Water Harvesting Archives - Survival Harvesting

Survival Water Harvesting – Purification

Woman feeding water to a young distressed girl — We all need water

Clearly, access to water is critical for your survival. Even short-term emergencies (1 – 3 days) can become a major concern if you have taken no preparations or given no thought to “what do we do for water if the power goes out?”

There are a couple of different scenarios that can lead from momentary discomfort all the way to health or life-threatening circumstances. If you are traveling, you don’t have access to your normal resources and you can find yourself in a precarious situation. Given how quickly even mild dehydration can occur, along with a reduction in energy, mental clarity etc., it makes sense to always have at least one bottle of water for each person when you are on a trip.

In most cases, no matter where you are, you will almost always have access to a body of water, whether a stream, pond, lake or even water collected in a rain barrel or a roadside ditch. The question you must answer is “Can I drink or use that water?” Determining whether you can use or drink from any particular water source is not a topic that can easily be covered in a single post. Aside from worrying about bacterial or viral contamination, you need to determine if there is likely to be any toxic chemical contamination etc.

I found a 30-page online document that you can download for free that covers purifying water using chlorine, iodine, and javel as well as different methods of boiling water. It covers finding water in different environments, how to search for water using various natural clues and when to dig for water and much, much more.

You also need to have an understanding of what your body will require to maintain proper hydration. Fortunately, the US Military has done a mountain of research into just this topic. They have a free online document you can download as well. Try the link below:

Water Requirements and Soldier Hydration

Just a few things to think about if you don’t have any water supplies put away.

Cases of water bottles are cheap, pick up a couple and make sure you keep some in the car.
Gallon jugs of water are cheap but if you happen to buy large containers of soda, you can rinse them out and refill with tap water. Change every six months.
Get a 3-foot length of tubing that will fit over the faucet end of the tap at the bottom of your hot water heater. (Remember it will be hot for the first couple of hours after a power outage). The water above the faucet will force the water in the tank out until it is almost empty. You could have as much as 50 gallons in there.
If you open a downstairs faucet (like in a laundry tub or a basement sink) the existing water in your house plumbing will flow out the lower tap. Could be several gallons. Put a container under the tap and open it up.
If you are in an apartment building, in a lower level apartment, water will flow out of the piping above you. Fill whatever containers you have.
If you are in your own house and have kids, and a wading pool, and in an urban area, push the pool under your outside faucet (or run some garden hose to wherever the pool is) and start filling it up as soon as you lose power. Residual pressure in the municipality’s water supply system (depending on where you are located relative to the water supply) will push some water out of the water pipes running past your house. And if your area is supplied by a water tower, or you are at a lower elevation than other parts of town, you can collect a lot of water. This will also work if you want to fill your bathtub. I wouldn’t drink the wading pool water without treating it. Before filling the bathtub with water you might want to clean it up with dish soap and rinse it well first.
An inground or aboveground swimming pool is a tremendous source of water. It is not safe to drink. There are a couple of issues. The level of chlorine may have been broken down by the sun (good for drinking) to a low enough level that bacteria have started to grow in the pool (bad to drink). In addition, pool or spa water main contain conditioners, anti-foam solutions, and stabilizers that are NOT good to drink. But it is absolutely okay to use this water for washing, using it to flush your toilet, launder clothes etc.
Use rain barrels under your eavestrough downspouts. Of course, you can’t do this in some municipalities. If you don’t have rain barrels, anything that will hold water will provide you with more than you have if you don’t try and catch the rainwater.
If it is or is about to rain, by positioning a large tarp on a slight slope (either a natural slope or one you created), you can direct a large amount of water into a collection container. Of course, rainwater is generally safe to drink assuming the rain is not falling through a chemical plume and the tarp is clean.

Just as I completed this post I ran across this nifty build. It will cost you a few bucks but can filter up to 5 gallons of drinkable water in a 24 hour period. Check it out.

DIY Water Filter 1: http://www.perimeterpermaculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/DIY-Water-Filter.pdf

Survival Water Harvesting – Rainwater

In a previous post I talked about going through a very dry spring and watching the level of our dug well drop almost out of sight. We made some changes to our lifestyle. Showers had specific phases. The wet yourself down phase which was about 15 seconds of running water. The lather up phase which didn’t use any water and the rinse off phase which used about thirty seconds of water with my buzz cut, and a little longer for my wife whose hair was shoulder length.

We were getting bulk water from the local water treatment plant for a rate I was willing to pay and we were doing our laundry in town. As a final step we added a trickle tank to our water system and that made things much easier.

