In the past I'd add a capful or 5-6 drops of liquid bleach per 5 gallons of water for storage purposes.

These days it's almost impossible to find bleach without thickeners added to it, does that same ratio still hold true?

Maybe look into purification tablets or run it through a 5 gallon bucket purifier (I have the ceramic dome purifiers that mount in 2 buckets).

You can probably find bleach like you want at the dollar stores / dollar general in your area.

I store and collect rain but my plan is more about filtering/distilling when needed

Well I think the idea behind the bleach is to add it to prevent any microbial growth over time.

The issue with liquid bleach is that it quickly loses its potency (I think I read once that it loses 50% potency after 6 months).

I have always added a cup of bleach per thousand gallons of rainwater, and maybe twice a year for water that sat unused, which lines-up with what the SS said.

Not really an issue for me, I rotate it every six months or so when adding bleach.

Have not been able to find any of the regular/non thick bleach for sometime now so have been rotating it once a month.  It's only two 5 gallon containers so not that big of a deal.

I use a two part strategy.

A 55gal plastic barrel for non-potable water that I do add a 1/4 cup of bleach to every now & then. It is in the basement utility/prep room with a simple 1 gallon bucket to dip & transport as needed.

For drinking/cooking, multiple sized containers that are in used rotation.
We keep:
a couple 5-6 gallon Reliance AquaTainer jugs (a spare parts kit for the jugs also on the shelf)
a couple traditional water cooler jugs. I have an accessory hand pump for those
a couple 3 gallon camping jugs with pour spouts
a dozen or so 1 gallon water bottles/jugs.  These have proven very handy & durable. Clear plastic with blue handle available at Meijer/Walmart.
Always 4-6 cases of bottled water.
I also have a couple Igloo type 5 gallon water coolers though I do not keep water in those all the time.

All of these serve double duty for us as well. We often camp (5th wheel or truck camper) off the grid in out of the way places like the Arizona desert. The 1 gallon jugs travel with us as they store easily and are also easy to handle.

We have also found that clear plastic orange juice containers are durable, easy to store and use.

Last item we have for water prep's is a Katadyn hiker hand pump carbon filter.

Go to a Pool store and buy Calcium Hypochlorite (pool shock). Also get a test kit.  Treat your water at 4-6 ppm....it's the military way. You actually can go 2 ppm with clean, known source water.

Tons of it on Amazon as well.

what about bottled water  , indefinite?

Those plastic bottles tend to break down and leak after a few years, so not the best for long term storage.

No way to keep a fresh source with something like a spring house or hand pump?

No matter what, if you get to the point of needing stored water you will never be able to store what you really need
to sustain anything long.  Best to find a natural source and have the ability to purify it.  That's not to say you shouldn't
always have 20 gallons stored, it just isn't going to last.

I wonder if the pool shock degrades like liquid bleach does?

Amen and Awomen.

Find reliable sources of water in your area, then figure out how you will access, filter and transport it if necessary.

For long-term storage, you should be using 8 drops of bleach for every gallon of water.

I gave up on the idea of long term water storage. I keep a few packs of plastic bottles handy at all times, but that's about it. There's a stream about 200 yards from my house, and I have large containers and a hand pump to collect it if need be. Also have a large Berkey Gravity filter, as well as a few other backup filters if the Berkey goes tits up.

As posted in the survival forum

"From EPA website

"You can use granular calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water.
Add and dissolve one heaping teaspoon of high-test granular calcium hypochlorite (approximately z ounce) for each two gallons of water, or 5 milliliters (approximately 7 grams) per 7.5 liters of water.

The mixture will produce a stock chlorine solution of approximately 500 milligrams per liter, since the calcium hypochlorite has available chlorine equal to 70 percent of its weight.

To disinfect water, add the chlorine solution in the ratio of one part of chlorine solution to each 100 parts of water to be treated. This is roughly equal to adding 1 pint (16 ounces) of stock chlorine to each 12.5 gallons of water or (approximately ? liter to 50 liters of water) to be disinfected.

To remove any objectionable chlorine odor, aerate the disinfected water by pouring it back and forth from one clean container to another."


I have read that "high-test calcium hypochlorite" means 78%.





I figured that out of the big three (food/water/shelter) this was the one thing that would probably do the most good for the SF community.

REMEMBER - when using liquid bleach to purify water, the formulas all are counting on bleach to be about 5-7% strength...which after 6 months of shelf storage is no longer a sure thing with liquid bleach. Storing liquid bleach long term isn't effective, as it will loose its effectiveness after 3-6 months link

Storing granular calcium hypochlorite (pool shock) is cheap and easy and the shelf life is much longer.

30 bucks of the right sort of pool shock would probably purify a lifetimes worth of drinking water for several people in ideal conditions. I first read about this on SF and didn't figure this out all on my own but I did do the research with help from SF and refined things to this point:

Here is what I found: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/faq/emerg.html

Pay attention to the section on granular calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water. Read the whole thing as it paints a big picture to understand but I really liked the idea of being able to treat a lot of water, for just a couple bucks.

Granular calcium hypochlorite is available from Leslie's pool supply in 73% strength with a minimum average yield of 70% chlorine - perfect for what we need. (see pic for example of product) Its sold as common everyday Pool Shock.

