Question About Storing Water

Ben,

I have read that two and in my Earthquake Kit, I have jugs off water from the store that are sealed.

They are over 2 yrs old, not sure why they would go bad either.

Would like to know the answer to that.

If the water is mineral free…what is to go bad?

This is a wild, wild, guess but maybe the plastics in the container?

Anyway, what we do is rotate the water every so often. You should probably do that too.

The time frame is 6 months and it is for city water system water that hasn't been additionally treated.
If you wash out a 2 litre pop bottle and then fill it with tap water it should last 6 months.
If you want it to last longer then you should treat it, but then you have to deal with the extra chemicals and taste.
I rotate our water every 6 months- just dump it in the garden and refill as needed or if/when you get some pop replace an old bottle- just use the water in the yard of help save H2O.

As a side note- one bonus of being a hiker is that you most likely have a filter or backwoods chemicals in your hiking closet readily available.
I have 2 55 gallon drums full of water also that I might not drink directly out of, but would/could filter it in a second.
One benefit of being a Scoutmaster is that I have four of the troops filters in my garage (troop storage) if an emergency happens- I also live close to a lake so a water source after an earthquake shouldn't be a problem for my whole neighborhood.

Store-bought bottles of water can be stored a LONG time if they are kept cool and in the dark.

Yachts also fill large fresh-water water tanks for ocean voyages. There are some silver-based water treatment tablets on the market which give no taste but do prevent any bacterial or algae from growing. Standard fare on yachts. From http://www.bushwalking.org.au/FAQ/ we have:

This chemical [silver] is marketed for the 'treatment' of water in two forms: straight silver and mixed with chlorine. Let's make one thing very clear right at the start: silver does not kill protozoa at all, and does not kill bacteria with any speed. What silver does is inhibit the multiplication of bacteria. The vendors (Katadyn) claim the bacteria will eventually die, but I have yet to see independant verification of that. So if the water you are about to drink contains a dangerous dose of E coli, treating it with silver will not give you much protection. The silver treatment is intended for water storage tanks on boats and so on, to stop any bacteria from multiplying in the tank. As far as I know, it does a good job of this. Of course, it has no effect on protozoa like Giardia. Why do walking shops continue to sell it? An effective marketing campaign I suppose.

Cheers