Water

k15n1

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Made a 55-gal cistern in the basement with a used 55-gal barrel with a food-grade plastic liner. Finally filled it, bucket style, after it sat for half a year. My emergency prep mojo is recovering from a slump. It's only enough for about a month of extreme rationed use in cool weather, if that. Still, it's better than nothing.
 

frustratedearthmother

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Agreed! Gotta start somewhere.

My DH and I set up some of those 275 gallon totes to collect rainfall. Works great! Only problem is that we haven't found the proper fittings to hook up a water hose for draining them. I'm sure they're out there somewhere we just need to get off our lazy behinds and find them!
 

goatgurl

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FEM, we got the fittings at Atwoods farm store. just explained to the guy what we wanted and he helped us gather it all up. btw atwoods is like a tractor supply store for those not familiar with them. it was not one piece but 3 or 4 that had to be put together but it works like a charm!
 

baymule

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Kudos to you for getting a barrel of water. It sure beats a poke in the eye! a
And you never know, it could make a huge difference some day!
 

Britesea

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I did some counting today and found that I have about 6 weeks worth of clean water stored up. That, plus the water in the spa will give us time to figure out how to easily get water out of our well if the electricity is out; plus as a last ditch, we are only about 100 yards from the river.

We have about a month's worth of water in recycled 2-liter bottles. I change out the water every 6 months to avoid any leached out chemicals, and after about 2 years, I'll get rid of them and start with fresh ones.
 

sumi

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We had rain water collection tanks on nearly every corner of our house and that water got drained into two more tanks down in the nursery area, as needed. At times when our town's ancient water lines broke (often) we were so grateful for that stored water! We also store about 2 gallons of filtered water in the house, just in case...
 

Denim Deb

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You could always make a solar still if you were desperate enough.
 

sumi

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We came close last year at our previous home. We were 100% reliant on rain water collection and it didn't rain for a long time. Then when it did, we checked on our biggest collection tank in the morning to see how full it was and found one of the household's cats floating in it. Double tragedy. We "imported" gallon bottles of water from town and bleached the life out of the tank water to make it at least usable for washing, because we would not afford to drain it and waste it. Things were rough there for awhile.
 

goatgurl

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i have three of the 250 gallon totes for water collection, several, several gallon jugs of drinking water stored, a pond about 100 feet behind my house, and the creek below the hill has a year round spring. plus i have a way to filter the spring or pond water. ought to be ok for a while on water. and like britesea i rotate out the water in jugs.
 
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