4 ms·

Figuring 5gal/d as a lower bound for daily consumption in an emergency sounds wrong. This is a situation where you need enough water not to die, which mostly me

by jefftk 4y ago

Figuring 5gal/d as a lower bound for daily consumption in an emergency sounds wrong. This is a situation where you need enough water not to die, which mostly means enough water to drink and a little bit for critical sanitation. The standard recommendation is a fifth of that: "one gallon per person per day" -- https://www.ready.gov/kit https://www.ready.gov/kit

dredmorbius 4y ago
So, let's take 1g/dy per person for a family of four and a 4-week (28-day) supply. If you're storing that in 30WM1G bottles (an HDPE 1-gallon milk bottle), the dimensions are 6"x6"x10" per bottle. You need 28 * 4 or 112 bottles. That's 12,096 in^2, or 84ft^2, or 7.8m^2 of storage area. If you've a 1 m^2 shelf, you'd need nearly 8 shelves spaced at roughly 30 cm, or 2.4 m vertical (7.8 ft) just for a month's worth of water storage. You. Need. A. Lot. Of. Water. For grains ... say, a 1.2 kg (42 oz) container of oats, you've got 150 kilocalories per 40g, or about 4,500 kcal per container. A human needs a minimum (we're talking emergency survival rations) of about 2500 kcal/day. Not a balanced or interesting diet, but for bulk calories, a starting point. A month's supply for four is then just over 62 containers. Which takes up 1.2 m^2 of shelf space. Water requires 6.5 times the storage even with an absolute minimum daily allocation. There are denser grains. Even with oats, steel-cut roughly doubles the caloric density per unit volume. It's much easier to provision a long-term food storage than a long-term water storage. This is why survival water planning often revolves around purification rather than, or in addition to, storage.
- jefftk 4y ago
  So, I do have that much water stored. I'm using 7gal water storage containers that are about 1 cubic foot each. Sixteen containers is a lot, but pretty doable if you have as much unfinished underutilized storage space as is typical in this part of the country (most houses here have basements). (I also have options for handling impure water)

by jefftk 4y ago

dredmorbius 4y ago

So, let's take 1g/dy per person for a family of four and a 4-week (28-day) supply. If you're storing that in 30WM1G bottles (an HDPE 1-gallon milk bottle), the dimensions are 6"x6"x10" per bottle. You need 28 * 4 or 112 bottles. That's 12,096 in^2, or 84ft^2, or 7.8m^2 of storage area. If you've a 1 m^2 shelf, you'd need nearly 8 shelves spaced at roughly 30 cm, or 2.4 m vertical (7.8 ft) just for a month's worth of water storage. You. Need. A. Lot. Of. Water. For grains ... say, a 1.2 kg (42 oz) container of oats, you've got 150 kilocalories per 40g, or about 4,500 kcal per container. A human needs a minimum (we're talking emergency survival rations) of about 2500 kcal/day. Not a balanced or interesting diet, but for bulk calories, a starting point. A month's supply for four is then just over 62 containers. Which takes up 1.2 m^2 of shelf space. Water requires 6.5 times the storage even with an absolute minimum daily allocation. There are denser grains. Even with oats, steel-cut roughly doubles the caloric density per unit volume. It's much easier to provision a long-term food storage than a long-term water storage. This is why survival water planning often revolves around purification rather than, or in addition to, storage.

jefftk 4y ago
So, I do have that much water stored. I'm using 7gal water storage containers that are about 1 cubic foot each. Sixteen containers is a lot, but pretty doable if you have as much unfinished underutilized storage space as is typical in this part of the country (most houses here have basements). (I also have options for handling impure water)