Easy Tips & Tricks for Perfect Water Storage! - JANUARY '17

hi I'm Michele Jorgensen and I'm here with a mountain mahogany steak self-reliance training videos I am really excited about today's topic as we've discussed the things that we would like to do on these training videos one thing that came up a lot was water storage now a lot of you I know have water stores you have those big blue buckets in your garage but you don't necessarily know what to do with that how long they last what you're supposed to do to put water in there how to rotate the water all those kinds of things and even if there was an emergency what else you would do to get water if that water was gone so we're going to discuss all of those things today the first thing I want to talk about is why water is so important I had a comment and someone said why don't we start with 72 hour kids now I want you to think right now about possible emergencies for our area a lot of the emergencies that we may encounter could be things like severe weather perhaps an earthquake civil unrest all of these things would keep us in our homes so if we stay in our homes we're going to need food and we're gonna need water we aren't going to need to evacuate in a lot of these things and a 72-hour kit is mostly used if you evacuate so we're gonna focus on food and water first there's a rule of three and the rule of three says that we can survive three minutes without oxygen three days without water and three weeks without food now I know we'd get hungry in three weeks time but you'd actually survive so that puts water ahead of food as far as what's important to store so that's why we're starting with water today so if there was an emergency I want to run you through some things that you need to think of right off the bat to take care of in your home the first thing that you're going to do if the water supply has not been contaminated is you're gonna fill up all your bathtubs you're gonna use cold water and I'll explain why in a minute but you're gonna put a plug in your bathtub and probably add an extra layer of plug even if you put a bowl over top of your plug so that the water will stay in a lot of our bathtubs leaked over time so fill up all your tubs first then you're going to turn off the water supply to your house the reason you're going to do that is because as soon as some kind of disruption happens to the water supply on a city level it contaminates everything that comes through those pipes so you don't want contaminated water coming into your home so if you don't know how to turn off your water that's family home evening topic number one take your whole family everybody because dad maybe a work mom maybe work it maybe kids that are home take everybody to your water shut-off out to your home and show them how to do it that's number two so fill your tubs then turn off your water the third thing you're gonna do is you're gonna drain your pipes the existing water in your pipes so I want to walk you through how to do this you're going to go to the faucet at the top most topmost faucet in your home so if you have an upstairs that's what I'm talking about and you're gonna turn it on to cold then you're gonna turn the bottom faucet on so if you have a basement the the faucet at the bottom of your home you're gonna turn it on to cold now remember you want to save every drop of water that comes out of these faucets so make sure you have something a bowl something that you're gonna be able to put water into five-gallon water buckets something as that water drains but what will happen when you have both of those faucets on is every bit of water is going to be able to drain with gravity from the top all the way to the bottom so you're gonna get the most of water collected at the bottom at that bottom faucet so make sure you have something to keep that water in down there so that's step number three the fourth thing to do to gain water in an emergency is to drain your water heater now you don't have to do all these things at once remember as long as you shut off the water to your home you don't have contaminated water coming in in any more but these are sources of water in your home so the fourth thing is to drain your water heater now what we have is we have an instruction sheet taped on to the side of the water heater because there are instructions for how to do that and how to not get burned so on the stake newsletter site there's going to be supplementary materials for all of this and I've included a how to drain your water heater cheap so that you can tape it to your water heater as well so those are four ways to get water out of your home that has nothing to do with those blue barrels stored in your garage right now remember you want to use as much water as you can accessible to you before you even touch your stored water so that's the first thing to do in an emergency okay now let's talk about that stored water so there's a lot of different types of water you can store you can store commercially bottled water like this the good thing about commercially bottled water is that this will actually last few years so what we've done is we have a case of water the smaller bottles than this but we have a case of water underneath every person's bed in our home because think about it and except for your kids socks and things that they don't want to pull out of there what else goes underneath the bed so we put a case of bottled water under everybody's bed and if you have four cases stored for each person that's actually enough for two weeks of water so if there's extra room put more cases of water under there the expiration on this is actually two years but I think it'll last much much longer than that probably as long as the bottle will last the bottle will dissolve before the ball before the water goes bad inside so commercially bottled water is a great way to store water a lot of you like we said we would talk about the blue barrels that are in