water treatment

[moonshot]

I will be putting somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 gallons of city water into sealed buckets for storage in my basement. The water is potable now, but may sit in the buckets for up to a year, perhaps more.

I know I should replace the water annually, and that is my plan. I'll dump it down the drain and refill.

My question - should I treat the water initially when I transfer it from the faucet to the buckets, as well as treat it when and if I take it out of the buckets for consumption, or just when I take it out for consumption?

After a year or more in storage, the water won't need to be filterted, but may need to be purified. I have several purification methods available, and the method I would use if I needed to drink the water after a year or so of storage is my MSR MIOX.

I know there are several products available that claim to purify water for 5 years, and are to be added when the water is first placed within the storage container. I have no idea if these prducts actually work, or if they are even needed.

Any suggestions?

[oef24]

I don't know if you had a chance to read the thread below but it does have some good info that should answer your questions. Good luck.

https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=27219&highlight=purification

O

[PrarieDog]

Personally I would not plan on a year but rather 6 mos. unless it is cool in your basement. The tap water will be a chloramine solution. I would does with bleach to breakpoint (breaking down the chloramine to zero) and then add to build up free chlorine. I would not dose over 3 ppm. So that you could drink it at any time. You can get a pool kit or find a chlorine kit online. You want to check for free chlorine and not total after you dose.

Free chlorine measures the free chlorine in the sample. Total chlorine is for checking chloramines in water.

Chloramines are a 5:1 ratio of chlorine and ammonia. Almost all water systems in the US use chloramines. They are weaker than free chlorine but they last longer and spread throughout a water system better. Do not try and produce chloramines yourself.

Disinfect your containers first with a solution of bleach and water (capfull of bleach and a gallon of water) spread around and let it sit for an hour. Rinse it out then refill with the water you plan on using.

You could get all technical and calculate the break point based on your total chlorine level but by a cheap kit that will show down to .5ppm and keep adding bleach until you hit around 3 ppm. Then check it every few weeks to make sure you are keeping at least a .5 residual. If it goes below a .2 then dump it.

[moonshot]

Thanks for the info. I had already read the link posted above. It offered some very good suggestions, but did not address my questions.

I know there are several ways to disinfect water, my question is do I need to use them at the time I place the water into the storage container?

In other words, if the water is going to sit for a year or more, and I know I will purify the water when I pump it out for drinking or cooking, what is to be gained by treating already treated city tap water when I place it into the containers?

If treating the water at the beginning is recommended, should I use a disinfectant such as bleach or my MIOX system or should I use a stabalizer such as the Oxy-Stabile Water Preserver mentioned in the link?

[Just a Jarhead]

Depends on where your water is coming from for one thing. If it's coming from a municpal water treatment plant through your faucets then purifying of any sort should not be necessary. It's probably already well chlorinated and will store well for a year as is, however I'm overly cautious and myself would use the 6 month benchmark as someone else mentioned above before adding 8 drops per gallon. If it's coming from your underground well then I would add 8 drops per gallon of non-scented chlorine bleach from the get-go.

ETA: if after 6 months it still has a semi strong chlorine smell then I of course wouldn't add any more, same after a year. Storage factors will make a big difference i.e. exposure to sunlight, temp etc.

[moonshot]

OK. It's municiple city water, so it should be "safe" for a while. Treating every 6 months seems like a reasonable precaution, especially if I dump it out after one year. It also seems like such a waste - of resources and of time.

I know there are several products on the market that claim to treat water for a 5 year storage life. I've seen emergency water packets (in the 1/2 liter size) that claim to be safe for 5 years (same as the 5 year emergency ration bars).

Does anyone have any info on the effectiveness of these water additives? Seems like a great idea - if they work.

[K.L. Davis]

There is... a forum for everything

http://www.watertanks.com/forums/

[Just a Jarhead]

Water has a long shelf life if stored properly, 5 years or more with no additioanl purification other than that which has been mentioned here. The only thing is it may taste a little flat after 1 year. You can usually correct this by shaking it to put oxygen back into it and let it sit half hour before drinking.

Here's 2 sources of info from University's of Georgia & Florida. Disregard anything from FEMA or Redcrosss that say replace the water after 6 months. These organizations like the FDA are extremely cautious (overly so). Just make sure no matter how long you store it that you can still smell chlorine. If not add some.

http://www.fcs.uga.edu/pubs/current/FDNS-E-34-3.html

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ss439

[PrarieDog]

The thing you face is growing biofilm on the container if you do not dose to begin with. You do not need to purify when filling the containers but you should dose with bleach as what comes in from the city could range anywhere from .2ppm to 3 ppm of chloramine. You would have to check it before you dosed it. If it was high you could leave it until it breaks down or you can dose with chlorine to begin with.