Weigh in on Water Purification for Survival.

Go old school. Move somewhere with access to clean water.

what happens when the filters run out, which they will?

[link to www.survivaloutdoorskills.com]

When SHTF you will be lucky to find water, or to even get near it.
Cities will not have any, Many artificial waterways and lakes will dry up.
Gangs and looters will set up ambushes for unwary water seekers.

So consider Bulk, size, since you will be transporting it to the water source. Also consider how fast it works and if it works without electrical power.

Many will say "OH I have a well and a generator".
Well when the marauding masses, hear your generator, they will run you off or burn you out.
But if you survive that, what happens when you run out of fuel?

Better yet learn Survival skills and forget technology, it WILL fail you eventually in a SHTF situation.

I have checked into springs in the area..but we could be dealing with contamination of the main water sources...so we will need filtration.

Excellent information! Thanks!

I'm not suggesting a filter not be in your travel bag or that having a berkey on the shelf is a bad idea. I'm just suggesting that if you can have a source close to home, its a good idea.

Never hurts to test your well - even if its an artesian well.

I am wanting a system that works off of gravity and I know eventually I will have to replace filters with filtering knowledge but at first I would like to have pre-made filters so that I can be sure all bacteria and such are removed.

your right ...I should cover as many bases as possible. Thank you

berky light is a fair value for the dollar

I'm a single mom too. I have several things set up
I fill my regular jugs (aquatainers) on a regular basis
Once I month I buy a 55 gal drum and fill that. So it doesn't get too expensive
I have a rain collect drum to use for cleaning not drinking
I freeze water in gallon milk jugs to have water and ice for refrigeration
I have water on my shop list just like I have toilet paper
I have 3 purification methods..a katadyn pump, the chlorine powder method and the charcoal method.
I also keep up with Brita filters

Then I still need to find 3 sources for water....
I live near a river and lots of creeks, a hillside that always runs off clean (not pure) water, I need to find a 3rd source yet

When the shit hitsa da fan, we won't need water anymore...

I will never, ever, EVER run out of water..... ever lol... And will always be able to go get more when I need it. I feel bad for everyone else.

Last Edited by Marax on 08/31/2012 03:13 PM

Having just compared: A Big Berkey gravity (midsize)comes with 2 black cartriges gives you the most in terms of broad spectrum filtration ie., dirt, organisms and chemicals.
Dual cartridges filter 6,000 gallons.
For flouride removal you need 2 more White cartridges that fit inside unit.
Ebay has them, comes in stainless or plastic. Me, I go with stainless for durability and temperature constancy.
It doesn't get better than that imho.

For pressure filtration I got a stainessless Multipure sinktop but this doesn't do nearly the # of gallons, it is serious purification though, similar to Berkey.
This unit's filter cartridge gets out flouride.

Consider if there is an event where the water is very questionable to drink you're going to go through your filter cartridges faster when the challenge to the filter is high.

Right now we're covered for everything's hunky dorey with the water supply.

When I can afford the Berkey plan to order one of those for the most use in a severe challenge.

I checked out the smaller 'pump' kinds which are good for the dirt impurities, but not for organisms and chemicals like the above units.

Berkey Big is approx 289.00 Multipure approx 319.00 (watch out for the price gougers on ebay & other places) many are reasonable & will throw in extras.

Good luck!

Probably wise to break it down . . .

You need short term supplies where you have immediate access to drinkable water such as bottled water. If you think you might be on the move then small purifiers might be good to have.

Medium term - where you'll need a big table top water purifier.

Then long term - arrangements for water harvesting and purification which provides a consistent supply of clean water.

Each requires a different approach but if you can tick those boxes then you are super prepared.

A drop of bleach might do the trick
[link to water.epa.gov]

We have to be careful with bleach here in uk as most of ours contain conditioners.

waterwise 1600 NON ELECTRIC destiller...i out mine on top of a parabolic solar oven. clean water powered by sun. brilliant.

Just recently Clorox & a store brand 'super-concentrated' the stuff meaning conditioners or what have you.
Whatever happened to plain simple bleaches that did the job quite well before they messed with it.
Meaning you can't trust toxicity now.

There are these straws you can buy. They filter a thousand litres of water each. You can drink right out of a pond with them. They aren't that expensive. Light weight. Can throw them into any bag. Can afford several of these and can bring them any where with you. Super straws. I think I saw them at My Patriot Store but they are probably other places too.

Hmm yes . . Less and less power in our hands to take care of things ourselves. If they can put a warning label on a bottle here then all seems well. People don't have a choice other than to be scared of every day chemicals.

In the old days, a drop of beach mixed by hand with a mild abrasive was all one had to do to get rid of limescale.

You have to really check those because of their limitations.
Generally they don't get out microrganisms like giardia and the like. Same limits on chemicals puddles or pondwater might contain.
So ask hard questions before you buy.

yes, the waterwise is great. also a sawyer water filter- 1 million gallon gurantee

Any specs on these pricing and spectrum of purification?
Thanks!

the waterwise is very expensive, the sawyer website has all the specs- 1 or 2 microns i believe

So us modestly positioned souls better go with the more attainable. Great if you can.

