Posted: 12/6/2007 5:05:40 PM EDT
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Large Containers For Storing Water? I'm looking for the above for drinking water, and also the ability to stabilize it for 1yr+ And by large, I mean 5/10/15 gallon movable jugs, with maybe a bigger one as a stationary backup... |
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IBTTGMTTSDF (In Before This Thread Gets Moved To The Survival Discussions Forum) www.ar15.com/forums/forum.html?b=10&f=17 Lots of people can help you there. |
Using a steralized container and deionized water, it should last forever. I steralized a few of those big blue wal-mart jugs, and filled them with deionized water. Years later, the water was still perfect. Using tap water, you can introduce bacteria and algae that can actually feed on the plastic given enough time. |
Crap! Sorry! Mods, feel free to move  Er...so distilled water is good. DW in a cleaned container is better. How does one do that? |
The lab I work for actually tests those bottles for bacteria. The company that makes them sends us a couple from every lot number. Just as part of their own quality control. This is BEFORE they are filled by the bottler. I doubt they use distilled water. Purified maybe. Might even be reverse osmosis deionized. Who knows. Keem in mind, however, we are only looking for the kind of bacteria that the health department is concerned about being in drinking water. E.Coli, Fecal coliform, etc. There will likely be other kinds of "safe" bacteria inside, but won't up on our tests. You don't want ANY bacteria in water you will be storing. What I did was take one of those "clean" bottles and add some straight bleach. Shook it around for a while with the lid on, making sure the entire inside was coated. When I rinsed it out, I only used deionized water. To avoid recontaminating it from tap water. (because tap water can carry algae) When I was finished, I was reasonably assured the container was sterile. Obviously there is always a chance that an airborne dust particle with bacteria got into it, but a person can only do so much. If you kill all of the living critters (virii, bacteria, algae, etc), you are good to go. Life can't spring from nothing. Pure water won't go bad in a sterile environment. It might get a funny smell or taste from the plastic container. |