumbing up a series of 55 gallon barrels to your outdoor spigot and running the hose out of the last one. It's a lot simpler and easier to move. Besides, what's a sprinkler? Never heard of a sprinkler before.

I need to finish up the spouting on the last part of my house so I can hook up my 3rd rain barrel. When I get my "forever" house, I'll likely build a tower to hold one of those large totes just under the gutter. Then there's plenty of pressure to move the water around via hose, or even just shower off outside.

Water storage, though it's not sexy like AR-15s and ammo, is THE most important preparation that you can make. For example, I had our pressure reducing valve that comes off of the water main break last summer. We were instantly out of tap water in the house until I diagnosed the problem and got the plumber to come out. Luckily, I have about 40 gallons of water in Military Water Cans (MWCs) stored in the garage. I was able to run it through our Berkey and get fresh water almost instantly. The water had been bleached when I put it in, but it removed the plasticky taste, as it had been in there for a few months. I also used it to flush the toilet, because the guy was already there fixing it, and I didn't want to take a bucket out to the rain barrels.

JAG2955 wrote: Water storage, though it's not sexy like AR-15s and ammo, is THE most important preparation that you can make.

Yup, alot of people forget the rule of 3. An ammo fort isn't going to help you very much if you run out of drinking water in a week. It becomes even more important in hot environments where water loss is more dramatic.

Precision wrote:

rightisright wrote:How long can you store a container of water like that in your basement if you add a bit of bleach to it?

Water that has been heated enough to kill the slime and capped when hot will last years. Example bottled water.

Water that is left open will lose 20-50% of the chlorine every 24 hours, depending on water to air surface area.

My thought has always been to have bottled water and a semi potable source that can be filtered and chlorinated as needed rather than a large container of stored water that is assumed to be potable.

That's kind of my thought, too.