Home H20 Purification Ideas...

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Quirt

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I'd be interested in hearing what some of your plans are if one would lose their urban/city H20 supply in the event of disaster...let's assume we have access to the municipal water supply but it is tainted or is questionable. This is a situation where filtering isn't going to be adequate and purification is necessary for whatever reason.

With that being said, let's take boiling off the list as that is a "duh". So it is no longer part of the equation. Let's forget bleach although that is a plausible solution. Also lets toss out for the sake of discussion other sources of water like a well, hot water heater, collecting rain water etc.

What I'm really curious about is learning what some of you have considered for a mid-to-long term home purification system for mid-to-long term sustainability.

I'm curious what other methods are you prepared to use in this sort of conceivable situation.
 
Cody Lundin suggests solar purification. Just throw some clear plastic bottles of water up on the roof, the sun does the rest.
 
Take a look at this site. Then you can further link from it to some other interesting topics along the same lines.

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2006/03/24/lowtech_solar_water_purification_it_works.htm[/url]
 
John G said:
Cody Lundin suggests solar purification. Just throw some clear plastic bottles of water up on the roof, the sun does the rest.
Click to expand...

I'll second that. The uv will kill the bad microbes in about 30 min, and the rest of the crud will settle during that time. You can then decant the upper part and leave the solids on the bottom. It won't work for Giardia, but you're not likely to get that through a municipal line.

If you're worried about non-bio contaminants, you'll need to set up a sand filter & look into some activated charcoal.
 
Our local water isn't run by the city...it's privately owned. In the event it became contaminated we would likely be denied access to it for fear of lawsuits. I lived off the grid here for most of two years once...collecting rain water was how I got by. At the end I had two 30 gal collection barrels, and 64 i gallon jugs stored in milk crates. Every time it rained I took all the empty jugs out on the porch and filled them from one of the barrels. then it was a matter of filtering and boiling what I consumed.
 
Many municipalities use UV to treat water, so you can bet that solar is a good option. The UV has to be able to penetrate the water, but like others have said, any sediment or other gunk will eventually settle and allow the sun to take care of the rest.
 
If you've got electrical power, you can use a UV sterilizer from a fish tank/pond. We have one in one of our ponds (only a small one with a few small fish) and it's amazing how quickly they clear the water when first added. Any aquarium supplier should have a range. They don't need much power, it's just a light bulb.

UV will kill or inactivate most things, but is not effective on Giardia and not completely effective on Cryptosporidium (99%).

As Storl said, the UV light must be able to get to the bugs, so the water should be clear and will need prefiltering to clarify it if it's coming out of the taps cloudy.

Also, chemicals or hardness in the water can coat the silica tube inside the unit, so cleaning solution might be needed (citric acid)

It's also important to get the flow right for the UV unit. Some are designed to be immersed in the water and rely on this for cooling to an extent, others are not waterproof and are attached with hoses. These too rely on sufficient water flow through them for cooling. So, the water flow should be fast enough to keep the light cool. More importantly though it should be slow enough that water spends enough time exposed to the light to kill the bugs. The UV unit should come with flow rate specifications. For human consumption I would probably want to increase the exposure time so would use the lowest flow permissible.

Also note that the UV tubes (small fluorescent tubes) only last about a year before they lose effectiveness, so spares might be needed. They use UV-C (short wavelength) and you should not try lighting one outside it's enclosure. UV-C causes eye damage and cancer! The UV tubes on sunbeds are UV-A/B and not relaibly effective at killing bugs.
 
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I have an electrical water distiller. Heats the water in a stainless pot, vapor travels through some coiled pipes with a fan blowing on it, water drips out.
 
I've thought about sticking a handpump on top of our well head, but I'm not even 100% sure you can do that.
 
Loosearrow, Is that like the laboratory water stills?

They certainly produce the purest water going but the lab units need a lot of electrical power (the smallest I've used was 1KW, they go up to needing 3-phase supplies). They are usually rated in terms of power needed and litres per hour of production. Great if you have the power available to run it and they basically last forever, or at least until something cracks or the heater fails.

A still is something that could certainly be improvised, especially for anyone who's ever seen a 'shine still! Got an old copper hot water tank handy ;)

You need to make sure that stuff doesn't start growing inside the cool end of the outlet pipe after a while, also make sure that the still, whether a lab unit or improvised, doesn't boil dry. A good lab one should have an automatic cut-off device. If improvising, make sure the outlet can't get blocked up (boom!) or have a safety pressure valve (easy, big copper U tube at the top half full of water)
 
I have bought MANY of these filters, and they are great. Very affordable and they work. For $22.50 complete, well you need 5 gallon pails, you can't go wrong. I plan on giving them away in the event of something bad happening.

http://static.monolithic.com/edcircle/waterfilter/backorder/index.html

Buy them here.

http://shop.monolithic.com/products/just-water-ceramic-drip-filter


Spec's:

...Just Water Ceramic Filtration Specifications
(filters Manufactured by Winfield and Black Jack Industries)
Product is manufactured to meet:
National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) Standard 42
National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) Standard 53
ISO 9002 Quality Standard
USA AEL Laboratories
USA Analytical Food Laboratories
USA Johns Hopkins University
British 5750 Quality Standard
England’s Water Research council (WRc) Performance Standards
The filtration efficiency is 0.5 micron
Removal capabilities as follows:
>99% Arsenic 5 and 99% Arsenic 3 (special order)
>99% Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S)
>95% Chlorine and Chloramines
>99% Taste
>99% Odor
>98% Aluminum
>96% Iron
>98% Lead
>90% Pesticides
>85% Herbicides
>85% Insecticides
>90% Rodenticides
>85% Phenols
>85% MTBE
>85% Perchlorate
>80% Trihalomethanes
>95% Poly Aromatic Hydrocarbons
>99.999% of particles larger than 0.5 micron (Staffordshire University Labs) (includes Anthrax)
>99.7% of particles larger than 0.3 micron (Staffordshire University Labs)
>98% of particles larger than 0.2 micron (Staffordshire University Labs)
>100% Giardia Lamblia
>100% Cyclospora
>100% removal of live Cryptosporidium (WRc Standard)
>100% removal of Cryptosporidium (NSF Standard 53 – A.C. fine dust – 4 log challenge)
>100% removal of E. Coli, Vibrio Cholerae (Johns Hopkins University)
>99.999% removal of Salmonella Typhil, Shigella Dysenteria, Kiebsiella Terrigena (Hyder Labs)
Product is silver impregnated
and will not permit bacteria growth-through (mitosis)
provides a hostile environment for all microbiological organisms and will not support their growth
Ceramic elements may be cleaned 100 or more times with a soft brush or damp cloth.
Performance Features:
Easy installation
Good flow rate / Up to 1 gallon of clean water per hour (gravity flow)
Up to 300 gallons per hour (pressure flow)
Filter will accept water from floods, lake, rain, well, tap, river or stream
Semi/Annual filter replacement Cleansable with clean damp cloth
 
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