PowerSwitch

It brought home to me this morning just how essential bottled water could be in future. After warnings from my son, I joined this site and began stocking up on essentials. I have an old chaise lounge which has storage in it's base which we filled with bottled water.
When I got up this morning, I turned on the tap to fill the kettle for tea/coffee, only to find that there was no water pressure & no water after about 3 seconds. After a quick check round the house to make sure all was OK, I rang our water authority who assured me that there was a burst in my area & they were working to get it fixed. I got a couple of 1 litre bottles out & we had breakfast but left the dishes for later.
I then thought of how much we'd need for getting washed, brushing teeth etc. & realised just how woefully inadequate our supply would be for anything more than 2-3 days just for essentials. We have water butts outside wich we could utilise for flushing the loo but otherwise we'd be stuffed if it was a regular occurrence. I need to think again & do more research on water storage.
My immediate plan today is to check on the date life of our bottled water which we hadn't thought about for ages.
Sorry for rambling - I just thought I'd share this with you.

Katie

Bottled water isn't sustainable. If you want to store water, take it from your tap when it's working. It's cheaper too.

Replace the flush loo with a composting one, and use the water butts for the garden. The end result is a useful product, and it's crazy polluting water that's been made drinkable at great expense at the water works.

If you've got ordinary water butts, get some big containers, like 1,000 litre IBCs or juice containers. They should fill up pretty quickly.

I've been living with a 10 litre water container with a tap on it, plus a filter jug for drinking water, for several years. They normally get filled once a day, and it's a great way to learn to be careful with water. I do use a normal shower and washing machine as well, but as little as possible .

Bottled water is a simple short term solution but only viable for drinking water.
For other purposes a larger supply is needed such as water butts, IBCs, or a well. Water from such may be unfit for drinking and will require boiling, chlorination, or other treatment before drinking, but is probably fine as is for non drinking.

If you have bottled water that is badly out of date, dont discard it but use it for non drinking water.

I favour the well known fizzy water in green glass bottles.
The glass bottles wont taint the contents even after prolonged storage, unlike plastic. The dissolved gas is a very mild disinfectant and discourages growth of bacteria. The internal gas pressure, if still present when the bottle is opened, assures one that the seal has remained intact and therefore that no contamination has entered.
I would drink that several years after the date, but I would be doubtful about still water in plastic bottles much after the date.

I dont normally drink bottled water on account of the expense and waste, but I do keep a stock.

See also
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=11052

I must be going senile - I'd forgotten that I do have water purifying tablets & a couple of jug water filters. We have an inline water filter so we never use the jugs these days. Some of my bottled water is in glass bottles but not the fizzy sort - I can change that. Thanks for the link to the other threads - also something to think about.

Katie

Banbury is a town of about 50,000, but due to progressive centralisation the water works serves nearer 80,000 as there are a few large villages all around. Even in Winter a fair proportion of that water is pumped 30 miles uphill from the Thames near Oxford. Last time we had a major power outage in this area we emptied the reservoir in 9 hours or so and that was it.

What I've done is scout the natural springs a few miles outside the town -- especially the ones that are still flowing in Summer. I've also got a few 10 and 5 litre water containers to carry water. That way, given our precarious water supply in the town (99.99% reliable, bur when it goes we are totally *******), we'll be able to sort out a supply for ourselves, our friends and neighbours.

I'd echo John's post. We don't actually need much water, when we get down to basics. Living without for a few days does you good and makes you appreciate it.

Bottled water is only possible because of underpriced fossil fuel and the complicity of climate change advocates.

I love the idea of doomer supplies underneath a chaise-longue...how very, erm, decadent

Meanwhile, for the bog all that's needed is a chair, a bucket and a store of sawdust (plus a compost-bin outside to empty it into) and you're set up for a temporary outage.

You could buy a commode (to go with the chsise-longue), put it in the bathroom and just use it as a chair to put clothes on etc, and then when the water supply goes, use it as originally intended.

I guess a lot depends on what one is preparing for. A major crash is one thing, but I envisage over the next few years a whole series of ever-escalating "inconveniences" such as power-cuts, water supply cuts, fuel supply interruptions, shortages of certain supermarket items, etc, during which one would be "expected" to carry on pretty much as normal. That might mean one is still expected to turn up for a meeting, scrubbed and shaven, with a freshly pressed shirt, and earn a day's pay. In that case, one needs enough water to more or less carry on the current lifestyle.

