Water for all occassions

Pelenaka:  Know what we need? She says to me.

Me:  What do we need baby?

Her: A water filter. One of those countertop ones. Like in the Lehmans catalog.

Me:  Are you sure? They are pretty expensive.

Her:  Well what if the cities water was bad like in Rochester a few years ago.

Me: We could just boil water like everyone else.

Her: Well what if things happened and we needed water from any source.

Me:  Like a bugout situation?

Her: You know exactly what I mean.

Me: well a counter top unit wouldn't be very practical then, would it?

Her: We need to get prepared, it would be a big deal not to have water!

So, woodsrunner then did what he does best. Research and procrastinate.

I looked at just about every model of water purification made.

I read every product review I could find.

I looked at prices of the units.

I looked at the prices of the replacement parts needed to keep them going.

Then I searched the web for people making thier own units.

I found one home made one.

Then I decided the way to go was to make my own. And here's how I did it.

First what you'll need.

Two 8 liter food grade buckets, with lids that are snug, yet easy to remove.

I got mine from a local restaraunt supply for $6.00 each

A Doulton Super Sterasyl filter.

Mine came off ebay new for under $30.00 shipped to my door.

You will notice there is no spigot.

Remember I said I read all the reviews. Guess what breaks most.

Yup, that silly $3.00 spigot will leave you with a $200 counter decoration.

Tools are pretty simple.

A drill

A set of spade bits

An Exacto knife

A half inch bit was closest the the threads on the filter. I drilled a half inch filter in the bottom of one bucket.

I then used my exacto knife to trim the edge of the hole.

The filter was then installed, gasket on the inside under the filter, wing nut on the outside.

Careful not to over tighten. But be sure to get a good seal.

Then I used my largest bit to drill a hole in one of the lids.

As you can see the lid cracked when the drill broke through.

This could have been prevented by backing the lid with a piece of wood while drilling.

Again I trimmed the hole edges with the exacto knife.

Here it is stacked up ready to use.

After taking the reciept out of the bottom bucket that is.

Here it is nested together for storage when not being used.

Or if we had to bugout.

I'm sure Pelenaka will be more than happy to make a carry bag for it.

Why did I choose the components I did?

Without a spigot any larger bucket would be too heavy to pour into other containers.

I don't anticipate putting more than 6 liters of water through it.

Lifting 12 lbs of water sure beats lifting 40 lbs that 5 gallons would weigh

I don't trust the plastic that 5 gallon buckets are made from.

Leaving the spigot off also made it possible to nest the buckets when not in use.

I wanted to be able to see just how much we had. So clear or almost so was a must.

The filter was an easy choice.

 You could pour water from almost any source through the Doulton and it would come out drinkable.

It's the best you can buy.

Best part of all.

It cost under $50.00 to build it!

Be Prepared!

Woods