Long term survival...Hmm

Your best bet there is to learn how to turn logs into charcoal and then learn how to make a sand/charcoal water filter 'system'. Basically you build a fire pit, loaded and stacked in the form of a "hut" or log cabin. Then you bury it under a few feet of dirt or sand leaving a tiny hole at the top. You ignite the kindling, and once it starts burning you cover the hole to starve the fire of air.

48-72 hours later you have charcoal - during the process you have to stay on top for as the wood is charred, your 'hut' or 'log cabin' inside collapses slowly, thus you have to fill in dirt.

Wait about 24 more hours and then you can dig up the charred logs. The logs will be burnt through and through blackened, but not turned to ash. They have been carbonized.

Understand that charcoal brickettes have other things added to it that you do not want to drink. Charcoal brickettes are a by product of several manufacturing process and as a side effect the ones they sell for the BBQ are 'contaminated' by various other things. Safe to burn, unsafe to have water filtered by it for drinking. Now days they have self starting charcoal which has been processed with lighter fluid - definitely do not use that for water filtration.

Filtration systems use what is called activated charcoal. [link to www.ehow.com] is one such site that goes into detail about that.

In the long term I need to survive scenario activating charcoal is going to be problematic.

So you are going to have to use mechanical methods to make your charred logs (charcoal) better at filtration.

That mechanical method is simply grinding down the charcoal until it is a powder.

Activated Charcoal means you use far less charcoal to filter a volume of water. The process of activating charcoal opens up pores and gives more surface area to a bit of charcoal. Thus using normal charcoal, charred wood from your charring process, you will need to use 5-10 times more than what you would use in the way of activated charcoal.

You will need a 33 gallon trash can (clean with its sides solid/water proof) or a 55 gallon oil drum or similar.

Then you take a 10 penny nail (framing nail, a larger nail, not a thing nail) and you punch lots of tiny holes at the bottom of your container.

Next you lay in 3-4 inches of clean sand (beach sand, construction sand - something that has been sieved for a consistent particle size. Next lay in 6-10 inches of charcoal 'powder'.

While you will have the majority of your charcoal pulverized, there will be larger bits - you want to stay clear of pits larger than pea gravel. You do want a good mix of dust sized, sand sized and pea gravel sized.

As you lay it in you want to compress it good and tight. Use a hammer and hammer the charcoal in tight. You want to close up as many visible 'holes' and pours in the mixture as possible.

Lay in another 3-4 layer of sand, then another layer of 6-10 inch layer of charcoal. Fill the container until about 6 inches from the top.

The last layer should be sand, and on top of that you want to lay in something heavier, it can be bricks, river stone, large gravel - the idea is to have a thick enough layer to where when you pour water in it will not 'dig' into the sand.

Place over a tub or some catchment container. If you are real handy your filter will sit snugly and you will have a drain hose.

Slowly pour water over the top layer of gravel/brick whatever.

It should take a few to several minutes for that bucket of water to travel through the sand and charcoal.

This will remove the majority of particulate matter and many chemicals from lead to minerals.

There is a risk that some viruses will make it through. While the risk is low to where you can be relatively certain that a 'clean' source of water, such as a swimming pool, a stream, a river that is not used for sewage dumping upstream will be virus clean.

Such sources of water like the L.A. River, Mississippi and other traffic and sewage water dumping from sewage treatment plants you will need to boil for at least 15 minutes. That means bringing the water up to a full roiling boil for at least 15 minutes. 30 minutes is better, one hour is a best as that will kill just about any microbe found in 'fresh water' sources.

IF there is heavy industry along your water source, you won't be able to filter it from many of the chemicals that that industry will have on its property.

This sort of filter is ideal for things like rain water and 'soft' ground sources, such as streams and natural runoff.

As for plastics, I personally steer clear of them.

The Dairy farms around here do have food grade 55 gallon plastic drums. From what I have read/heard these are not the same plastics that leech the toxins.

Considering that your filter container is not going to be holding water, only temporarily as water passes through, you are not going to get the toxic build up of say storing water in a plastic bottle would.

They still sell metal/zinc coated steel trash cans. That is actually and idea container for a filter.

Katadyn "Camp Filter" and swap out the 200 gallon charcol filters for the 5000 gallon ceramic (with silver) filters.
(most places only sell it with the charcol filters which is why you need to do the swap yourself)

This is the system I use when I go into the wilderness with several people and it works great. It is a gravity system that requires NO pumping.

We set it up when we first get to a site, and by the time the camp is set up we already have a couple of gallons of clean water ready for making dinner with and drinking

[link to www.katadyn.com]

I'm very intrigued by this process


Gust Water Trap Apparatus

[link to peswiki.com]