When it comes to survival, water is only second to air in order of importance. While a man can go without food for 30 days, without water, he’ll be in severe pain within 3 days and may perish soon after. Water is key to survival.
During a survival situation, your access to potable water is crucial. While you can use water from a lake or river to wash your clothes, flush your toilet, and wash your dishes – you’ll need potable water for drinking, cooking, and treating wounds.
There’s a difference. More important tasks require clean drinking water. Let’s look at a few water storage tips for preppers.
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Plan early
The whole idea or being a ‘prepper’ is that you must prepare. Storing water is not a difficult task… but there are a few factors to consider.
You’ll need to count how many family members you have. Do you have pets? They need water too. You should store about 3 gallons of water per person per day. I drink 1 gallon a day myself. It’s not a lot when you consider I don’t drink sodas, juice coffee, or tea. I also cook with water every day.
1 gallon a day for a (big) dog should suffice. Another point to be aware of is the climate. If you live in a place that is exposed to hot weather, everyone is going to perspire more and need more water.
Once you have done the math, you’ll have a good idea of just how much water you need to store. The bare minimum is 3 days. You need to have enough water to last everyone for 3 days. You should prepare for much longer, however. Minimum effort will get minimal results.
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How to store water
The vessels that you use to store your water will be dependent on the amount of space you have for storage. The more space you have at home, the more water you can – and should – store.
Water cooler jugs are a good way to store water. You can get them cheap, and you’ll need to change out the water every 6 months. Store the water in a cool, dark place. You can get the big 55-gallon blue water drums that you see in so many commercial buildings.
One 55-gallon drum will last about 18 days per person. So, if you have 4 members in your family, 4 of these blue water containers will last about 3 weeks.
Do note that the plastic containers should be BPA free. Look for the HDPE logo which shows that the plastic is safe for use.
An interesting point that you should be aware of is that the water will take on the ‘taste’ of the container after a while. For example, if you store water in old Coca-Cola bottles, after a week or so, the water will smell and slightly taste of Coke. So, be mindful of where you store your water.
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Conservation is key
No matter how much water you store, or how short the crisis may be, always conserve the water you have. Water that’s used to wash the vegetables for cooking, can be collected and used to flush the toilet.
The swimming pool that’s filled with water should be covered. You could use the water for washing clothes and flushing the toilet. Every bit of water you have is important. To flush the toilet, dump a bucket of water in the toilet and don’t be shy about it. Dump it all at once.
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Additional measures
Besides storing water, you should buy every single member in the family a water filtration bottle, a life straw, or both. There are many excellent bottles available on Amazon.
If you live near a lake, you can use these filtration bottles to drink the water from these water sources safely. The filter will remove 99.9% of the bacteria, parasites, and other nasties from the water.
Each bottle can be used hundreds of times. So, you’ll always have drinking water.
Purchase water purification tablets too. These will be used to purify large quantities of water. Even if you’ve stored water in a large barrel at home for a while, add a few water purification tablets into the barrel to be extra safe.
If you follow these tips, you’ll far ahead of most the population.