Water storage can be so easy.
I remembered that I wanted to put new water in all the containers when I came home from the grocery store with what will soon be more containers. If you are anything like my family of four, you come home with two bottles of juice (for my kids) and two 2 liters of diet soda (for me and the husband) each week. My kids kind of love juice and we kind of love diet soda, over ice, for our evening snack.
Hey it is better than ice cream.
Back to the storage.
It has been so simple to build up our water storage.
Each week I just rinse with dish soap the juice containers. I wash them inside and out and remember to wash the lid. Then I fill them with new water, and store them.
It is recommended to store a 2 week supply of water at the very least. That is 1 gallon of water per person per day. We have a few large 10 gallon storage containers of water, but most of our water storage is juice containers and 2 liter bottles. And each week (I try to remember) not to throw the bottles out, but fill them for storage. The collection is getting fairly large, though we don't have much more than our two week supply- and it took me most the evening to do this project.
I believe my system will get even easier with time. When I have around 100 gallons stored, then I will stop refilling, date my water and then just replace the oldest four with the new four each week. That way my containers are newer and I will never have to replace all the water in one day. It will only take me a minute each week to keep the supply always new.
Well I think it is a good plan anyway.
A few more tips to keep your water storage safe with this simple plan.
-You don't have to add bleach if you water is chlorinated... and most tap water is.
-Make sure you are using juice and 2 liter bottles- not other containers or milk cartons that could deteriorate and pollute your water.
-Be sure to not store the water containers on the cement as chemicals can seep into your water supply. If you want to store the water in your basement just throw a piece of cardboard or plywood down underneath.
-Make sure your storage is not stored in an area with too much light or heat.
-Rotate the water out at least once a year.... but maybe be smart and do it on a day when your lawn or garden could use the old water.
Want to calculate how fast you can get your two weeks storage just by filling empty food grade containers.
Our family empties 2 juice containers and 2 2 liter bottles of soda each week. We may be heavy drinkers :)
but I think this is close to average.
1 juice bottle and 1 2 little bottle = almost exactly 1 gallon.
which means we are adding 2 gallons of stored water to our storage each week.
Our family of four needs aprox 54 gallons to meet a 2 week requirement-
54 gallons /2 gallons per week means in 28 weeks your family of four could have water storage for 2 weeks too.
I rinse my bottles with bleach before I add the water. When I first started doing this we were using well water that wasn't chlorinated & it just became a habit. I'm not good at rotating the water so if we had to drink it we would need to boil it first. We use large sports drink bottles as well as the juice & soda bottles. Having the water in containers of this size is very handy. It would be easy for each person to grab a bottle or two if you had to evacuate & we usually take a couple of them with us when we travel or when we take the dogs out for a hike. I use the older bottles for pet water & for cleaning emergencies in the basement. Our only water source in the basement is the washing machine, which isn't very handy if you need water in a hurry. The bottles work great. My husband even built a "watercase" to put them on. It's similar to a bookcase only much, much stronger. The shelves are spaced so the bottles can stand upright. We've been storing water this way for over ten years.
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