The stand lifts the water supply thirty inches off the ground so we have a gravity supply for our garden watering

The last thing we did was set up a rainwater harvesting system. The image a left shows one of our totes now, in the depths of winter, with the downspout removed and the tote empty. Replacing the downspout will have to be an annual ritual until I add some additional downspout and a bypass line. This was kind of a quick and dirty job and I learned my lessons along the way. The tote will have to be covered to prevent algae growth. I need to fabricate a dirt diverter to keep the interior of the tote a little cleaner and I am going to install a proper hose and piping system to make the garden watering process simpler and hopefully automated.

There are tons of online instructions on how to set up a simple system like this, and lots of info for more complicated ones, so I will just let you know about my experiences and then give you some links. As I already said, a simple set of covers to block out the light would pretty much eliminate the growth of algae. Some lightweight plastic sheeting would work. Something that can be zip tied to the framework would allow removal if necessary and would be handier and last longer than plywood. Located out in the country, with my totes out of sight behind buildings, I don’t have to worry about looks too much. But if I wanted to fancy it up, I know a source of rough sawn cedar planks where I can get seconds. I also know a source of cedar slabs from a lumber sawing process that I can get for free. I would be tempted to go that way. In addition there are made for purpose covers available or it wouldn’t be hard to make your own. See the link at the end of this post for an example.

The concrete blocks on edge present the strongest surface to the 4″ x 4″ load spreaders

My garage (shown in the photo above) is relatively new and the soil around the foundation is not particularly compacted, so I took an extra step to ensure the weight of the tote wouldn’t cause any settling. You can see in the photo that I used patio stones as bases for the concrete blocks I used under my 4″ x 4″ pressure treated legs.

Placing the blocks on edge provides the strongest foundation for the load spreading blocks. I do not expect any shifting of my tote support with this arrangement.

The final height of the tote gives me an excellent flow rate, just from gravity. You can see in the first picture that it is easy to stick even a five gallon plastic pail under the nozzle. Below is a closer look at the way I constructed the tote support.

The legs go inside the 2 x 8’s and there are two additional cross beams under the tote.

There are plenty of different ways to get your own tote rainwater harvesting system. Here are some links to different ideas:

Large Rainwater Harvesting System

Collect Rainwater with a DIY 275-Gallon Rain Cube

Rain Harvesting Setup Completed: 2,300 Gallon Capacity

Full Bore System – Solar Powered

Tote Cover, Hand Made

Survival Water Harvesting – Trickle Tank

I never really worried about water supplies until last year. On our couple of acres in the country we have a dug well. It’s only twelve feet deep, but normally holds six feet of water. We’ve been here for four years and never had any problems, but last spring it was very dry in our part of the country.

Running water, when you need it. One of your top three survival priorities

Our well got down to about 13 inches of water. We were able to get bulk water from our local towns water treatment plant for $10.00 for 1,000 imperial gallons. That’s about 1,200 US gallons for $8.10 US. I was okay with that. We used it for the garden. We went into town for laundry. We managed okay.

We finally got some rain, but I was a little concerned about how close we came to a dry well. Of course, the problem isn’t really the well drying out, though that was always a possibility. The big concern is having a demand for water that outruns the ability of the well to replace the water flowing out of it. They do have a solution for that. You install a trickle tank.

The image below shows you what it is, but check out the link above to get the finer details.

The trickle tank fills with a slow draw on your well and has a 150 gallon reservoir to meet your daily needs.

We could use water during the day and as soon as we used more than a few gallons, the system would start drawing water from our well at a very slow rate. The 150 Gal. tank could meet all of our shower, laundry, washing needs and it refilled at a slow enough rate it never outpaced our wells ability to refresh itself.

Of course, we do store water against power outages. I always have a couple of full 15 gallon food grade containers. And we have a hot tube outside. I know for a fact the water in it will stay at least warm for a couple of days…good for washing. And if push comes to shove, we have a little garden fish pond that holds about 1000 gallons. The veggies and flowers would just love to get a taste of that water I am sure. However I must admit that I really like the idea of of that 150 gallon trickle tank full of water that has gone through the filter and UV light. Even in a power outage, the water has already been treated.

Just to be sure I have covered off all of the obvious I will mention that you can access the water in your hot water tank, if you have no power. Best to get a short length of garden hose a few feet long. That will allow you to conveniently fill water containers even though the tank outlet is only a few inches off the floor. The tanks tend to be full while the power is on so you have a lot of head. If you have a 30 gallon tank, you will probably be able to easily get 25 or more gallons out of it.

I also try to have one or two cases of bottled water on hand. Single serving bottles of water are extremely convenient for quenching thirst, moderate hygiene maintenance requirements and are easily transported.

Next post I’ll talk a little more about the rainwater harvesting system I installed, using two 250 gallon totes. And we will look at what you can do if you have no rain gutters, or even no roof.