Tag Archives: water filter

Plenty of Water, For Now

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I woke up the other day and shuffled over to the toilet. As I prepared to go, I noticed the water was off-color; not terrible discolored, but not clear. After I flushed, the water was still off-color. I lifted the lid off the tank and nothing seemed amiss there. I went and looked at the downstairs toilet, it was also discolored. I began to get concerned.

I know that the water that goes into the toilet comes from the same source as water that goes to the sink, and since the toilet water didn’t look right I became worried about our drinking water. As a list of possible problems, and back-up water solutions, went through my head I mentioned it to Sarah. She casually reminded me that there had been signs up around the neighborhood that they were going to be flushing the water lines, and it was probably related to that. I flushed the toilet a few times, ran the sink for a little while, and they both again ran clear. Crisis averted (more like never existed).

BUT, this made me reflect on one of our most important basic needs: clean drinking water. It was nice to know that our family is prepared for this type of emergency, we have:

  • water storageover 50 gallons of water stored in the garage (most in repurposed 2-liter soda bottles, which can also be reused for solar disinfection).
  • two 50-gallon barrels of water in the backyard.
  • two 50-gallon rain barrels in the backyard. We use these regularly, but here in Western WA they stay filled pretty well.
  • berkey filtera Berkey family size water filter
  • a small pond a block away (and 5-gallon water cans for collection/transport)
  • several unopened gallons of bleach
  • a 50-gallon water heater
  • extra fuel to boil water

Restating from one of my early posts, But Water Is Heavy!, “. . . you can only live three to four days without access to clean drinking water. The ‘average’ adult human body is composed of approximately 60% water, the brain 75%.

“Before a disaster strikes, water is an easy thing to acquire and store. It is cheap and available. To get your recommended three-day emergency supply, you can buy commercially bottled water for less than $1 a gallon. Do the math for what is needed for your family, spend the money and put it somewhere safe and you’re done. If you want to fill your own: use clean, food-grade, plastic containers. Two-liter soda bottles work very well, avoid using milk jugs (they’re not meant for longer storage). If the containers are clean and the water is clean there is no need to add bleach.”

The first thing you should do, when you begin to prepare–before you do anything else–is to store water.

 

Momma Bear: An Inexpensive Water Filter System

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“Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.”  -Nelson Mandela

When I first became a prepper, I found the idea of water purification, and the expense of the many different purifiers on the market, to be a little overwhelming. When preparing for any disaster or grid-down scenario, it is imperative that each and every one of us know as many ways as possible to purify water. In our BOBs we carry both purification tablets and filters that attach to the end of our Nalgene water bottle straws. But, for mass water purification, it seems like there is no way to get clean water on the cheap except for bleach. In a perfect world we would all be rich enough to afford the best preps available, but this is the real world and I was a little depressed by the expense of water purifiers. But then I accidentally ran across Waves for Water.

Waves for Water is a non-profit organization, spear-headed by professional surfers and supported by the surf company Hurley International, that provides water filters to those in need. Their goal is to bring clean drinking water (filters) to as many people as possible, primarily distributed by surfers bringing the filters to the third world nations in which they are surfing. It is a rather unique grass roots effort and I applaud them for it. The extra cool thing (in my opinion) is that they sell these filters to anyone, hoping that you will take some with you as a donation on your next vacation to a third world county.

Waves for Water’s primary “family sized” filter is a silver-impregnated ceramic filter, meeting NSF standards (they also have a “community size” filter). I will not go into the specific statistics of its filtration such as microns and gallons and such (please see their website). But I will say that I was satisfied enough that I bought my filter for the low price of $25 (I think the shipping was like $12-15 though)! At this point I only have the one, but will be adding more as I balance out my preps (since we all know that building up our resources takes time and money).

The filter itself is designed for the two bucket stacking method that many people use with the Berkey filters. It comes with the filter, a pre-filter sock, the spigot for the bottom bucket, and directions. There are also extensive directions and a video on the website. Like the other setups of this kind, it only took a couple of drill bits, two food safe buckets with lids, and I was in the water filtering business.

This method is a slow filtering method designed for at home use. It is NOT an emergency style filtering device for use on the go. It was an inexpensive opportunity for my family to be able to have clean drinking water while also contributing to a grass-roots effort to bring water to those in need. I recognize that there are many other water filtration methods available out there, some that might not be generally heard of. If you know of others, I would love to learn more.

What filtration method do you use?

(Friday: What We Did This Week To Prep)

Leah writes as ‘Momma Bear‘ from the perspective of the woman in the family being the main prepper (her husband is active-duty USMC and frequently gone). She is a regular contributer with her posts appearing the third Wednesday of each month. See her other post: Momma Bear Is The Prepper.