Great difficulty making potable water

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

In some instances the answer is yes, Hawk. When that happens it is called supercharging. This normally happens when there is a very heavy rainfall and there is no back flow device in place to prevent the the huge volume of water from backing up into your home. Have a handy person either install one or call a plumber if your home doesn't have one of these already.

[Lizw]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

What happens if the sewers backup. Is it possible for it to back up into a home? If so, how would one keep this from occurring?

What happens is an unbelievably nasty mess. One office I worked in was in the basement level of a multi-story building. The sewer line down the hill from us was crushed by a heavy truck, and for a whole weekend, when no one was in the offices below, people were using the toilets in the retail store above us. Guess where it all went

Do what Shannon said and have a backflow device installed (basically a check valve). And then consider not using flush toilets at all. A sawdust toilet is an easy alternative, and the media doesn't have to be sawdust. We use composted leaves from the woods. You can get a toilet seat that fits on a 5-gallon bucket (or a 7-gallon ale pail, if you prefer the higher version). If you don't want to switch until you have to, you could at least try it out to make sure everyone in the family knows how to use it and that you have the materials on hand to put one together. An enclosure is nice, but not obligatory.

[LMonty]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

have you got a pressure cooker? rather important if you need to sterilize anything, such as surgical instruments, or if you need to preserve low acid foods.

Also makes a dandy still.

purchase some copper tubing that fits over the hole the pressure guage sits on. make it long enough to be coiled a couple of times then extend over a collecting vessel. (4 or 5 ft long should be plenty) . make sure the distal end of the tubing is lower than the top of the canner. place the collecting vessel under the open end of the tubing. fill canner with water, put on cover, affix tubing. place on heat source, withthe distal end of tubing over the collection vessel. Bring water in canner to a slow boil. the stream is going to travel thru the tubing, condensing as it the temperature decreases. condensate should be quite safe to drink or use for medical purposes if kept sterile or clean until use.

large volumes are problematic with one canner, but can be solved by using more than one canner. burns are a possible downside so safety issues do need to be considered, and never remove the canners popoff valve. (pressure isnt really needed for this, just the lid in place to allow collection of steam into the tubing). Avoid "boiling dry" the canner to prevent damage to the system. depending on the canner model used, you may remove the lid gasket to prevent possible damage to it since pressure isnt needed. I do not recommend purshasing canner with dial guages, siince they need to be calibrated yearly before use.

Toggle guage canners do not need this step, which could be unavailable in long term SHTF scenarios.

Another downside is having to create the coiled pipe and fit to the nipple the toggle guage sits on. not technically difficult, but probably should be done before need. a practice run will help ensure that any bugs in the system can be taken care of now while the living is easy. (IMHO, we should always practice preps BEFORE we need them!!) Another downside is that nosy neighbors and others seeing this set up might assume that you are doing things that the average citizen hasnt been allowed to do since long before Prohibition. Discretion to avoid misunderstanding and the scrutiny of ATF agents might be wise.

benefits are that the equipment is cheap, easy to obtain, used canners are often available very inexpensively (Ive paid as little as USD5 for one very large one). They are also multipurpose, since can be used for food preservation, water purification, distillation of liquids such as might be needed for medical purposes, and expedient sterilization, etc. I love multipurpose preps. Makes the most of my limited prep budget.

BTW, in regard to the Rubicon article, there is also a grocery chain named Lowes.

[Tea]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

I wanted to share another link. These are for personal use, or you can donate to areas that need them. Options for organizations also. Their intentions are primarily for third world countries, but maybe someone will find they need this for personal use also. Great backup at the very least. Once full, you will not be moving it.. lol

$75 for 10 years.

It removes parasites, bacteria, and viruses from contaminated water making it safe to drink. It?s the first point-of-use technology of its kind that is designed to deliver safe water for a family for more than 10 years.

http://www.hydraid.org/

[Lizw]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

BTW, in regard to the Rubicon article, there is also a grocery chain named Lowes.

Thanks for the handy instructions on making a still. And you must live in my general neck of the woods if you know about Lowe's Supermarkets. That's our local one. Anywhere out of this area, people go "Huh?" if you say you get your groceries from Lowe's.

[Lizw]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

I wanted to share another link. These are for personal use, or you can donate to areas that need them. Options for organizations also. Their intentions are primarily for third world countries, but maybe someone will find they need this for personal use also. Great backup at the very least. Once full, you will not be moving it.. lol

And if you want to build one yourself, here are the instructions for doing it, along with a lot of good general information about filtering.

[Possibilities]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

Thanks for the article on the sand filter. The one that I had didn't have such excellent photos or such descriptive words on the construction.

I think if everyone thinks about the short term supply of chlorine at the water departments across the country, not to mention the fact that we may be short of employees there. Finding a source of water, and purifying it may very well be our greatest challenge long term.

[Lizw]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

I think if everyone thinks about the short term supply of chlorine at the water departments across the country, not to mention the fact that we may be short of employees there. Finding a source of water, and purifying it may very well be our greatest challenge long term.

It's been raining here for most of the last month. Aggravates the dickens out of me that I can't work on the garden, but my rain barrels are full

Rainwater, everyone. It does take some care and a lot of filtering to make it safe to drink, but there are methods that work. SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection) is a simple one used widely around the world. Doesn't get harmful chemicals out of your water, but it does take care of viruses that are too small to be filtered out.

[Possibilities]

Re: Great difficulty making potable water

http://student.designawards.com.au/application_detail.jsp?status=4&applicationID=5898

Here's a cool setup of a solar distillation unit with multiple sections to distill water into several containers. It's not commercially available. It uses existing technology just is lightweight. I suspect you would need a very large unit to produce enough water to distill for a family of four per day. You also need a water source and or rainwater.