We’ve all heard the laws of 3’s. You can live 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. Water is high up on the list and unfortunately, we need it for so many things! It isn’t just for drinking. We need water to clean our dishes, our clothes, and ourselves.
So as a bit of research I pulled out my water bills. Now, I do have a family of seven, but over the last five months, we’ve used around forty-four HUNDRED gallons a month. That’s 629 gallons of water per person per month. Or we could just say that’s TWENTY gallons of water per person PER DAY for washing our clothes, dishes, ourselves, providing for drinking water.
When it comes to storing water, you find a totally different figure. Conventional wisdom states that you should store 1 gallon of water per person per day for DRINKING. For my family that would be 7 gallons of water per day or 217 gallons of water per month. If you add in cleaning, and personal hygiene, you should be storing 3 gallons of water per person per day, or 651 gallons of water for our family for ONE MONTH. Now compare that with the 4,400 gallons of water that we’ve routinely been using per month, and you realize just how little water that is compared to what people usually use.
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Water Storage – So what do we do? 
Let’s start by looking at how much water conventional wisdom says you should store. How many people are there in your family? Take that number and multiply it by 3. This is the barebones minimum you should have in your house.
What are different ways that you can store water?
Recycled used 2-liter bottles hold about 1/2 gallon of water.
A case of water contains about 3 gallons of water.
A water brick contains 3.5 gallons of water.
A camping water jug with a spigot holds 5 gallons of water.
A barrel of water holds 55 gallons.
A waterBOB stores 100 gallons of water.
We used to keep 4 water barrels full in the basement of our old house. That no longer works for us with our basement set up the way it is. Now we need to figure something else out for our new house. We’re planning on a rainwater catchment system which will serve us for the non-freezing months. But what about for when it’s freezing outside or for life now?
Recycled 2-liter bottles
These are the cheapest of all of the ways to store water. If you are the type of family that uses one and two-liter bottles, rinse them out with warm soapy water. After you’ve done that, rinse them out with a light bleach solution. Once you’ve done that, store water with 1/8th of a tsp of plain chlorine bleach (non-scented) in each bottle. Storing these in a chest freezer is a great way to go about it. It keeps your freezer cold should the electricity go out, but you’ll still be able to use the water for drinking once it thaws.
Cases of water
Well, take a look at the containers above and see which ones you can keep easily on hand. We can easily keep four cases of water in our basement and three more on our main level. That’s our 21 gallons of water right there. What about your family? Do you have a place that you can stash cases of bottled water? Walk through your house looking for odd places to hide them. I have a recliner in my bedroom at an angle to a corner. We could easily fit another set of 2-3 cases back there and no one would know.
Water Bricks
Another great way to keep water is to use water bricks under your bed or stacked in your closet. If you keep the caps screwed on tightly, they shouldn’t leak. The great thing about these water bricks is that they are made to easily stack and to fit into tight spaces. They slide easily under a bed. A queen-sized bed can fit 24 water bricks containing 84 gallons of water under it. A twin-sized bed can fit about 16 water bricks containing 56 gallons of water under it.
Camping Water jugs
These jugs will each hold 6.6 gallons (25L) of water each. I reserve these to use as my “kitchen
faucet” or “bathroom faucet” since the jugs that I use have a spigot on them. The downside to these is they are bulky and are tricky to find places to store them if you don’t have dedicated space to store them. Having one or two on hand though is definitely very helpful!
Water Barrels
Finding a way to keep these on hand makes so much sense especially for a larger family. The downside of using 55-gallon water barrels is that these take up so stinkin’ much space! It’s also more challenging to get water out of these as you need a siphon and a bung wrench. The huge upside is they hold SO MUCH water. Our family of seven would only need four of these to keep us going a month at one gallon of water per person per day.
If you’re going to purchase these barrels, I would suggest that you either look for a reputable dealer on Craigslist or purchase them directly from Azure Standard. Each of the ones that I’ve purchased has had “food residue” in them. I just clean them out with dish soap and water the first time and the second time, I clean them out with a bleach solution of 1/4 C bleach to 2 gallons of water.
waterBOB
A waterBOB is a single-use 100-gallon container of water which fits inside a standard bathtub. As you fill the waterBOB, it will expand to fill your bathtub. It’s better than just filling the bathtub because this keeps out dirt and other particles. These are meant for situations like you’re expecting a hurricane. Also, if we get hit with an EMP, I will fill both of mine very quickly so that we have extra water for when the water treatment plants stop working.
