Good Afternoon,
Having purchased the The “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, you asked for some feedback. I think the most concise way to put it is that I started out with a list of around 95 questions about preparedness. And that list was growing at the rate of about one question a day. After reading the binder and listening to the audio CD, I am left with precisely one question. The “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course is worth every dime as far as I’m concerned. There is one more “preppie” (no pun intended) spending about $10 a week getting ready. I live only about 7,000 ft. west of the nuke labs in Livermore, California. I’d buy the course again in a heartbeat, and have pointed a couple of friends to SurvivalBlog as they are just beginning to think about being ready if their jobs evaporate courtesy of Barack Hussein Obama’s ego and ignorance, (personal editorial opinion intended!). And the Freeze Dry Guy and I will be talking soon.
The one question left is: Once my drinking water goes through the reverse osmosis water machine (a Culligan AC 30) and into containers for storage, how long can I leave that water in storage (in my garage) before I replace it? I’m currently using no bleach or other “stabilizers” in the water. If you’d like to see the Scepter storage containers that I use, see the Brigade Quartermasters web site.
Grace to you and yours from the Lion of Judah, – Ron H.
JWR Replies: Water without chlorine added water stored in bottles can have a very short shelf life–sometimes as little as a few weeks. Because diffuse sunlight can encourage algae growth, translucent containers (such as 2 liter bottles) are inferior to opaque containers. Often, if you fill a large batch of containers, one will have a slight contaminant and the water will go “off” much more quickly than the others. If you store water in Scepter cans or bottles, I recommend that you simply run it back through your reverse osmosis machine just before consuming it. For any of it that will be used for drinking, if the water still tastes flat after processing you can restore it to a more natural taste by aerating it with a wire whisk or an egg beater for a minute.