HOW DO YOU TREAT WATER TO DRINK

Once you have reasonably clean water, it should be treated before it is safe to drink. The purpose of this is to kill all germs that may be in the water. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross agree on three acceptable ways to treat drinking water: cooking, chlorine bleaching or distilling. Distillation and treatment systems of the camping shop have problems if you try to supply water for a household. In general, cooking and bleaching are the best.

boiling point

Water must be boiled for at least 5 minutes to disinfect it. Some agencies recommend cooking for 10 minutes to be safe. If you live at high altitude, add a minute for every 1000 feet above sea level. Do not forget that there will be evaporation. You probably want to cover the pot to hold as much water as possible. Once the water has been boiled, let it cool in the same container. It can be done in storage bottles if it is cool.

Boiled water tends to taste flat because there is no air in it. You can add air by pouring the water back and forth between two clean containers. If you do this, you also improve the taste of your stored or bottled water.

Cooking requires that there is a source of fuel and a safe way to store the water as it cools down. If your kitchen is working, this is not a problem. If you cook over a grill or a campfire, use bleach to purify the water.

If you are treating the water for cooking, do not add any food until the water has boiled for a long time to treat the water. You do not need to boil, cool and warm up the water to cook, but you can contaminate the food if the water has not boiled long enough before you use it for cooking. If you put food in polluted water, it gives the bacteria a place to hide and they may not be killed in the time it takes to cook vegetables or pasta.

The biggest problem with cooking for water treatment is that you can not treat a lot of water at the same time. Most kitchens do not have pots bigger than 6 or 8 liters and you can not fill them more than about half or two thirds. Do not forget that boiling water is also a safety problem. Even minor burns can make you very ill if they become infected.

Bleaching

Treating water with bleach is very effective in killing germs, and it does not appeal to most of us, as it is actually what most city water supplies do. You must have a bottle of plain chlorine bleach and a dropper. The bleach should contain 5 to 6 percent sodium hypochlorite without preservatives and no additional ingredients. Do not use scented bleaching agents, safe color bleaching agents, bleaching powder in cans or bleaching agents with added cleaning agents. You want the good, old-fashioned stuff that smells like chlorine and burns holes in your clothes if you pour it exactly on them. Even this is difficult to choose because it is now available in various concentrations. Ultra Clorox is a 6% solution instead of 5.25%, but it is the same. Store a bottle of 5.25% or 6% chlorine bleach without additives in the washroom for use in water purification. Replace bottles once a year if you do not use them a lot in the washing machine, because bleaching loses strength quickly. Buy a pipette and / or a syringe for medicines in the pharmacy and store it near the bleaching water, where it will be used for nothing else.

To treat water with chlorine, put the water in a clean container and add 16 drops of bleach for each liter of water. Stir in the bleach and let the water stand for 30 minutes. If the water does not have any pale odor, repeat the dosage of 16 drops per gallon and leave it for another 15 minutes. If it smells like it is good to drink. If it does not smell fresh after two treatments, the water is too dirty to use. Throw it away and treat a new batch of water.

PALE FOR DIFFERENT WATER CONTAINERS

1 liter bottle

4 drops of bleach

Bottle of 2 liters

10 drops of bleach

1 gallon can

16 drops (½ ml) of bleach

2 gallon cooler

¼ teaspoon (1 ml) of bleach

5 gallon bottle

½ teaspoon (2.5 ml) of bleach

Distillation

Distillation requires boiling the water and collecting the vapor as it condenses back into water. It is a method that you can use in difficult circumstances for someone who is most at risk due to bad water, such as a small baby or someone who is ill or very old. Although someone who is so sensitive should not try to stay home in a disaster situation. It is the only way to make salt water drinkable.

Distillation has the same problems as cooking and produces very small amounts of usable water. Although distilled water is virtually free of germs, it is not necessarily free of chemicals. You must use very pure water for distillation. Unless you are a moon shiner or a chemist who has the tools and knowledge to set up a real distillation column, this is probably not worth trying.

If this is your only choice, you can distil water in the kitchen. Fill a covered pot half full with water. Tie a cup to the middle handle of the lid of the pan and place the lid on the pot upside down. The cup must be hung up in the pot with the right side up. Do not let the cup touch the water. Boil the water for 20 minutes. Water boils up and condenses on the lid and falls back into the cup. After 20 minutes you must collect the water from the beaker and start again. You often have to change the water in the pot, otherwise the water in the pot will become more and more concentrated with impurities and the water in the bowl will not be as good. Remove contaminants from the sides of the pot and lid before starting each new batch.