Find the right combination of these which work for you.
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Other Water Considerations
Filter the water you store, before you store it. Never store dirty water. If you’re looking for ways to make the water that you store potable – or drinkable – there are two articles on it here and here.
When you store water, you need to make sure that you treat the water that you store. You can do this in a couple of ways.
Use unscented chlorine bleach
The simplest way to store water is to add 1/4 tsp of unscented chlorine bleach per gallon of water stored. So for a water brick, you could use 1 tsp. For a 5 gallon jug, you could use 1/2 T. For a 55-gallon barrel, you should use 5 tsp of unscented chlorine bleach.
Water Preserver
Water Preserver brand of water preservation treatments is the only treatment which has been tested to be 100% effective for keeping water safe from fungi, viruses, mold, and bacteria for five years. This allows you to store water and not have to rotate it for the entirety of those five years.
Water Usage
In order to use the water that you store, there are several very helpful items to have on hand.
If you are going to use stored water, it is always wise to have a backup of a water purifier in case the water wasn’t entirely purified when you stored it. Our personal choice is the Crown Berkey Water Filtration system. It holds and filters six gallons of water at a time. You pour the water into the top and it filters down to the bottom reservoir. Each Berkey filter will filter 3000 gallons of water. Two filters used in conjunction will filter 6000 gallons of water. Even if you fill the Crown Berkey every day, these two filters will last you 1000 days or 3 years – pretty amazing!
I also highly recommend a solar shower. You fill the shower bag and hang it in the sun. The sun will warm the water, 
then you can bring it back in use it in your shower if you have no water. It is 5 gallons, so it holds a lot of water. There is an on/off switch, so you don’t waste water as you lather up your hair or wash your body. Totally worth the small investment.
Dishpans and a dish strainer come in very helpful when you need to do dishes. You don’t have to worry about water escaping down the drain and it’s easier to keep the dishpans clean than a sink that has been piled with dirty dishes.
So What About You?
Are you ready to formulate your water plans, or do you already have your plans in place? Do you have any suggestions for others that we may all benefit from? I’d love to hear them! Leave us a comment below.
Remember, knowledge isn’t just knowing something. It’s living it!
There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. Some of the links may not be. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. These are the items that I have bought for my own family. You can feel free to use my affiliate links, of which I will get a small amount in compensation, or you can choose to search out your products on your own.
Important to note is that, while water itself never expires, the container may affect its quality. Reusing water/soda bottles is a great strategy in a pinch, but those bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate, a chemical that will leach into water after about 2 years or so. Such bottles should be consumed and the bottles tossed or the bottles should be marked for use as cleaning/cooking water only. The water blocks and similar products are lined differently and are designed for more long term storage of water.
And this is where I struggle. I do not have time in my life to rotate my water use to keep up with that two year mark. But the blocks obviously cost more, so we are building up our storage as $ permits, which is much slower than I’d prefer…
This was my thought too. Plastics aren’t fantastic for long term but a 100L glass container sounds difficult! Haha. I’m not sure of alternatives. I’ve now pressure canned some emergency water but that’s obviously small peanuts.
Great post! I appreciate the articles that you write. Thank you.
Thank you, Glenda. I really appreciate your encouragement. Any suggestions for articles or struggles that you’re having that might be a helpful article for you, I’d love to hear.
–Karen
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One thing I have found on the market and still investigating is Air to Water machine. It takes humidy in the air and makes water – just search Air to Water and you can find all different machines – it does take power but if you have a generator it would work for awhile – small machine approx 8 gallons per day and then other machines more than that
I’ve been without running water many times due to weather events and power outages. In situations when water needs to be carefully rationed, the one thing I have found that is the most useful is a garden sprayer. You fill it part-way with cold water, add hot water heated on a camp stove, pump the handle to pressurize it, and use for efficient showers or other spraying/rinsing tasks. We even use ours on longer camping trips.
What a good idea Andrea has about using a garden sprayer! I’ve been thinking about a solar shower, but in MN it really wouldn’t be helpful for half the year. But a garden sprayer that you could add some heated water to at least make it warm. Fantastic. Also, a great way to rotate water (especially in smaller plastic bottles from soda or juice) is to dump it in your washing machine. Then it doesn’t go to waste and you can refill them several times a year.
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