Emergency food supply....for the wife
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processhead I recently invested in my water surplus. I bought a LifeSaver Jerry Can, have you seen these before? It is a jerry can with a pump, spigot and internal, replaceable, filter. On the model I purchased, the filter is good for 20,000L (approx 5K gallon) before needing replaced. It really makes me feel better about my emergency water situation. I have a spring fed pond on my property and a river 1/4 mile away so so long as the ground water doesn’t stop I will always have a water source close, regardless of electricity or not.
@matt-westerhaus said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
processhead I recently invested in my water surplus. I bought a LifeSaver Jerry Can, have you seen these before? It is a jerry can with a pump, spigot and internal, replaceable, filter. On the model I purchased, the filter is good for 20,000L (approx 5K gallon) before needing replaced. It really makes me feel better about my emergency water situation. I have a spring fed pond on my property and a river 1/4 mile away so so long as the ground water doesn’t stop I will always have a water source close, regardless of electricity or not.
That sounds like a good water storage system, Matt. The fact that it is portable is also an advantage.
There are a couple of other low tech ways to make non-potable water sources safe to drink. For centuries, people have boiled water to kill pathogens that could be dangerous. Adding a couple drops of ordinary bleach or iodine is another method.
The advantage of your jug is the filter probably removes taste and odor from water that is less than ideal.
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@matt-westerhaus said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
processhead I recently invested in my water surplus. I bought a LifeSaver Jerry Can, have you seen these before? It is a jerry can with a pump, spigot and internal, replaceable, filter. On the model I purchased, the filter is good for 20,000L (approx 5K gallon) before needing replaced. It really makes me feel better about my emergency water situation. I have a spring fed pond on my property and a river 1/4 mile away so so long as the ground water doesn’t stop I will always have a water source close, regardless of electricity or not.
That sounds like a good water storage system, Matt. The fact that it is portable is also an advantage.
There are a couple of other low tech ways to make non-potable water sources safe to drink. For centuries, people have boiled water to kill pathogens that could be dangerous. Adding a couple drops of ordinary bleach or iodine is another method.
The advantage of your jug is the filter probably removes taste and odor from water that is less than ideal.
processhead correct, there is a carbon filter right at the end to eliminate tastes and the filter mesh is very-fine…To the point where it filters out particles as small as most viruses. I’ve got a few different pack-able filter devices as well when weight/portability really become an issue, like hiking and such.
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Jonathon processhead its a bit on the expensive side but if you look at it from the perspective of $/gallon of filtration capability it’s pretty cheap in the long-term.

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@matt-westerhaus said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
processhead I recently invested in my water surplus. I bought a LifeSaver Jerry Can, have you seen these before? It is a jerry can with a pump, spigot and internal, replaceable, filter. On the model I purchased, the filter is good for 20,000L (approx 5K gallon) before needing replaced. It really makes me feel better about my emergency water situation. I have a spring fed pond on my property and a river 1/4 mile away so so long as the ground water doesn’t stop I will always have a water source close, regardless of electricity or not.
That sounds like a good water storage system, Matt. The fact that it is portable is also an advantage.
There are a couple of other low tech ways to make non-potable water sources safe to drink. For centuries, people have boiled water to kill pathogens that could be dangerous. Adding a couple drops of ordinary bleach or iodine is another method.
The advantage of your jug is the filter probably removes taste and odor from water that is less than ideal.
processhead Do You or anyone else know anything about the Berkey Water Filter systems? Was looking into buying one of these.
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When it comes to needing water, I just fire off one of the stills and do steam distillation, no pathogens, no odors and if you run your source water through screening materials, you take all the particulates out from the still.
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When it comes to needing water, I just fire off one of the stills and do steam distillation, no pathogens, no odors and if you run your source water through screening materials, you take all the particulates out from the still.
johnsbrewhouse Lots of units out there. What would you recommend for a small family, say 5 people?
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I really don’t know to much about any specific brand of filter or storage system.
What I do know I learned when worked in the municipal drinking water industry. We would preach to the people that had filter systems installed in their homes, that you need to maintain them and change the filters regularly, or else they can become health hazards. The exact opposite of why they installed them in the first place.
I would say those rules would generally apply to filter systems for camping and storage systems too.
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matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/
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matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/
Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/
Not only that, I can think of another very practical use of a distillation unit when my CE wife wasn’t busy purifying water with it. lol
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Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/
Not only that, I can think of another very practical use of a distillation unit when my CE wife wasn’t busy purifying water with it. lol
processhead said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/
Not only that, I can think of another very practical use of a distillation unit when my CE wife wasn’t busy purifying water with it. lol
No Doubt! Jonathon I picked my unit up with a decent discount for being a first responder. If you do the math, each gallon I filter will cost me $0.05 over the life of the filter.
