[harry clark]

i have this never used it (yet ) its brand new and about 5 yrs old you still need to install a filter to the incoming line it stores 4 gal at a time. anybody have one of these?

[garret]

my urban water would go bad pretty damn quickly and because my water is heat on demand i dont even have the backup of a water tank, i would be reduced to collection and purification from the local area

[crazydave]

ground water can be polluted from stuff deposited decades ago, could be their tank was never right from when it was built.

I ran the house and me on rainwater a few years ago now with little ill effect, mind you here you only have to look up with your mouth open to get a drink.

poor old garret needs to use a ground straw or dig up frogs

[Slade N. Illinois]

I just wanted to say, I would use a HUGE charcoal filtration system, maybe even a double cycle. Thats about it.

[earth2res]

I am not too far from a river. I could haul the water home, filter it and boil it.

[Roadracer]

Urban dweller here...

Large tarps & plastic in general (Non-scented or non-chemically treated) should be kept on-hand to collect rain water. Assuming the tarps/plastic isn't contaminated in some way rainwater is already distilled water & requires no purification. A 9'x12' tarp will fill a number of 5 gallon containers within a few minutes.

The only way this method would be voided is within the first week of Fallout or a severe Chemical attack. Otherwise it's the easiest & safest way to add to your supplies.

RR

[vonmoebius]

I have a question, if we are talking about issues beyond a water main break that may cause one to take water percautions with "city" water until the problem was resolved. Very few urban/ suburban places have truely gravity fed systems. Wouldn't it be very likely that the pumps that send the water to our taps would be without power? So my question is would we even have water coming from the taps dirty or not in case of a large scale disaster thats massivly disrupts power?

[crashdive123]

Most municipal utilities probably have generator back-ups.

[Celticwarrior]

Long power outages and associated fuel interruptions would knock out water and gas distribution, since both use electric pumps that need either grid or generator power. Pipelines are almost always gravity fed WHERE POSSIBLE, but that isn't always the case, given the landscape and urban centers they run through. Often they must go up inclines that, without power forcing it through, would stall the flow and create a stagnation bottleneck.

With any water supply, whether it is suspicious tap water or a feed from a rooftop city tank, or from a home-made rainwater catchment system, boiling it to disinfect any organic contamination, then passing it through a charcoal and sand or gypsum filtration system would be best to make it potable.

[Unswydd]

Originally Posted by Celticwarrior

With any water supply, whether it is suspicious tap water or a feed from a rooftop city tank, or from a home-made rainwater catchment system, boiling it to disinfect any organic contamination, then passing it through a charcoal and sand or gypsum filtration system would be best to make it potable.

CW, I'm confused Why would you need to filter it if you're boiling it? This seems pretty redundant to me.?????