your garage those are great ways to store water as well but I want you to know a couple of things about it first is talk has been that you need to have that off of the concrete so if you have it in a garage or a basement it shouldn't be touching the concrete it probably would take a long time for chemicals from the concrete to leach through that plastic and contaminate the water but it's probably worth being safe rather than sorry so easy things to do that are some cheap industrial tiles or just some to buy for us to set it on the other thing people always wonder about is do I need to put chlorine in that water so the quick and easy answer is if you have filled that barrel from commercially treated water in other words the water that comes out of your tap it already has chlorine in it you don't need to water it worry about putting anything in that water if you stored it and most of us really don't have a water source other than that commercially treated water so that's probably what's in your barrels do you need to rotate that water not if you have a source for purifying and filtering after you've pulled that water out and we're going to talk about that in a minute so you may not even have to rotate that water so fill those barrels up put them in the back of your garage and they're gonna be there for when you need it there's also a lot larger take some fifty gallon barrels those are great to have again same rules apply keep them off the concrete if possible you don't have to put chlorine and if it's treated water that you've put in and it's gonna last a long time you don't need to rotate it one thing you do need to think about storing if you have those blue barrels this is a bung wrench and this is something you're going to need to be able to open that barrel so the last thing you need an emergency is to not be able to know how to get to the water the other thing you may need is a pump and a siphon and this is really dirty and disgusting it has spider webs on it because it's been out by my barrels in my garage this is something else you need to store if you have any of those larger tanks so make sure you have those things start along with your water barrels and I'll put a supply list on that stake newsletter website as well so that you can see where to get any of these things all right so let's now talk about what do we do in an emergency if we are using other water sources other than what we have stored that has chlorine in it other than what we've gotten from our pipes or our water heater what if we're in a long-term an emergency and we want to use some rain water or we want to use water that's come out of a ditch somewhere we're using water from anywhere we can get it so there are ways that you can use that kind of water now let's talk a little bit about two things that has to happen has to happen to water to make it drinkable the first is it has to be filtered filtered is taken out with chunks that's the bigger that's the easiest way I've had to think about it so as you run something through the filter it's going to take out the mud the sticks the bugs that are those kinds of things and there's many things you can use for filter this is a cheap and easy thing to store this is coffee filters you can get these for pennies so coffee filters a couple layers of that run the water through it and that's gonna be your first filtering another thing is just cotton sheeting or t-shirts or anything of that sort just cotton material this is a sheet I got from a thrift store this can actually be used for a lot of things in emergency but a couple layers of this into a bucket is a great first filter there also will be a picture on that stake newsletter site of a do-it-yourself homemade filter using clay from your yard gravel from yards sand and activated charcoal this is some activated charcoal it can be used for a lot of things as well but it's a great filter and even starts to purify the water so these are things that I've stored just in case I need to be able to clean water now remember this is only step number one this filters it takes the chunks out it doesn't necessarily take out contaminants so that's what purifying does purifying is gonna take out any contaminants any chemicals any things that are gonna make you sick so you're gonna need to purify after you filter there's some easy things to do this is a water actually this should go over here sorry a water preserver concentrate these are water purification tablets so you place these in the water and it's going to purify remember filter first purify second these are an easy small thing to store these are a great thing for a 72-hour kit because they're so small but you're not gonna be able to do a lot of water with this this is pool shock or calcium hypochlorite this is wonderful as a purifier because this container right here will purify 80,000 gallons of water the way you use this is you basically turn this into Clorox the reason we're not storing Clorox to purify is because Clorox has a very short shelf life about six months so you put Clorox in your storage room six months later it's not really gonna do you much good this will so you mix and and I'll have the proportions on the website but you mix about a tablespoon of this with a couple of gallons of water and that creates an essence Clorox for you so now you take that solution and you add it to the water that you're trying to purify that's going to get you a lot of water purified for not a lot stored make sure when you're buying pool shock that you get one that has just calcium hypochlorite in it a lot of them have other things like colorants and things that you don't want in your water so I'll put a source for this as well now these are things that I think every household should have at least one version of these items filter and purify in one step there's small items for small amounts of water and there's bigger ones for larger amounts of water so let's go through a couple this is