Read the label of the pool shock closely! All you want to use for this is high concentration of Granular Calcium Hypochlorite and nothing else. Be careful to avoid the multi-function pool shocks that have chemicals like algicides and other 'multi function 4-in-1' products. All you want is Calcium Hypochlorite at 65% or stronger. Don't worry about the ingredients listed as 'other' those are the inert parts to keep the concentrations down to where they want them. So long as no other chemical is specifically listed then its OK.

Materials needed (maybe 10 bucks worth of stuff):
1 bag of Leslie's 73% Calcium Hypochlorite Pool Shock ($4)
a couple 5 gallon buckets ($0 - $5 depending on how you get them)
a funnel ($1)
a couple empty bleach containers ($0 save them as you use them normally)

Step 1: Make bleach
1 heaping teaspoon of pool shock makes 2 gallons of bleach
- place 2 gallons of water into a 5 gallon bucket
- place 1 heaping *teaspoon* of pool shock into bucket
- stir into solution thoroughly
- place funnel into empty 1 gallon bleach container
- pour 1 gallon out of bucket into bleach container
- repeat for other bleach container

Now you have made two gallons of normal household bleach that you can use for anything you would normally use bleach for like cleaning, disinfecting etc.

Step 2: Use bleach to disinfect water
- 2.5 *tablespoons* of bleach solution goes into 1 gallon of water for disinfecting
- stir into solution and wait 30 mins
- sample taste the disinfected water, if it tastes too strong of chlorine then aerate the water by simply pouring 1 gallon from one container into another a couple times and this will help remove the objectionable taste, if any.

Leslies Pool Shock"

How about using the water from the 35,000 gallon swimming pool i have in my yard? Its already treated, can it be filtered and used in an emergency?

Some notes when I set up a few 50 gal drums in basement:

-Use Regular household bleach, with the only 'active' ingredient 'sodium hypochlorite'.

-Pay attention to the % of sodium hypchlorite.  Old version of bleach had 5.25%. New stuff seems to have 8.25%

-For the new Bleach (8.25%):  6 drops per gallon, 1/4 tsp per 5 gal, 1/2 tsp 10 gal, and 3tsp for 50 gal. [6ppm]

-Bleach[sodium hypchlorite] breaks down fairly quickly. That means perfectly safe and free of bleach by the time you need to open your water storage.

-Add bleach first. Then water to ensure completely mixed

-The goal is to have the bleach kill any bacteria and pathogens in water. Creating a sterile environment for storage. Similar to the food canning process.  Minus the Bleach.

-No need to cycle water often. Will stay good for LONG time if in a properly sealed container. Water does not go bad. But can be contaminated. So long as you bleach properly and seal it properly, And no light allowed to reach water. You will have a barrel of sterilized water that will last. Maybe 2 years cycle to be on the safe side. If you ever open it, cycle it and re-sterilize with bleach if not using water.

I just rotate every 6 months when setting clocks forward and back.

Have well + gen,  FW creek, and local enough to 3000 gal tank on gen for Amish.

This!  I have 2 really good water wells, its what my house uses.  I ordered an old fashioned well bucket just in case SHTF long term with no power.
My next purchase is going to either be a solar pump or deep draft hand pump.  My wells are 113 and 118 feet with the water table starting around 50 feet.

Not an expert, but my experience.

rinse container with standard bleach.

Pour off excess.

Run water source (usually tub or utility sink) for a few min to flush your in home line a bit so you are drawing from your water main.

fill with city water. It's treated with chlorine or chlorimines so I'm of the mindset that I want to keep that in there instead of pre-filtering.

rotate on whatever schedule you want.

i forgot about mine for 3 years. Drank a pint when covid started. Tasted good, no visible floaties. Stomach / bowels were fine afterwards. Ymmv

Pool shock is tough to store. It comes in thin plastic packages, and even if put into a single zip-lock bag, it will still slowly out-gas. I found this out when some I had stored this way on a basement metal shelf became very corroded over time. Then I tried putting some in glass Ball canning jars, with a white plastic screw on lid. That worked for a while, but after a year or two, the plastic became very brittle (probably from the chlorine) and the powder absorbed moisture from the air and was ruined so I dumped it. Ball sells a much heavier duty plastic screw lid now that might work better. But I think an all glass jar with a silicon seal might work best since the glass is impervious. You don't need to stockpile a lot. One jar will do it since 2.5 tablespoons makes 1 gallon of bleach, and 8 drops of bleach works for a gallon of water.

I was keeping the pool shock primarily for my pool, and also would make up my own bleach for cleaning, and finally, figured having an extra few packs are always good back up insurance for water disinfection since I already was buying the stuff. But it is tough to store long term. It's corrosive stuff that will dissipate easily.

I have no idea if you really had an airtight seal if it would last for years or not.

Just be VERY CAREFUL on how the pool shock is stored. An open container (it will rot some containers) in a garage can rust everything in the garage in a few weeks.

The military water pure kits has glass ampules that contain the appropriate amount of CA2 for a canvas water bag. The reason it’s stored in glass ampules is because chlorine gas is corrosive.

Purchase bleach tablets and make your own bleach. They will store longer than liquid bleach.




Another option is to use water backpacking purification tablets... that's pricey but I rotate my supply of these couple of years and they would be disposed of anyhow so I use up the "old" ones in my water storage.