Category: Water Storage & Filters

Letter Re: Upcoming Berkey Water Filter Price Increases

Captain Rawles,   I recently purchased my Berkey filtration system and when I completed this process I was informed that on April 15, 2011, Berkey will be raising the prices of their systems approximately 25-30% across the board.  They are also going to prohibit their Authorized Dealers from giving away the freebies that they advertise now.  Ever since Hurricane Katrina they have been running about 5-7 days out before they ship, but with the issue in Japan they can be running a month out.  This is because they cannot keep up with demand.  Their stainless steel systems are manufactured in …


Pack Rats and Keeping the Water Running, by Sunflower of Kansas

Background:  You might say to yourself, I have no farm, I have no pump house, and I surely have no rats. My response to this is, “yet.” If and when the Sunflowers hit the fan (SHTF), you surely may have a rodent problem. Rodents can impact whatever integrity you may still have in regard to your utilities. That utility may be communications, electric, or as discussed in this article, water. This is a true account about my dealings and responses to confronting troubles with Pack Rats. The purpose is to provide a few tips, not to dictate any exact method …


Desert Survival, by Amy H.

Every year, a group of my friends go on a week-long camping trip in a Nevada desert.  Sounds silly, right?  No trees, plants or animals, no running water. Not even roads–usually the nearest hospital is well over an hour away, sometimes two, and that’s if you don’t get lost by trying to cut across an impassable part of the desert trying to get to it.  But, it’s a good test to see if we can be self-sufficient for even just a week.  Also, in a bug out situation, some people may just find themselves having to cross through barren desert …


Letter Re: Storing Dry Hypochlorite Bleach

Dear Mr. Rawles – Regarding the recent post on “Forever Preps”…. “Forever Prep #3: “Dry” Bleach This has often been covered by various sources on SurvivalBlog, but so-called “dry” bleach (pure Calcium Hypochlorite) lasts forever. If you go a little crazy and buy two 25 pound boxes of it from a big box store, you can make a solution that can purify about 4 million gallons of water! And, by the way, this Forever Prep is also very cheap (about $45-$50 for 25 pounds) and takes almost no storage space. You must store dry bleach extremely securely if you have …


Letter Re: Off-Grid Living on an Alaskan Island

Hello, Many US military personal who serve on an isolated duty station, in effect live off grid.  For example I was in the U.S. Coast Guard and stationed at Cape Sarichef, Alaska for a year. [It is at the end of Unimak Island.]           We had three large Caterpillar generators.  We got our water from a reservoir that was filled from mountain runoff.  I would go the reservoir when needed and start a small hand pull pump (during the winter could take almost 30 minutes to get started.) This would pump the water along a buried pipe line, with …


Letter Re: Observations From a Canadian Farmer

Hi Jim:  I have been reading SurvivalBlog.com for several months now and have found it very interesting.  I purchased a 640 acre farm in 1970 in the Little Clay belt in Northern Ontario and started from scratch.  I was 25, not married and knew no one in the area when moved from a large urban city, six hours drive away.  It was daunting and I learned a lot of lessons the hard way.  Since I used up all my cash I also had to work out to make ends meet. Here are some of my thoughts in no special order: …


Forever Preps – Preparations You Can Buy Once, and Have Forever, by Andrew D.

As a self-confessed budgeting fanatic, I’ve constrained my prepping budget on a monthly basis where I spend in one month what I made the previous month.  For example, I spend money in February that I earned in January, and so on.  Given the uncertain times, I never want to be “on the hook” with paying for things with “future money”.  So confession out of the way, sometimes it’s hard to know where to start with your preparations.  I know all about the rule of 3, etc., but when it comes down to it, there really are a lot of choices.  …


Letter Re: Preparedness on a Tight Budget

Mrs. R.J., I rejoice to read of your plans to prepare. It’s good to know you’re in Arkansas. The Christians at Ark Haven believe that is a protected area for many reasons, physical and spiritual. Three generations on one piece of property is definitely getting back to the old ways. Two acres is great — focus on compact crops and animals; Jeavons lists crops by square foot yield and calorie count so you can be sure you’re getting the correct amount in his book “How To Grow More Vegetables” (read it free here). (And yes, it appears this free book is …


Letter Re: Strapping Hot Water Heaters for Earthquakes

Hi James, Regarding River’s advice about strapping a water heater: He is correct about the value of doing this, but I would advise anyone considering this task to do more than just nail a strip of plumbers tape around the water heater. As a 40 year native of Southern California (yes, I am looking to escape) I am better acquainted than I would care to be with earthquakes and what they do. I am also a general contractor. California’s requirements for bracing water heaters can be annoying, but they do exist for good reason. Anyone looking at bracing their water …


The Golden Hours, by Brad H.

The three main factors in determining who lives and who dies WTSHTF are situational awareness, overcoming inertia, and dumb luck. The first two you have some control over. The third is always going to be beyond your control, except for Divine intervention, so don’t worry about it. If you are at mid-span on the Golden Gate Bridge when Al Qaeda sets off a nuke in San Francisco, or “The Big One” hits. In such cases, acceptance of God’s will is all you have to do to prepare. For those who are lucky enough to not be killed immediately when disaster …


Letter Re: Making Swimming Pool Water Potable?

Dear Jim: When I teach classes on water storage and preservation I am often asked this question. I usually respond with a few questions of my own: 1.) Name all of the reasons you need water? 2.) Tell me what percentage each of those requires?, and: 3.) How many of those could you do with pool water just the way it is? The truth of the matter is that the only reason you would need to “purify” pool water is for drinking or cooking. Washing, (dishes, clothes or bodies) doesn’t  require any pool water purification. Same with flushing the toilet …


Preparedness Provisioning (Good, Better, Best), by Bill L.

In an event where supplies of food and water or your access shelter have become compromised due to natural disaster, civil unrest or an unplanned scarcity of commodities, it would be comforting to know that in spite of the unplanned event you have planned for it.  This is not a detailed itemized list of what to get. There are numerous books, internet sites and clubs that offer all kinds of advice on preparedness. By doing your own research you will see that there are ample lists and dialogs to glean from. What this is is a method to keep you …


Letter Re: Making Swimming Pool Water Potable?

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James Wesley: I’ve got a question for your readership, the answer to which may save a great number of lives. The metropolitan Phoenix area is one of the half-dozen most populous in the United States. Between 3 and 4 million people live there. The river which Phoenix was built on (the site of a previous civilization whose population vanished around 500-600 years ago) is now dammed upstream, and usually bone dry. The population is mostly dependent on grid-up well-pumped or canal/dam-diverted water for its entire supply. Some 3.5 million people are going to be in a world of hurt if …


Letter Re: One Man’s Approach to Preparedness

Sir: Just to let everyone know, I am new to the prepper lifestyle, and new to the kind of changes one must make in one’s life to begin saving as opposed to spending, or maybe a better way of saying it is to say “ changing what your spending your money on ”   where before it may have been a new dirt bike, man toy,   or flat screen television, now my extra cash (after my tithe and savings) is going to preparations.   My change in spending habits quickly brought about a realization , that some items that …


Rain Water Collecting and Storage, by Tom C.

Water, gotta have it.  In a world that has become limited or shut down completely there will never end the need for water on a daily basis.  Disruption to the supply from the local water company will wreck havoc on every single person and family within hours. The immediate need will be toilets:  You come home from work, the kids from school and everyone heads to the same place after the car ride home.  Waters out. Did you remember to pay the bill?  Pipe bust?  Water Company going maintenance?  Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter/ Can’t flush but that one …