called a life straw live straw because it will keep you alive you can drink this straight out of a river straight out of a stream but it's not very big so it's gonna be for one person and as someone told me you might die just trying to suck it out because it really doesn't come out very easily so these are good things to try out ahead of time this is called a Sawyer water filtration system it filters and purifies as well all-in-one it goes into a water bottle so this is something that I have in my car that I have in my 72-hour kits we have small ones like this for use when we're out and about this is also something I have in the 72-hour kits and it's called a berkey water bottle and has it has a carbon filter inside of the water bottle so the water comes in and the only water that you can get out of the bottle is sucked through that filter and then up the straw so like I said these are in my 72-hour kits because they're great for carrying for portability it's gonna be really hard if you're doing this for a long-term solution for a whole family because everybody would have to have their own the only water you'd get for drinking for cooking for anything is going to come out of this bottle so this is really a short-term or portable source these are longer-term versions of things so I have a couple this is the gold standard it's called Berkey I have one that we use just on a daily basis in our kitchen and it is our water source on an everyday everything we drink and everything we cook with use it's much larger than this because we go through a lot of water in our house this is a little portable one called a bur key light either one works great and the way they work is the water goes in the top section there's a filter a ceramic filter in that top section and the water filters through it it then drains into the bottom section and there's a spigot and that's where you get the water out this is a very very efficient and effective filter and purifier you can put water from pretty much anywhere into the top section of this and you're going to be able to have drinkable water come out in the bottom this is worth the money if you have the money now if you don't have the money that's okay I have a couple other options for you you can buy the Berkey filters just these filters alone and you can put them in a couple of 5-gallon buckets and build your own Berkey that's a less expensive way to do this there is also and I'll put sources for this online there is also a kit that you can buy that has a different kind of ceramic filter that the water passes through and it comes complete with a kit with this spigot tube with or excuse me siphon tube with a spigot and instructions for how to turn this and two five-gallon buckets into this this can be made in total for fifty dollars so this is a very inexpensive do-it-yourself version of annex it's a very worth it filter but for a lot less money so this I would have at minimum I would have this in every home because now you can take water from your roof from your ditch from your garden from anywhere and make it drinkable any and any emergency the last thing I want to talk about is boiling you've probably heard a lot about boiling now boiling doesn't filter remember boiling purifies and boiling does purify so the rule of thumb is that you have to bring it to a rolling boil that's the trouble as any in an emergency situation it may be difficult to get water to a rolling boil we may be using all of the firepower we have just to cook our food so rolling boil is kind of hard and you're supposed to keep it at a rolling boil for 10 minutes that's a long time to keep something boiling but it's a great way to purify water so if you need to purify water boiling will work this is called a wacky mini multi-fuel water pasteurized pasteurization indicator what this is is something that can be used in a Sun Oven a Sun Oven is an oven that you put outside on the Sun and the Sun is the only way that heats it you could put this in a Sun Oven with water and it will tell you if the water has reached the right temperature to become pure this is very inexpensive I think this was maybe five dollars if that I'll put a source for this as well this is a way that you don't have to bring your water to a rolling boil to be able to make it purified you stick it outside and your son of and let the Sun do the work and then this tells you am i purified or not so this is a lot of information about water purification water storage I know it's a lot but what I want you to do is just think simple right now I want you to think about how am I gonna get water out of my home if I need it including my water heater so download that water heater instruction sheet tape it on the side of your water heater show everybody in your house where that turn off valve is second thing is just have some way to purify and filter water like I said this would be my choice this or this would be my choice because you can skip all of that if you have these two things one of these two things maybe this for a long term to take care of a lot make sure you have some water stored for short term emergency say your what just went out for two days you just need enough for two days have some bottled water underneath everybody's bed those are some starting points that I want you to start with you don't have to have all these things just pick a few and start this month this month is the goal for water storage by the end of January have these things in your home ready to go and the next month we'll tackle another topic but just one thing at a time thank you so much for watching today and we are going to be doing these every single month so make sure you catch every month as we go along can't wait to see you again next month

Channel: Living well with Dr. Michelle

Views: 33,150

Rating: 4.9269934 out of 5

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Id: BL1_e8OCA1o

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 31 2016