…but ran out of bux. So I’m going to have to go the cheap route for now.
For years, ever since that dehydration/kidney stone incident in 2013, I’ve been hauling drinking water home from town. That – I’m a little ashamed to say – is on a week-to-week basis: I don’t have capacity to store much in reserve, but of course there’s nothing actually toxic about the well water. It’s just so hard it’s unpleasant to drink in summer, and it turns out long-term consumption does bad things to your urinary tract.
Late last year Little Bear started having similar problems, and so I started hauling drinking water for him as well. I bought a couple of new bottles, and we were good all through the winter.
But as it warms up, we’re both drinking a lot more water. And all this weekend, for the first time basically ever, I wondered if we were going to have enough.
Now it’s Monday, I expect to go to town in an hour or two, and this is how much drinking water there is left in the whole Lair…
That’s cutting it far too close. I can’t afford to order new good bottles right now, and anyway there will be no Landlady visits for a solid month and we’re definitely due for at least one good heat wave before then. So I’m going to see if the local market has any of those cheap 3-gallon bottles I used to use. I stopped buying them because their plastic got so chintzy you could poke a hole in one just by injudiciously placing it on the ground, but they’re better than nothing and I need to stock more water than I have in previous years.
I had two five-gallon reserve jugs for potable water but one fell out of the Jeep and now I have one, and it’s currently at Ian’s. This incident reminds me I need to move it to the powershed for the summer.
ETA: I’d also like to acknowledge the Generous Reader who hit the tip jar a couple of days ago! That was most appreciated.
What would it take to “de-harden” your well water for safe consumption?
For consumption? Only a massive reverse osmosis operation requiring lots of waste water and more electricity than I’ll ever have.
Hell, the only people here who even have hot running water need big water softeners. The calcium almost immediately clogs any fitting that restricts flow at all. Which reminds me that I need to dig up and replace my cabin shut-off valve this season, because the gate valve won’t close without help from a ratchet wrench.
Joel,
Have you considered a simple solar still, being in the desert and all?
All sort of design variation you could devise to suit your preferences, and bet you could scrape up most of the materials for little if any cost. Maybe at least as augmentation and back up (calcium bricks as a byproduct).
🙂
http://www.i4at.org/surv/sstill.htm
(bunch of other design ideas on the web of course)
Sir, I’ve recently started hauling spring water to get off of the city system. Can you provide a link to the Amazon bottles that are working well for you. I was trepidatious about ordering without inspecting them myself.
Or anybody that has some good ones, Thanks.
And, I agree with the above. Find a way to use your available water such as a solar still.
Sure, I’ve thought about it. Even built a small pilot unit once, just as a proof of concept.
Bottom line: They work, obviously. But the production of these little homebuilt units is minuscule. You’d really need several if they were your only drinking water source, and they would take a lot of tending and maintenance. If the lights ever go out in the little town nearest where I live, I’ll get to work cranking them out: I have lots of plastic and glass and tubing and scrap plywood. Until then, this is just easier.
I have used these without trouble.
Your wet season is approaching, wherein thousands of gallons of perfectly drinkable rainwater can be expected to fall upon your lair and its immediate surroundings. As I recall, your objections to rain water collection revolve mostly around rain water STORAGE. It seems to me that you could at least find a way to fill your ready-use water bottles with rain water.
At most, that would be a partial solution to your drinking water needs, but even partial solutions can make life easier.
You’re likely aware of these, but now that you have an actual downspout . . .
https://www.amazon.com/Oatey-14209-Mystic-Rainwater-Collection/dp/B003E1RJVU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1527535361&sr=8-2&keywords=downspout+diverter&dpID=31DpEChcLhL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch
https://www.amazon.com/Inline-Downspout-Diverter-Barrels-GLOSS/dp/B01BO5T730/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1527535361&sr=8-10&keywords=downspout+diverter
And maybe a baby cistern, or old surplussed water heater?
Fill it some when it rains, and seal it tight to all the various, critters, and other elements when the rain stops. No ratty poorly closable 50 gallon drum thing of festering bugs, organic rot and etc. ?
After you finish the front porch of course…
The amazon water bottle link you provided…$1 more gets an additional 2 gallon capacity. Is there a reason besides the additional 16.6 lbs you don’t use the 5 gallon version? Would a 5 gallon bottle with 4 gallons in it work?
Yeah, sure it would work. But they take up a lot of space, and they’re heavy. If you have the space and don’t mind the weight, that’s the way to go.
Joel
Do you have access to a public tap where you can fill up containers without having to buy store bottled water? By that I mean somewhere that they actually have potable water from a tap. Let me know as I may have a source for good size water storage bottles that might allow you to increase your on hand stocks. That and I may have scored the last can of Trader Joes coffee in existence.
Edward: I don’t buy bottled water, that would be ruinous enough that I’d have the hillsides dotted with solar stills. And I have known of cedar rats who fill tanks with townie tap water. My drinking water is sort of between those extremes. I pay .25 a gallon at a water vending machine in town. It supposedly runs townie tap water through reverse osmosis and (I think) UV. More likely it’s just tap water, but it’s definitely sweeter and less hard than well water.
When I was a kid, we went to town about every 2 weeks and filled up our water containers for free at the gas station we did business with.
Thanks.