Another follow-up to Open Thread: The Little Things That Makes A Difference
There isn’t anything more important to your prep than water but it also is one of the most neglected and difficult things to prep. This is primarily because we take for granted that water will come out of the tap because for most of us, it always has. If you live in town the water is probably treated and comes from some municipal authority. If you live in the country, it gets pumped from ground water. Either way it requires electricity at some stage. You can go for a long time without food but without water you are screwed in a matter of days, even more so if it is really hot.
So what is your long-term plan for when the world ends as we are expecting it to and the power goes out, not for a few hours but for good? Dying of dehydration is an ugly way to go and so is dying by shitting your guts out from drinking unfiltered water.
Eaton Rapids Joe left a couple of comments on the open thread about “slow sand filtration” and then did a post of his own that is easier to read, Slow sand filtration. Read it and learn it, do what I did and convert it into a .pdf file and save it. If you are lazy/smart you can download the pdf I created here. This is important info for you to check out. Where else are you going to read about Schmutzdecke?
Having ready and reliable access to safe drinking water is going to keep you alive more than having the latest optics on your AR. Don’t neglect the most critical stuff or you won’t live long enough to regret it.
if the phrase "dying by shitting your guts out" doesn't get your attention to how serious water issues are we can't help you… thats some awful shit to consider
There are lots of better ways to die than dying of dysentery.
Having experienced mild bouts of food poisoning in the past was bad enough. Unchecked bacteria and parasites in untreated water? Thats a hard pass. The sand filter technique you shared is a good and economical way to avoid those unpleasant circumstances. I have all the materials except I hadn't considered two types of sand. I will address that
In a grid down scenario, I suspect the vast majority of vibrants and culture enrichers and others in the big cities will die from drinking untreated water long before they have the opportunity to die of starvation.
Oh that would be a shame…
I had never heard of that system but it is pretty fascinating.
Same with a lot of White urban elites who think water comes naturally in plastic bottles. Good riddance to all of them.
Up until 5 years ago our tiny town used sand beds. They had two of them, because you need to back flush / regen them on a regular basis. Also the biological layer works better if it has added air, so iften municipal systems use a bubbler to add air to speed up the process. Smaller systems can use one of those air stones from a large aquarium.
Now a sand system will not take out dissolved tokins like pesticides or chemicals, if your planning to use run off water or a shallow well you'll need to add a nembrane or other method after the sand filter.
There was a water study done back in the 90's by a group of researchers, they found that 10 layers of Sari silk would remove 99% of bacteria in water and solids. If you boiled the water afterwards it made it safe to drink… except for certain pesticides that again even a sand filter won't touch.
They pushed for people in india to use the method and it worked well. If you have an indian fabric shop in your area you can get fine silk ie Sari making silk by the meter (yard for the southerners). 3 meters would give you 20 layers in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. The study said you could run about 100 to 200 gallons through it then use the last couple gallons through it in a bucket and was the silk in soap and water, rinse with clean water and dry in the sun to sterilize. After that you can reuse it over and over.
Exile1981
Toxins not tokins… sheesh i rraly should know better than to type without my reading glasses.
Exile1981
10/10. Drank a lot of water from the sand filter (gravity fed!) at the cabin we had.
Good point! So much for the golden horde.