Building a Backyard Water Treatment Plant, by J.S.M.
…Why not just keep a few bottles of Clorox around instead of this dangerous dry chlorine?” Understand that liquid bleach has a short shelf life. It loses its efficacy at an unacceptable rate, and within a year or two your bleach will be useless. You cannot rely on weak bleach to disinfect your water. With unknown potency, you will be playing a guessing game with ratios, and over time you will effectively have no bleach at all. Consider the following: Currently, a one pound bag of pool shock costs about $5.00 or less. This one pound bag of pool shock has an unlimited shelf life, if it is stored properly. A one pound bag of pool shock will make 128 gallons of stock chlorine solution, the equivalent of 128 gallons of bleach. This 128 gallons of stock chlorine solution will disinfect 12,800 gallons of contaminated water. If you factor in…