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Originally Posted by The Reaper
I am thinking bigger than a wading pool and closed from the elements. The military stores water in blivets. This made me look at a commercially available alternative.
We have an unused water bed mattress that will connect directly to a water hose. They can probably be found at yard sales and the like for a few dollars. New mattress bladders are less than $100. I am thinking that rinsed out well to remove any traces of algecide, with a little chlorine added, it will be easily stored in my crawl space under the house and can hold a couple of hundred gallons of water. I could actually store quite a few down there. By my calculations, a Queen mattress should hold over 220 gallons and a King around 300. That should keep a careful family of four in drinking water for more than six weeks.
If I reconnect the hose and locate the running end down hill, I can even have running water.
Has anyone else considered this?
TR
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I think a waterbed matress would work fine. Excitable types get the vapors about "non-food-grade" vinyl, but if it was new or rinsed thoroughly it would be fine. I found one reference at least that says it's OK (of course, all the guys selling barrels say you'll die):
"Water beds hold up to 400 gallons, but some water beds contain toxic chemicals that are not fully removed by many purifiers. If you designate a water bed in your home as an emergency resource, drain it yearly and refill it with fresh water containing two ounces of bleach per 120 gallons."
http://www.state.nj.us/njoem/prepare...foodwater.html
Don't discount the pool idea out of hand -- you can get some serious volumes for reasonable $$ (compared to blue barrels, certainly) if you have a back yard or a garage to put it in. The following run $334 - $488, and that includes filters and ladders etc. that you don't need. You might be able to find a pool without the ancillary stuff. Of course you'll have to add in a "large enough" blue tarp (or some other cover) and a case of pool shock and test strips
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...pecifications:
12 feet across x 42 inches deep; holds
2,478 gallons
15 feet across x 42 inches deep; holds
4,131 gallons
18 feet across x 42 inches deep; holds
5,946 gallons
Basically you are adding a pond to your back yard/garage and the water will have to be treated as such, but at least there's a lot of it.
Your circumstances and the event you're planning for will dictate if it's a viable option -- you know what my short-term worry is. If you're likely to be home to set it up, have your other preps complete, and your climate allows, you'll probably have the 2 days warning it will take to set one of these big guys up and fill it.
I could fit a 15 foot pool in my two-car garage -- 4100 gallons is a lot of water, and you'll need it under some circumstances.
My big concern with water requirement estimates is that they don't add in the water you'll need if someone gets sick and you must do lots of laundry. If the panflu breaks out and stays true to current form, there'll be lots of laundry to do -- the current strains hit the gut very hard.