It's raining like cats and dogs here and I'm watching all that precious water sink into the ground or run down the street. How do you save it? Should I just go out and put buckets under the downspouts? After I've collected it, how do I treat it and store it? Can I dig some type of cistern in my backyard? Also concerning water I'm confused at what I've been reading. It seems as if you can store water from your faucet in barrels, water bags or whatever without treating it. Will it be safe to drink indefinitely? And water that you buy bottled in those plastic bottles, I understand the plastic is not good so the water should be transferred to the right container. When you break the seal on the plastic bottles, does that mean you have to retreat the water? Sorry if these questions are dumb or have been answered before. Please be patient with we newbies. Thanks for the help. Noah

-- Noah (Noah's Ark@prodigy.net), January 31, 1999

Answers

Try an above ground swimming pool. Somewhere on the net is a set of plans for a solar water pasteurization set up. If you cannot find it, come back and I'll post it(I don't have the url, just the article).

Hugh Glass

-- Hugh Glass (HughGlass@hotmail.com), January 31, 1999.

Sorry for the wrong email address. Don't bug the guy with the other one.

-- Hugh Glass (HughGlass2000@hotmail.com), January 31, 1999.

and you can fuck off too Noah

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 31, 1999.

Andy -- This sort of spastic response contributes nothing.

Maybe you've got hemorrhoids? If so, get help. They tend to make a person cranky.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), January 31, 1999.

Tom, correct me if I'm wrong, but Noah is about to pour forth......."

"It's raining like cats and dogs here and I'm watching all that precious water sink into the ground or run down the street. How do you save it? Should I just go out and put buckets under the downspouts? After I've collected it, how do I treat it and store it? Can I dig some type of cistern in my backyard? Also concerning water I'm confused at what I've been reading. It seems as if you can store water from your faucet in barrels, water bags or whatever without treating it. Will it be safe to drink indefinitely? And water that you buy bottled in those plastic bottles, I understand the plastic is not good so the water should be transferred to the right container. When you break the seal on the plastic bottles, does that mean you have to retreat the water? Sorry if these questions are dumb or have been answered before. Please be patient with we newbies. Thanks for the help. Noah"

My advice? Build an ark.

Get a grip Tom, these Trolls are all over the place !!!

Andy the bearded lady - come On Tom!! 11 months to go...

1 mechanism.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 31, 1999.

For any newbies that might be interested in 'The Solar Puddle' - A new water pasteurization technique for large amounts of water - the URL is:

www.accessone.com/~sbcn/puddle.htm

-- Carol (usa-uk@email.msn.com), January 31, 1999.

Thanks for the help Hugh and Carol. I reread my question several times and am really confused as to what it was that set Andy off. It sounded like a legitimate question(s) to me. Please clue me in, Andy. Because of responses like yours, many people will feel too intimidated to ask questions that might save their lives. If this Y2K thing is frustrating you that much maybe you better chill for awhile. I accept your apology. Noah

-- Noah (Noah's Ark@prodigy.net), January 31, 1999.

Wow Andy! Mellow... Noah asked a great question.

Noah, check out this site, http://www.artrans.com/rmsg/toc.htm They have info on just about everything.

-- d (d@dgi.com), January 31, 1999.

Noah and any other newbies that might be interested this is for you:

We are saving all plastic soda bottles (and pastic milk containers). I realise that the milk containers are biodegradable, however, we decided that seeing as we have started making late preparations the estimated 100 or so plastic milk containers we manage to save between now and towards the end of the year shall get used up pretty quickly with four people and two dogs. We shall fill them as late in the year as we feel comfortable with and shall use them up first.

We have already filled a few with straight tap water and sealed the tops with melted candle wax as an experiment to see how that works.

I have read that filling clean containers with straight tap water should be good for a year. That's what we plan to do. I plan to thoroughly clean out our used containers and fill them with straight tap water.

