Category: Water Storage & Filters

Hugh, I just recently returned from a trip to New Zealand, where I stayed in private homes in small towns on North Island. I was surprised to learn that these small towns don’t have public water systems; every home in the town has its own rain catchment system. The system catches unfiltered rain water from the roof of the home, draining it into large above-ground tanks in the back yards. (It doesn’t ever freeze on North Island.) Most of the homeowners I talked to had no idea how the system worked, but I did find one fellow who said the …

Editor, After reading a recent article on SurvivalBlog about keeping stored water clean, I thought I’d mention my experience with that. While living in the Colorado mountains, my water source was from a short stream running from a spring. This filtered water was pumped into a 1,000-gallon tank in my basement. All surface water is subject to some contamination, but in all the years it was used it never gave me any problems. I finally had it tested, and the bacteria count was some 50 times what was allowed. After that test, I figured I was living on borrowed time …

Hugh, NP’s post on water storage was excellent. I live in southeast Washington and have been working on the water storage issue for a while now. My water comes from two sources– city water and gravity-fed irrigation that comes out of the Columbia River. I’ve been toying with the idea of burying an underground water tank in my backyard and connecting my city water directly to the tank on one end and piping it to the house on the other. It would work much like a toilet tank; as I used my water, a valve would open and refill the …

Dear HJL, The referenced article was pretty complete and detailed; I just want to add a couple of details. First, when I fill my storage tank with the intent of leaving it unattended and unused for a long period of time, I usually dose the water to about 7 PPM Chlorine. Then I check it every time I visit my distant retreat, supplementing the chlorine dose if the reading gets to 2 PPM or less. Levels at and above 7 PPM are dangerous to your health but draining the right amount of water and adding untreated water to the tank …

Hugh, I reuse polyethelene 2.5-gallon theatrical fog fluid tanks for water storage. The fog fluid is a glycol, and the tank will smell for a while. I first rinse the tanks to get all the gross product residues out. I then begin a leaching process by filling the tank with very hot water and let it sit until cool. I then repeat the process multiple times until there is no smell. I do two more leachings after that. Another point that I thought was missed is biofilms. These, like slimes, adhear to the walls and are almost impossible to get …

HJL, I enjoyed the water article by EG. I own a farm and spend a great deal of time moving water around for irrigation purposes, and, yes, water is very heavy and difficult to move. I would like to give the folks some short hand for water. First, when burying water lines, go large. The smallest line I will install is two inches, when moving water over a couple hundred feet, because there is viscosity friction that builds up inside the the pipe wall the farther you go. It costs the same amount to dig the hole and the same …