water treatment

[moonshot]

I will again be replacing the water stored in my water barrels. I use city tap water - filtered and purified by the municipal treatment plant. I ever needed to use it, my plan was to purify again with my MIOX system.

Further research has indicated I should treat the water when I first put it into the storage drums as well as when I take it our for consumption.

There are a couple of methods available to treat water when it is placed into storage.

Adding chlorine bleach is cheap and easy - but I've read that bleach has a limited shelf life - perhaps 6 months or less - before it breaks down and should be replaced. Chlorine bleach bottles do not show a "use by" date, so how does one determine if the bleach they buy at the store is still potent enough to use to purify water?

Also, the bleach method only allows the water to remain safe for a year or so.

Adding this...

http://survivalkitsonline.com/mm5/me...=Water_Storage

supposedly treats water for 5 years. Is this true, or is it another internet gimmick?

Finally, in researching methods of treating water, I found this link...

http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emer...tml#containers

and read this...

If you don’t have clean, safe, bottled water and if boiling is not possible, you often can make water safer to drink by using a disinfectant, such as unscented household chlorine bleach, iodine, or chlorine dioxide tablets. These can kill most harmful organisms, such as viruses and bacteria. However, only chlorine dioxide tablets are effective in controlling more resistant organisms, such as the parasite chryptosporidium.

The last sentence - if true - tells me that bleach alone is not good enough. I may need to use my MIOX system at the start and at the end.

Is this overkill, or do you all treat your tap water when you place it into storage?

PS - I've had a waterborn bug get me, and it was NOT fun. I sure wouldn't want that again when medical services were restricted or non-existant.

[enewlun]

I got a Miox from work, and I have not used it. How do you like it and it is it pretty simple to operate.

[Ironman8]

I got a Miox from work, and I have not used it. How do you like it and it is it pretty simple to operate.

Is that a question??

[Ironman8]

Adding chlorine bleach is cheap and easy - but I've read that bleach has a limited shelf life - perhaps 6 months or less - before it breaks down and should be replaced. Chlorine bleach bottles do not show a "use by" date, so how does one determine if the bleach they buy at the store is still potent enough to use to purify water?

Watch this video.

Be sure your active ingredient is Calcium Hypochlorite

From my understanding:

*5 lb box will make 640 gallons of "bleach" ---> Each gallon of "bleach" will purify about 200 gallons of water ---> One 5 lb box will purify about 128,000 gallons of water!

*1 heaping teaspoon of the pool shock powder added to 2 gallons of water will create 2 gallons of "bleach"

*1 pint of the "bleach" will purify 12.5 gallons of water.

I doubt you would need more than one box!


***Do your own calculations after you do the research to make sure my numbers are right! Don't just trust me! I would prefer to have someone else check the numbers to make sure I'm accurate anyways...so report back!

[PrarieDog]

This stuff is a concentrated form of bleach (sodium hypochloride) I could not find the NSF 61 compliance on the tech sheet. This stuff may not be OK for injestion.
As for the strength of bleach. New household stuff is about 5% pool stores sell 12%. You need a chlorine test kit (relatively cheap) to verify strength. Calculations are based off relative strength of CL2 and amount of water. Most tap water is chloramines so you have to break those down with free cl2 and then build up with cl2 (bleach).