Storing To Stay Calm
Tips to Help You Store Water for the Next Disaster
Lois King
If you are a doomsday prepper or if you are simply concerned about protecting yourself and your family in the event of a natural disaster, then water may be at the top of your list of things that you want to keep handy. After all, you can live for a full three weeks without food, but you will perish within three to ten days if you do not have any fresh water available to you. If you want to store large quantities of water, then renting a storage space might be your best option. You will need to store the water correctly though. Keep reading to learn about some good water storage tips.
Store More Than Enough Water
Most emergency experts and government organizations indicate that you should have enough water on hand for you and your family to last about three days. Each member of your family will need about one gallon of water a day for sanitation and drinking purposes. For example, if there are four members of your family, then you will need to store about twelve gallons of water for the three day period. If you want to meet these basic water requirements, then you probably only need a small storage space. A mini storage unit will work well that is five feet by five feet or about 25 square feet in size. Since each gallon jug of water will take up about 231 cubic inches of space, you will have more than enough room for the water.
Each gallon jug of your water will take up about one-seventh of a cubic foot. This means that you can actually store about 175 gallons of water in a 25 square foot storage space. This will provide you and your family more than enough water for well over a month. Consider storing this much water for a serious emergency. You may not need all of the water yourself, but the extra can help in the case of a medical emergency or if neighbors or friends are in desperate need.
Make Sure Water Is Clean
If you do decide to fill up an entire storage space with water, then you probably do not want to purchase 175 gallon water jugs. This will greatly increase your costs. You should instead buy some large food grade plastic containers and fill them with regular tap water. Your best solution is to purchase two 55 gallon water barrels and a dozen or more camping water bottles that fit between five and seven gallons of water. Make sure the water barrels have polyethylene bungs, caps, or seals to close off the barrels tightly. This will keep your water safe from forming bacteria and algae.
Use your tap or a garden hose to fill up your jugs. You can treat your water with chlorine to reduce contamination risks. Tap water will already be treated with some chlorine if you use city or town water to fill up the jugs. However, you can add some more to make sure your water remains as clean as possible.
You will need to test the water first to see how much chlorine it contains. Purchase a colorimetric test kit to see how much chlorine is in the water. Water should contain about .3 and .5 milligrams of chlorine per liter. If the testing kit indicates that there is already close to .5 millgrams of chlorine per liter, then leave the water alone. Seal up the jugs and place the water in your storage container.
If the water contains the minimum amount of chlorine at about .3 milligrams per liter, then add a bit more chlorine to the water. You can do this with a chlorine water treatment liquid. To find out how much chlorine you need, figure out how many liters of water you have in each container. About 3.8 liters of water is equal to one gallon. This means that your 55 gallon drums contain about 14 liters of water. If you want to add .1 milligrams of chlorine to the 14 liters of water, then you will need to place 1.4 milligrams of chlorine into the container. A milligram is an extremely small measurement, so you probably only need to add one or two drops of the chlorine to your water containers. Make sure to read the package to see how many milligrams of chlorine are in each drop of the fluid.
For more information and assistance, be sure to contact services like Glenbrook Self Storage as you continue your preparations.
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