And we do have more than one of these, thanks to my dad, who used his vehicle to run some up to us from Utah last week. These are barrels used for drink concentrates at a company down in Utah, and my mom picked up a few for $10 each, and the best guess is that they hold about 50-55 gallons. So we bought some from her, and the "fun" began--at least for the children.
Because these are used barrels, and we want to use them for water, the first thing we needed to do was to wash them out and get all the residue from the drink concentrate out. We put in a few drops of non-toxic cleaner and some water, and then the children pushed the first barrel around and around the yard. This ensures that the barrels are entirely washed out. At one point one of the children was on top of the rolling barrel with a sibling pushing said barrel around with glee--an activity which basically ensures that their mother is probably going to have heart problems if she has to watch for very long... So my husband watched, and I went to the library to get more books out for the family. (I was planning to go to the library anyway, but it makes for a better story this way, doesn't it? :) And you may have noticed that my husband worries a lot less than I do anyway...)
Well, everything went pretty well, and now our barrels are sitting in the backyard soaking some more before rolling again and filling with water. This is a good continuation of water storage for us, but what we will be working toward is getting a water purification system, about which I have received a lot of great comments before, both on the subject of portable and longer-term systems. I am leaning toward a Berkey, which Kymber writes about in this post at Nova Scotia Preppers Network--I recommend looking at their whole water collection/ storage system--very impressive, if you are allowed to collect your own water.
The next challenge for us is to find the room to store more than one of these circus-barrel stand-ins.... :)
4 comments:
We need a good purification system. We have 300 gallons of rain water stored.
Christy--Wow! You are ahead of the game, and it is great that you have rainwater...we're going to have to save up for our purification system, but it will be nice to have it. Thanks for your comment!
WE have several of those barrels too, ours had Mt. Dew in them at one time I think. Need to get our gutters installed to catch some rain water. I'd love to have a Berkley filter too, lot of $$ for me though. May have to start a fund for that one. lol Great post as always.
Chris
Chris--If your barrels were like our barrels, they were a lot less than the brand new blue barrels, that can run a lot more than $10, so we are very glad to have them!
We don't get enough rain around here to be able to depend on rain collection, but that would be nice. As for the water filter, we will have to save up for it, but it's on the list...amazing how long the list can get, at least around here... :) Thanks for your comment!
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