We are usually very fortunate in the water department. We have a spring source that is gravity fed to all of the houses on our main street. The tank hold 10,000 gallons which is enough to get us through a short term power outage and there is a generator to run the pump after that. But this week the pump broke down and, while we were never out of water, we did have to conserve until the pump could be repaired and the tank refilled. The amount of water a household uses really becomes apparent when you are focusing on it.
I fill a couple of 3 gallon water jugs twice a day just to water the greenhouse plants and the newly planted sets. Several times a week, I fill those jugs another 4 or 5 times to water the new fruit trees and berry bushes. We run the soaker hose a couple of times a week for a fer house to give the new raspberry and blackberry canes a good drink. The pigs require a good deal of water and surprisingly enough, the bees use quite a bit too. Bruce mixes up their supplemental feed 4 days a week. Now I haven’t even thought about the house yet.
With 4 adults and 1 child, there are showers and laundry and toilet flushings, dishes and cooking and general washing up. We must wash our hands 10 times a day because of all the dirty work we do. We handle cow poop, pig slobber and have our hands down in the earth.
In the midst of trying to conserve, I put up 7 pints of rhubarb and the canner uses a lot of water. All of this leads me to ask-Where are you in terms of water security? I was able to haul water from our stream for flushing, animals and plants. We just didn’t shower for a day and we let the laundry pile up. I had enough water stored for drinking and cooking so my only use was for the canner. I guess I could have used stream water for that as well as it never comes in contact with food and is boiled in any case. I used my tap water just for washing hands and teeth brushing.
I hope this is something you think about. Check out your neighborhood for sources of clean, or not so clean, water. Invest in a water filter if you can afford it and get the directions for building one if you can’t. The Internet is full of good instructions. I think that Ole Remus at The WoodPile Report had some good ones and so does Rawles at Survivalblog.
If you are ever thinking of relocating, I would put availablity of water at the top of mulist of got to haves. Bruce is actually thinking of finding our old well head and getting it back in working order. We havea dowser friend who could find it in minutes. With a hand pump we would be in business even if the power fails and pump breaks.
May 27, 2009 at 10:05 am
This is something I’ve worried about a lot in the past year…since last September when the remnants of a hurricane blew through the Ohio Valley and we were without power for a week. Ugh. Freakin’ Ohio weather LOL.
There ARE water sources closeby, but I’d be hesitant to use them for anything other than flushing. The pond across the road is smack in the middle of large scale farming. Ditto the lake down the way. Supposedly the water is clean, but with all the fields and farm animals, I’d be afraid to drink it due to manure and chemical runoff. Our best option would be an old well with a hand-pump on the adjacent farm….if our lovely neighbors would be willing to share. Which I’m fairly sure they would, but you never know in a crisis.
I researched one of those hand pumps that you install directly onto your well, but who can swing the 2K dollar price tag? Maybe one day when our disposable income isn’t spent on disposable diapers.
May 27, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Years ago when we lived in South Carolina, the pump or valve or something in the reservoir failed suddenly and catastrophically. Instantly several thousand households had no water AT ALL. The new part had to be specially made and flown in from somewhere else. In the meantime, the water engineers got the water running somehow after 24 hours or so. It was yellow brown and so heavily chlorinated that it was unusable for anything except flushing toilets. Every bit of bottled water in town was gone within a few hours and you had to go to Rock Hill to buy more. Within 24 hours, the local supermarkets and Wal-Mart all got emergency shipments of water by the case. You could flush toilets with this water but you could not drink it, use it for pets, wash dishes that were plastic (it stained!) or wash laundry at all (it stained the clothes!) and you did NOT want to take a shower or wash your hair. It really is shocking how much you use when you have to buy and haul home every drop. And we could flush our toilets! After several days, it got less yellow and less chlorinated; enough so that you could bathe, wash laundry, and do dishes. It was two weeks before the water returned to its old, good quality self again where you were willing to drink it.
I shudder to think of what happens when you lose your water and it can’t be readily brought in from outside. And remember, we could flush our toilets!
May 27, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Thank you for those replies. It is amazing just how much we use. I shudder to think about those places that depend on irrigation for crops. We would be thirty and hungry without good water. The amazing thing is that we are till pretty cavalier about it. Water quality is one reson I try to avoid factory farm meat. It i terrible for the water supply.
June 6, 2009 at 1:27 am
Hi Kathy. I am reading your book and finding it VERY helpful. I’ve felt that I needed to be more prepared for an emergency and finding your book as been a blessing to get me organized. I understand your “bigger picture” about living more sustainably and this is my goal. However, I do need to address some immediate areas of preparedness. Number 1 of which is water. I live in CA and we get about 12 inches ANNUALLY! Where I grew up we got that in a month! I have ignored this problem because it was so daunting, but it must be addressed. I need to get a water storage tank that would be not be noticeable as I live in a community with C C & R’s. Any suggestions of what kind or where to look?
June 6, 2009 at 6:49 am
First, I have to ask. What is c c & R’s? I am assuming restrictions of some sort. A pox on anyone who would consider resticting the right to store water in a place with 12 inches of annual rainfall a year! Lehman’s and Emergency Essentials carry water storage tanks but they are rather more expensive than some other on-line stores. I tend to use them because their service is so good and their products reliable. I would suggest running an on-line search for water storage tanks to find a place that sells tanks near your home. For something this important, you would propbably want to lay eyes on one before a purchase. Can you get a cistern to capture and store what water does fall? If you do get a storage tank, remember to get a a syphon hose to make accessing it easier. Water is so heavy, you need to make sure that the floor of the storage space will handle the load. Store some good water carriers too. At least you could use questionalble water for flushing if you had a way to carry it. It might also be a good idea to purchase a water filter so you could use other ground water for drinking. Do you have a hot tub or pool? If you expected a severe event, those are good water reservoirs for clean water if you have the time to fill them. I hope you can figure this out.In the mean time, the space under a bed will hold many cases of water. At least it’s cheap to purchase. Good luck with this.