I live in the apts. and don't have a water heater though there are 2 swimming pools very close to me in my complex.

Is pool water safe to run through something like a Katadyn combi filter and safe for drink?

I live in SoCal and I wonder if what we call 'rivers' (concrete walls with water between them) are good water sources...are they?

Don't drink swimming pool water unless you want to have kidney failure. One swallow won't do it, but repeated exposure over the long term isn't good. It contains too many chemicals and a filter won't take them out. If you set up a still, you may be able to take some of the chemicals out, but I don't know if it would be OK to drink over an extended period. Best to use swimming pool water as a source for bathing and laundry.

You could use a solar still to get most of the chlorine and kiddy pee ([:P] sorry) out of the pool water.

As far as the "rivers" go, they are really just there for storm runoff to get inland gutter water to the ocean. Avoid it.

The last thing you want to do is get next to the LA River in winter. You'll end up like those Mexican kids who fall in every year and end up in the ocean.

I actually own a swimming pool and maintain it.

Fact: Modern pools contain about one half the chlorine of the water coming out of your tap.

Fact: Recent filtering systems use no other chemicals.

Fact: I test my pool water 4 times per year and it exceeds the water drinking safety standards for my state.

So you guys can claim all you want but it does not change the facts. My swimming pool is safe to drink (all 35,000 gallons) and will be used as such if necessary.

P.S. No filtering necessary.

Disclaimer: Above is relevant to my pool only.

I'm lucky enough to have a well.I tried to pump it dry one year and couldn't.Level went down about a foo and came back up in an hour.I also have a cistren11'11' and 12 foot deep.If you change water supplies you might want to keep immodium hany for every user.Walmart has a box of 96 for 5.00 ]generic]I would also add a little bleach just in case.

Well if the kidney thing is remotely true then I'll likely be the first person to know it, I've spent more time in a pool than I care to during all the years I spent training as a competitive swimmer.   I remember coming home some nights and having an upset stomach from the pool water, you're not supposed to drink it ofcourse but it was inevitable that you'd swallow atleast a little bit.   Some pools I've swam in have been so over chlorinated that your suit would bleach out within a 2 hour period and others would have skin rashes, oh man those are the days that worried me.



It's easy enough to stop chlorinating the pool and over time the PH level of the pool should return to lower levels.    Learned a lesson from those old days, the pool PH level would swing violently depending on how they heated the pool during the winter, one week they wouldn't heat it so it took more chlorine to bump the PH level but then the week after they'd over compensate for the previous week and kick the heat way up while not changing the amount of chlorine they were putting in and the difference was quite noticable.

That old pool would worry me as a source of potable water but the average pool of the average home owner, not everybody maintains their pool so meticulously or over does it to the point that it would be harmful.  

Ok well in that case, with no REAL rivers, streams, creeks or whatever, nearby, what's a good source of water, or should I just bottle the stuff up myself?  I live in a 600 sqft studio, I can only hoard so much.  On average I drink about 2.5 to 3 quarts a day, so I have enough water in my place (6 gallons) to last me a little more than a week.  After that, where I should i get water?  I'll assume that order is usually restored in 72 hours, but you never know.

Depending on the SHTF senerio, the pool may be contaminated also (chem/bio warfare senerio)  If we are talking natural disaster senerio and it came down to pool water or die of dehydration, then of course use the pool water.

After hurricane Andrew I didn't have water for 15 days and no electricity for 12 days.

Some people about 1 mile away didn't have water for over 20 days and no electricity for over 30 days.

 

What has not having a water heater got to do with anything? And why would you want to drink the water from a swimming pool, storm drain or canal?

I heard that a water heater is a good source for water once the SHTF.  After a major earthquake, can one assume that the water will be potable?  (I have no idea but I can imagine something bad would happen to the pipes)

Why do people lose water during a hurricane?

Only 1 "O" in lose.

How long do those 1-gallon bottles of Arrowhead or Sparkletts or store-brand water preserve, and do we lose our water source after a major earthquake?

If the S really does HTF, the water in your TOP toilet bowl, is perfectly accepatble – it's what comes out of the taps.

If things really get desperate, then I guess you've found a reason for spending all those dollars for an AR-15.

Being a long-time pool owner and maintainer, (and quite good at it), I can assure you that the water in MY pool, at least, is chemically FAR more pure than tap water that's 'safe' to drink.   After getting the pool resurfaced a few years ago and refilling it with city water, it was quite amusing (Scary, actually) to see the yellowish tint, the cloudiness, and the alarming chemical balance.   After a solid week of daily treatment and filter backwashing, the water began to return to the standard quality I expect, which is clear enough that you can distinguish between a dime and a nickel at the bottom of the pool as well as you can with them lying on the ground.   You can read the date on a dime at the bottom of the pool from the same distance as you can with it on the ground as well.

If you want to give your pool chemical seller a hard-on, take a sample of tap water to him, have it analyzed, and ask him to sell you what you need to treat it.   It'd be one or two of just about everything.

The water in my pool is so clean that I prefer to use it when making coffee or tea.  The flavor of the product is MUCH better, and you need less sugar to get the same apparent sweetness.

If you're going to rely on a pool as an expedient source for drinking water, drop a dime into it.  If you can tell it's a dime on the bottom of the pool, it's passed test 1.   Next, get down with your nose right at the water level and smell it.  If the odor is not objectionable and is very faint, you can be pretty sure it's MUCH cleaner than most city water.   Taste test it as well.  You'll know something's wrong if it has a metallic taste.   That would probably be copper in the water.

CJ

Over the summer, I worked at a condo complex's pool and there are a lot ot serious acids and bases that are tossed into those things daily.  Not a chance in hell a filter would take out harsh chemicals like that.

Keving67

A distillation aparatus will remove most anything beside volatile organics such as gasoline, diesel fuel, nerve gas, etc.  It will remove biological threats such as bacteria, viruses and protists.  It will also take care of heavy metals such as lead and arsenic.  One problem is that it strips minerals from the water.  

I wounder if it would be possible for civilians to filter Urine like the shuttle astronauts for drinking water?