I purchased two 7 gallon containers from our local 'Sports Authority'. We have a creek nearby and hopefully if we manage to survive rioting, looting, and any sewage back-ups we can use these 7 gallon containers to put water in from the creek. We all have bicycles and my son has a small trailer that he can attach to the back of his - he currently uses it to lug around his lawn mower, etc. to lawns in and just beyond our neighborhood. Anyhow we thought it might come in useful to lug around the two 7 gallon containers filled with water.

I have ordered a Berkefeld Water Filter with extra elements to last two years. The URL for this is:

www.web2.airmail.net/foodstr2/

It was the cheapest price I could find.

We do not have a water filter (BRITA, etc.) at present; although we have been thinking of getting one for a while. Now we shall have one that costs quite a bit more than what we would have paid for a BRITA, however, it too shall be useful for camping. We felt it a necessity and shall have to reconcile ourselves to the expense, just like we do when we pay all the various insurance policies we carry.

We have been using the two and a half gallon containers with water for a few years. I have stopped buying those now and now get the gallon ones to save and refill. NOTE: I bought some water in gallon containers two weeks ago from a grocery store that we haven't used before and the expiration date is Jan 2000. I was thinking of going back there occasionally over the next few months and build up our water supply a little using this water.

We are still looking at larger containers to hold water. We are leaning towards something called the 'AquaFlex' formerly 'Softank'. The URL for this is:

www.y2ksupplyco.com/aquaflex.html

We haven't addressed the outside issue of collecting rain water/snow. I have all sorts of grandiose ideas swimming around in my head. Wouldn't it be great to connect pipes running from gutters into the house into containers.

Anyhow our plans are somewhat up in the air. We are planning to be in the UK for the big event. However, do feel the need to make preparations here to be on the safe side. Our initial goal is for three months which we have just about completed.

I am collecting information such as building a well - URL:

ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dvallen/chicago1.jpg

'The Solar Puddle' as mentioned before and other information that I think might come in useful for the community should we be faced with a complete disaster.

I hope this is of help and good luck to you all.

-- Carol (usa-uk@email.msn.com), January 31, 1999.

Carol:

Please don't use the plastic milk jugs to store water. No matter how good you may have cleaned them, there can be unpleasant organisms left in the microscopic pores of the plastic. They will migrate out when you fill the jugs with water and contaminate it. They will then proceed to go about their main job - breaking down the walls of the jugs. Milk jugs are designed to self-destruct *on-purpose* in a fairly short span of months. Might I suggest that you use something like 2-liter soda bottles in their place? They will be a safer and longer-lasting alternative.

-- Why2K (who@knows.com), January 31, 1999.

Why2K,

Thank you for the advice. I had never seen it explained like that before. We already are saving both 2 and 3 litre soda bottles. However, don't normally drink that much soda so were supplementing with the milk containers. I shall scrub that idea now and add to the supply some other way.

Thanks again.

-- Carol (usa-uk@email.msn.com), January 31, 1999.

If you have the room and have a CocaCola/Pepsi bottling company near you, you can purchase used 50 gallon plastic drums that syrup came in for water storage. I rinsed mine out with bleach and water and then filled them with water and bleach (6 drops per gallon of water). I have them stored under my house where it stays cool, dark and dry. This is a great way to store a lot of water in very little space. Expect to pay around $5-10 each for the drums.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 31, 1999.

My guess at what ticked Andy off is that people (especially newbies) just go ahead and post redundant "New Questions" that HAVE BEEN COVERED OVER AND OVER AGAIN on other threads in this forum.

GO TO THE BOTTOM OF MAIN PAGE ON THIS FORM AND LOOK AT THE OLD STUFF BEFORE SUBMITTING A "NEW QUESTION"!!

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 01, 1999.

.

-- A (A@AisA.com), February 01, 1999.

