Ways to Make Water Safe

How would you go about making your water safe to drink? There are a few methods to doing just that. The easiest way to purify water is to boil it. Assuming you have the equipment to do so pour the water inside the pot and let the water come to a boil for at least 5 minutes then let it cool so you do not burn yourself. Filtration or purification pumps are available at outdoors stores and sports shops if you do not have the equipment to boil water. All you have to do to utilize this simple tool is find a nice clean flowing stream and then simply place the straw in the water and drink from mother nature.

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Purification drops and tablets can also be used if you do not have any of these items available around you. Perhaps maybe not the best tasting solution but they work great. When using such drops or tablets be sure to let the chemicals treat the water for at least 20 minutes before consuming. You can mix with powdered mixes to mask any of its taste if you have them available. If you have water and are looking to set up a water gathering station, you can make an evaporation trap in the ground. All you need to do is dig a hole and put a canister or bowl at the center of the hole and cover the top with a plastic sheet. When the water evaporates from the ground, it will condensate on the plastic sheet and drip off into the canister or bowl that you set in the center of the hole. These are just a few ways to make your water safe so be sure not to drink any dangerous water because it can make you sick and when you are trying to survive being sick is the worst.

 

Something else I learned when you boil the water have a something over it and tilted down into another container the vapor will hit the lid run down and drain in the container. That was something my science teacher taught me I do not know if it is a right way but I know it is something I have never forgotten.

 

Having a berkey water filter in the house will do the job nicely. If you want something for your BOB then a Lifestraw would be my apparatus of choice!

 

I live on the coast, so a lot of the water nearby is either brackish or salt. Rainwater collection is a viable option here during the summer, but steam distillation is the way to go for most of our water here. I found some really easy methods that don't require special equipment on YouTube. You can make a good distillation/desalinization setup out of just a pressure cooker and metal tubing.

 

My husband was an informal boy scout when he was a teenager and had camped in so many places particularly in mountains and riverside. One thing that amused me was his story of getting drinking water in the river. We had a picnic in that same river which is rocky and stony. On the shallow part of the river, my husband took away some stones like digging a well. When the well was about 1 foot deep, water appeared. And in a few moments, the water was very clear. That was just a demo and we didn't drink the water. In the olden days, that's how they get water but now it's not safe anymore because of the prevalence of microbe and germs like the e-coli and amoeba.

I hope I wouldn't experience finding water in the wilderness but my best bet would be to boil the water for safety.

 

Boiling is ideal. I particularly like to boil water and capture the vapor into another container, because naturally, a lot of unclean water has large particles in it that boiling will not remove. Catching the water vapor from the boiling water and running it off into another container is so much easier than straining it, which can be a mess and require a cloth, screen, or filter, which may not get all of the sediment anyway.

 

Filtering then boiling water is probably the best way. Heat kills the germs, then ultimately makes the water safe to drink. You should bring some kind of pot or something to hold the water in and learn how to make a fire.

 

I always have chlorine tablets handy in order to purify water; they work really fast and honestly clean it to a T.

 

My standard procedure is with dirty water to corse filter it first, like through denim material, it removes most large solids
and maybe again if still dirty looking!
Then I put it through a proper katadyn filter!
If still in doubt I bring it to the simmer for a few minutes!
I have seen and experienced what bad water can do! Not a big fan of suffering like that again!
I have puritabs also just incase! and at least two waterbottles on me are stainless steel and can be used to boil water in them!

Clorine/puritabs or whatever only kills germs and other live pathogens it wont clean the water just sanitise it!

 

Ah, I got kind of mixed up with words there thanks! It's definitely a lot safer to filter before putting chlorine tablets in.. although you can drink water that has just been sanitized and not cleaned although it wouldn't be very nice.

 

I used a Steri-pen when we were doing a lot of hiking. We would find a good stream, fill our water bladders, then dip the tip of the pen into the water. There was a special light on the tip and it sterlized the water. I guess it worked because I never got sick once. I liked the bladder feature in my backpack too. It was so convenient and I could sip water while hiking which was really nice. It held up well too.

 

Hydrogen peroxide or iodine will work in a pinch. Unfortunately they do not work as well as chlorine bleach. Many European water systems use ozone instead of chlorine to purify water, it is the ozone in hydrogen peroxide that kills the germs.

 

I was going to suggest using Iodine Crystal Disinfectants, adding around 4 drops for each liter of water and letting it sit for 35-40 minutes should be enough to purify the water. Of course, don't forget to boil the water first. If it happens to contain any thick debris in it, then just filter it with denim cloth. You might end up with a tiny bit of dirt but it can't be that bad.

 

I think that the purification tablets are a great idea for purifying water! My only concern is that if a natural disaster strikes and resources become limited, how would we be able to make or get these tablets? I like the old-fashioned way of boiling water but that doesn't always take all the chemicals out of the water. A friend of mine explained that you could make a container that collects the rainwater and drink that without boiling that. I wonder how safe that actually is?