My Food Storage Deals

QUESTION: I have decided to store bottled water and use 55 gallon drums for cleaning, bathing, etc. I have not filled my drums yet, because I do not understand the best way to do this. Because I am not going to be drinking it do I need to treat it at all? Have you heard ofthe pumps they sell that go into the drums that supposedly filter and pump out thewater? Do you like them/dislike them? Any info. would be great.

ANSWER: You no longer need to treat water with Bleach because our water is now treated in a way that makes this no longer necissary. The only precaution you will want to take is to NOT have your water (or drums) be touching cement (on the sides or bottom of drum). The water in drums (that you will be storing for cleaning, bathing, etc.) will still be fine for drinking—even without a filter. You could always boil the water, get purification tablets or use bleach if you were nervous about the quality. Even still, I think it is a good idea to have some sort of filtration system in case you needed to purify other water sources. We have a Katadyn water filter (Costco used to sell them, but now I have only seen them at stores like Cabela’s). It was only around $60 and can filter muddy river water into clean drinking water. It is awesome! It comes with a little tube that you put into your water drums and siphon out the filtered water. This is a great thing to have camping and is small enough to be stored in your families 72 hour kit. Water bottles are convenient for drinking, but if you needed, it would be great to have the large 55 gallon drums as well. I don’t think you can ever have too much water ;)

http://www.cabelas.com/