Noah, I am going with the following options, not permanent, but enough to see me through a lengthy transition in the burbs:

Drinking water: 200 gallon food-grade collapsible "waterbags" from www.watertanks.com. (Still available at the sale price of $89. The web site shows how an apartment dweller incorporated the waterbag under her bed. A real space-saver.) 5-gallon collapsible camping containers ($5-6 per). My plan (right or wrong) is not to treat the water, but to fill the containers with tap water next December. (Risking waiting too long to stockpile drinking water is the weak link in my contingency planning.) Non-drinking water: 75-gallon "deluxe rain barrels" from Gardeners' Supply in Vermont: http://www.gardeners.com/gardeners/-06-323.html $110 each, or $200 per. (I got mine on sale over XMAS time.) These barrels are designed to fit under downspouts and have lots of fancy attachments. Bacteria and viruses are easily killed by a small camping water filter or by boiling the water for at least 10 minutes. But I do have to wonder what kind of junk will come off the roof. (I am having my roof reshingled this spring. I can't tell from other posts whether that makes the water more or less toxic than before.) I have coveted these barrels for a number of years for my garden, so y2k was my excuse to finally treat myself.

Someone on a former thread warned that regular plastic trash cans would fall apart in a few weeks under the strain. I believe all the options I have described above will be very rugged. Since I will be storing most of the water in my (sumpless) basement, this is very important to me, not to mention losing the water if I really need it. I do have quite a collection of 22-gallon heavy duty rubbermaid containers. I may sacrifice one this summer to find out how long it will really hold up.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), February 01, 1999.

If you want more information and answers than you will ever need go to yahoo and type in "rainwater harvesting" into the search engine. You might also type in "rainwater cistern" in another search. You will find out that some states give a tax credit to those who harvest rainwater. Texas gives a LOT of help to people who want to know about harvesting rainwater. YES IT IS ENCOURAGED FOR CITY DWELLERS TO INSTALL SUCH SYSTEMS. It is part of a still yet little known part of the move to "sustainable development" You will actually be ahead of the rest of us if you look to install a cistern. There is a time coming when it will be required. (That plan is in place regardless of what Y2K does) One of the things I found out is that LIGHT CAUSES WATER TO GO BAD. Your cistern should be dark inside. Various things will grow in a dark cool water cistern but not things that make it undrinkable. My husbands family raised a large family (like all their neighbors) in a huge home in West VA with nothing but a cistern and hand pump for water to the house because in those mountains the water level is too far underground to drill a well. Many, many of the homes for hundreds of years in that part of the country have relied upon cisterns to collect the rainwater off a tin roof. The suggestion to use an above ground pool as a temporary cistern is one I plan to use. My 3foot deep by 15foot diameter pool cost me $150 at costco last summer and will hold over 3500 gallons of water. A thousand square foot roof will yeild 660 gallons of water in a one inch rain. the pool will fill up fast around here. Most people discard the first 15 to 20 minutes of rainwater that comes off the roof to reduce pollutants from the roof. You can use a large panty hose over a barrell to keep out large leaves, pine needles etc. There is much to be learned from the MANY MANY RAINWATER HARVESTING SITES ON THE WEB

-- Ann Fisher (zyax55b@prodigy.com), February 02, 1999.

Noah, if you want a cistern, then put one in. However, do not make the mistake of calling it a cistern. Tell people you are fixing your septic tank, or any other explanation that will make them go away happy. If you tell them the truth, expect someone to call some city bureaucrat who will then come down on you like a load of bricks, or worse.

-- b (b@b.b), February 02, 1999.

Some lucky folks already have them - know at least 2 families whose bought older homes in the city still have ye old coal bin and cisterns intact. The biggest problem - finding long ago covered and plugged inlets/outlets and confirming that walls hadn't been compromised - it would be a real mess to fill it only to have a wall collapse and flood the basement or even undermine that side of the house.

-- john hebert (jt_hebert@hotmail.com), February 02, 1999.