If I wanted to stockpile fresh water for a long period of time… say a few years… can I just buy some large, sealed, plastic watercooler-type 10 gallon containers and put them in my garage in a fairly dark location? Will the water stay fresh for years?
I live in Northern California near the coast so there is no chance of freezing, although my garage can get into the 90’s during the summer.
As long as there is nothing in the water when you fill the containers, and the containers are also clean, itwill keep forever. Nothing about water makes it inherently “break down.” However, the container itself is usually the thing to go. If you want to stockpile for an emergency, I say jsut buy several 1 gallon jugs of water from the store (at what, $1 a piece?) If you don’t ahve an emergency after one year, use the water for something and buy more. $10-$15 a year isn’t so bad, really.
Water loses oxygen over time and gets a flat taste. If you fill the bottles yourself, changing them out every 6 months is recommended. I keep 6 gallons in my freezer. It takes up space, so the freezer works better, and the water won’t taste stale when its needed.
It also depends on how you seal the bottles, and how clean the water is to begin with. If you fill clean jugs with tap water, it already has bacteria in it (yes, your tap water has bacteria) the bacteria will grow over time and you’ll have swamp water. If you could ensure sterile containers, filled with sterile water using sterile tecnique, you could hold it longer.
Just keep in mind if and when you need it, you need it to be safe. Your life could depend on it.
Wouldn’t it be sadly ironic to survive the BAD THING then get sick and die from the water you saved?
I guess that some bacteria can convert light into food. But if I store the water in a dark place how can any bacteria grow? They have no food. I would think at best a few species might be able to become spores and wait for food. Can they eat water somehow?
You can always boil the water to kill the bacteria, as in home canning.
In my high school they had canned water that had been put there ages before as part of Civil Defense – my high school basement, like many such public buildings, was supposed to serve as a shelter should the Rooskis try to nuke us. They had a lot of stuff, including dried biscuits, a generator, and lots of water. I’m sure it was pasteurized to remove buggies and allow it to keep for a long time.
I wonder if they ever changed the biscuits? Those would have a shorter storage life than the water.
This is good information to know. In Fla. we need to have water storage on occassion. We, however, use the same approach with water as with batteries. The newer, the better.
We have a typical water cooler in our house and I keep three five-gallon bottles in circulation at all times. The oldest on the cooler and more recent in a cool place. In addition, I have two more empty to be filled in the event of an emergency. Generally, this is done via exchange or refilled at several locations for this purpose. If we are told of a hurricane, we fill all the bottles, scour and bleach the bath tub and fill it, and have several filtered one-gallon waters in the freezer. These will be used in the coolers to keep other stuff cold til they melt and then can be drank. The water in the bath tub is typically used to flush toilets, wash dishes and lightly bathe (after boiling).
I realize California has a problem with the lack of notice associated with earthquakes. The same process, with a few more five-gallon bottles, may work the best and keep a fresh supply at hand.
If boiling worked, we would not need autoclaves. I think that distilling water will sterilize it though.
??
Explain. Aside from some bacteria living in geyser areas, most bacteria die when water is boiled. That’s what I was told in Boy Scouts, and it’s the basis for pasteurization and home canning (which won’t get hotter than the boiling point of water).
I was under the impression that an autoclave was a device into which you put things to be sterilized using high temperatures and water. What’s it do that’s different than boiling?
Which, of course, is boiling it.
http://www.alin.or.ke/tech-note/data/canning.htm
http://experts.about.com/q/767/3870557.htm
Seems that, unless you’re worried about botulism, boiling water will do.
Not true. If you have ever lived somewhere with hot water that smelled of rotten eggs (sulphur), you have experienced sulfur reducing bacteria that live in the darkness of your water heater:
Though annoying, this bacteria is generally harmless, and does not produce illness in humans.
Simply bring water to boil raises its temperature to 100°C and that does not kill enough stuff. An autoclave is like a pressure cooker and allows higher temperatures. An autoclave will go up to 121°C and that is hot enough to kill almost anything.
While that is true, distilling water involves converting it to a gas and then back to a liquid. Living creatures cannot withstand being converted to a gas. So they will be left behind or they will be dead.
Interestingly, where I went to school, the cold water in certain buildings reaked of sulphur. But the hot water was fine. I always assumed the water heater had some sort of filter on it which removed the stank.
Almost every city issues “Boil Orders” for residents when a system has been compromised by pipe work, damage or storms affecting the supply. SOP following storms.
There’s a difference between boiling and destilling. Destillation means converting the water to gas and then condensing i to a liquid again. In this process you lose all forms of dissolved material in the water like salts and particles (but not other liquids with a boiling temperature lower tahn water). Boiling is, of course, just heating it up 'til 100 C until vapor forms.
That’s impossible. It IS H20 after all. It can’t possibly loose oxygen and remain “water.”
I hope picunurse means dissolved O2. Still, no dissolved O2 would escape a perfectly confined container 
Your water has lots of stuff in it, not enough to make you sick, usually, but stuff.
I keep forgetting I can’t leave anything out. 
Sometimes the bacteria can eat up everything available, die and still make you sick. When bacteria die, some release endotoxins, (Second endotoxin site) the dreaded botulism is an endotoxin. Not all are that bad, but you could get sick.
Your normal drinking water will have a bacteria load below an acceptable number. The local government checks it periodicly. If the number climbs to an unacceptable level, you’ll get a boil order ( yes, boiling will make water safe to drink, but its not sterile, and distillation is the accepted way to sterilize water. Autoclaves are for solid things that can withstand high heat and pressure.)
If water with a normal bacterial load, is left to stand for a long period, the load increases to unacceptable levels.
This is what you have to avoid.
In a perfect world, you could boil the water before drinking it after the BAD THING happens, but you won’t remember.
Just store the water, for 3 months or so, then use it to water the lawn, wash the containers and refill for another 3 months. If the BAD THING happens you’ll have fairly safe water.
For Y2K preparations, we bought 1 gallon jugs of distilled water (I think we bought 16 for 4 people) and we bought a new 55 gallon trash can and filled it with water and 2 cups of bleach(not for drinking purposes) and put the lid on it.