Having said that, I agree that the amount of water we actually NEED is very small. My son and I did a self-supported vehicle-based expedition across the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2009, and I can confirm that it is possible to clean one's teeth AND have a strip-wash in a single mug of water! Cooking utensils were cast iron, so were just wiped out and lightly oiled after use. Plates and cutlery were cleaned using desert sand. Amount of water used for personal drinking was around 2 litres each per day. (this is the bit you should't scrimp on). So, the total consumption for the two of us was around 5-6 litres per day. Two 20 litre jerries lasted us the 8 days to do the crossing (but we took six, just in case!)

When TSHTF, and the norms of our fast-moving urban lifestyle become less important, and we find ourselves more at home, in survival-mode, with time on our hands, we'll no longer need the shower EVERY day, we'll have time to wash clothes by hand, and we'll have time to micro-manage the water we have available, all leading to a reduction in consumption.

Of course, many of us will recognise that the majority of our typical daily consumption goes straight down the loo. If I was faced with a water supply interruption of much more than 24 hours, the first thing I'd do is go out to the garden and dig a long-drop!

RenewableCandy wrote:I love the idea of doomer supplies underneath a chaise-longue...how very, erm, decadent

Meanwhile, for the bog all that's needed is a chair, a bucket and a store of sawdust (plus a compost-bin outside to empty it into) and you're set up for a temporary outage.

You could buy a commode (to go with the chsise-longue), put it in the bathroom and just use it as a chair to put clothes on etc, and then when the water supply goes, use it as originally intended.

There has got to be a whole new market here in "classy survival aids"!...diamond-encrusted jerry cans...back-up refrigeration system for the wine cellar...human waste methane-digester conversion kit for the Rolls, etc..

Any more ideas? Investing in these has to be a safer bet than the stock market right now.

The water is back to normal now but then we also just had a power cut for a few hours. We didn't bother with the generator but we did have heating via a calor gas heater & a hot drink via a camping stove & kettle. We also had the choice of reading or listening to wind-up/solar radio. A few years ago, I wouldn't have had any of these items.

Katie

Tarrel wrote:If I was faced with a water supply interruption of much more than 24 hours, the first thing I'd do is go out to the garden and dig a long-drop!

Honest, a compost toilet is much easier than digging a hole, as per RC's post. Search for 'humanure' or 'compost toilet' in this forum. There'll be a few pictures of our compost loo. Not much effort involved at all (for the initial setting up and running it, that is).

Here's Keela's thread on humanure. Here's another with pics of our heap. This is a thread with a pic of our loo too.

The key to post-industrial human survival, it turns out, is in making proper use of human excrement and urine. - Dmitry Orlov

Tarrel wrote:There has got to be a whole new market here in "classy survival aids"!

Oooh yes well, chandeliers with real candles, those jug-and-basin wash-sets, genuine eider-downs, old-fashioned wine-coolers (the ceramic ones that work by evaporation), burrieres-a-l'eau (for keeping butter cool) etc etc you can tell I've been watching "Jeeves and Wooster" with Fille

My Dad had genuine eiderdowns till he went into his nursing home a couple of years ago. My brother sent them plus all the real wool blankets to the local dog pound for the dog's kennels. Lucky dogs!!

Katie

Tarrel wrote:I guess a lot depends on what one is preparing for. A major crash is one thing, but I envisage over the next few years a whole series of ever-escalating "inconveniences" such as power-cuts, water supply cuts, fuel supply interruptions, shortages of certain supermarket items, etc, during which one would be "expected" to carry on pretty much as normal. That might mean one is still expected to turn up for a meeting, scrubbed and shaven, with a freshly pressed shirt, and earn a day's pay. In that case, one needs enough water to more or less carry on the current lifestyle.
!

Agree. I consider a fast crash to be possible, but that a slow slide such as you describe to be more likely.
If one is expected to turn up for work smartly dressed in the event of utility interuptions etc, then keep a stock of what you wear at work, sufficient for at least 2 or 3 weeks without any laundry or re-supply.
That is about 25 each of work shirts, underpants, pairs of socks, vests/t-shirts if worn, and a least one spare business suit.
Shirts should be laundered, worn once, laundered again and hung on hangers. They dont look very businesess like straight out of the packet, and wearing them once ensures that they are the right size and not defective or unsuitable in any way.
Underwear and socks are fine straight out of the pack, but again wash and wear at least a few to ensure that they are satisfactory.

If the power or water are off for longer than that, then you probably wont have a job anymore, and if you do, then lower standards may be acceptable.

Remember that the power (and therefore the water in tall buildings) went off for nearly a week in the great Dartford power cut, and that most employers presumably expected staff to turn up suitably dressed as normal.