The appeal of the dual-purpose of some distillation equipment has me second guessing my purchase…
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johnsbrewhouse Lots of units out there. What would you recommend for a small family, say 5 people?
Chef I have a 15 gallon still made from a keg with a 2 ft refraction tower. You need about 1 gallon of water per person per day
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Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
matt Westerhaus This seems like something I am going to look back on one day and say to myself “Really? $300 wasn’t worth a way to easily clean your pond water for your family” and kick myself BUT like johnsbrewhouse says, there steam distalation isn’t that hard with a chemical engineer as a wife/
Not only that, I can think of another very practical use of a distillation unit when my CE wife wasn’t busy purifying water with it. lol
processhead many practical use when you have multiple units
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@Matt-Westerhaus why don’t you just drop a well, and put in a hand pump?
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Tex_77 I have a well.
a hand pump would be cool, I’d like to get some solar out here eventually for running the well when grid power is out. Generator will work temporarily but it would be nice to have the solar in place. Most of our appliances are electric, with the exception of furnace and water heater. Looking at plans to add a fireplace in the living room and a wood burning stove in another room. The fireplace will be in the same room as our return air vents so we could flip on the central air blower to send some heat to the ends of the house. The central heating eats through propane in the winter. I think we had one month this last winter that cost $300 in propane. -
I think its gets pretty expensive to get completely off the grid and still live a lifestyle with all the typical electrical comforts we take for granted like A/C and hot water and a well. It takes a lot of panels, batteries, and a big inverter to run a typical home and all the electrical loads. Got have the batteries and inverter for nighttime and cloudy days.
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I think its gets pretty expensive to get completely off the grid and still live a lifestyle with all the typical electrical comforts we take for granted like A/C and hot water and a well. It takes a lot of panels, batteries, and a big inverter to run a typical home and all the electrical loads. Got have the batteries and inverter for nighttime and cloudy days.
processhead Yep the amount of solar panels and batteries needed to run an entire house efficiently cost more than some think. Yes the technology is getting better every single day but it comes at a cost. Plus then also have to think about the life span of the panels and batteries. I know when we were building our house in 2014, it was going to cost 30-40K for panels. That wasn’t with any battery banks to hold that energy. If you tried to get off the grid with as many creature comforts you’d also need windmills. But then again going off the grid it would be understood you are willing to give up a lot.
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processhead Am I just dumb today or does anyone else not know what CE stands for? I am assuming it is something either medical or engineering-wise? I am in a 4 mile wide and 40 mile long stretch where there is not enough ground water for a well but with my pond in the back I wont have an issue with getting water, it will be an issue with cleaning the water. My dogs happily drink from it but I don’t think my gut biom is ready for that just yet!
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processhead Am I just dumb today or does anyone else not know what CE stands for? I am assuming it is something either medical or engineering-wise? I am in a 4 mile wide and 40 mile long stretch where there is not enough ground water for a well but with my pond in the back I wont have an issue with getting water, it will be an issue with cleaning the water. My dogs happily drink from it but I don’t think my gut biom is ready for that just yet!
Jonathon Yeah think of all that fertilizers/chemicals in there…yummy!!!
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processhead Am I just dumb today or does anyone else not know what CE stands for? I am assuming it is something either medical or engineering-wise? I am in a 4 mile wide and 40 mile long stretch where there is not enough ground water for a well but with my pond in the back I wont have an issue with getting water, it will be an issue with cleaning the water. My dogs happily drink from it but I don’t think my gut biom is ready for that just yet!
Jonathon said in Emergency food supply....for the wife:
processhead Am I just dumb today or does anyone else not know what CE stands for? I am assuming it is something either medical or engineering-wise? I am in a 4 mile wide and 40 mile long stretch where there is not enough ground water for a well but with my pond in the back I wont have an issue with getting water, it will be an issue with cleaning the water. My dogs happily drink from it but I don’t think my gut biom is ready for that just yet!
Ask your wife.
She are one! Chemical Engineer. CEPretty common in the engineering professions EE electrical, ME, mechanical, …and so on.
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processhead Am I just dumb today or does anyone else not know what CE stands for? I am assuming it is something either medical or engineering-wise? I am in a 4 mile wide and 40 mile long stretch where there is not enough ground water for a well but with my pond in the back I wont have an issue with getting water, it will be an issue with cleaning the water. My dogs happily drink from it but I don’t think my gut biom is ready for that just yet!
Jonathon Chemical Engineer
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