If you live in America, remember you have 40-50 gallons of potable water in your hot water heater at all times. This 40-50 gallons may save your life! Follow these steps: shut off the electric or gas to the hot water heater, close the valve at the top of the tank which allows cold water to enter. With a pair of Channellocks, undo the other line (the outgoing line) at the top of the water heater. This allows air to come into the tank and water to drain. Next, open the drain valve at the bottom of the tank and collect your potable water.
If there is poor flow out of this drain, poke a small, clean screwdriver up into the drain to dislodge any calcification that might be preventing flow. Try to drain your hot water heater once a year to ensure there is minimal buildup of minerals.
Really appreciate this, as well as the dialogue below. Would be very keen to hear more from you on this, perhaps something a bit more detailed and technical. I realize its polarizing, but you don't seem to shy away from that... Keep on brother!
Most people don't seem to realize that they could go several days without any food at all, once they got over the initial shock of missing the first meal. (Some, it appears, could go much longer.) Today, we're hearing about a multi-day power outage in North Carolina, due to vandalism of power substations. Who could have predicted that? Those of us with gardens & gardening tools could dig a latrine, and we might also have rain barrels for non-potable water needs. We might have unharvested root crops hidden in the ground, etc.
A great read is ‘One Second After’ based on the hypothetical EMP attack and what happens ‘one second after’ the attack. 30 days of water, food and protection is a minimum requirement.
"Natural" gas is for fee-males. If it is so 'natural', why do they need the qualifier. Sorry, no one is pumping any kind of gas into my home, or wiFRY for that matter. Supposedly I AM anti social as I don't use cell phones. Fee-males hate it when you don't play that game.
Doomberg or anyone- I’m looking for a water purifier thats on a larger scale (think Big Berkey) than a hand pump. I’m assuming you guys have researched and bought such a thing? Do you have any recommendations? I’ve read good and bad things about Berkey filters but don’t know anyone that has one. Any recommendations?
Great article, unfortunately prepping is second only to Ham Radio in terms of highly opinionated followings. Good luck with all the comments from self certified survival and logistics experts!
Hi Doomberg, I started reading and enjoying your work after the Grant Williams appearance. What I'm about to write is to let you know comes from a good place; I'm not trying "to come at you".
I read your piece and I was interested in Zerowater filters. I asked my brother, who has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from UCLA, what he thought. This is what he said:
"As for the zero water, it looks sketchy to me. I noticed they used the phrase 'dissolved solids' which is an oxymoron like 'Wet dry paper.' Something cannot be both dissolved (in solution) and solid (not in solution) at the same time. I understand they want to say their water has a lower ppm (parts per million) value than Brita but lower ppm value does not equal safer.
I would not recommend using zero water over Brita. Brita uses an activated carbon filter and it removes most heavy metals and poisonous stuff from water very effectively, but it does not remove salts like sodium and chloride (the stuff that gives water taste). Zero water also uses a carbon filter but also an ion exchange resin so they remove both metals and salts from the water. So both remove metals, but Zero water also removes salts, which is bad. Drinking 100% pure salt free water is actually unhealthy because it requires your body to lose salt to have it match the salt concentration of your body and over the long run has negative health effects. "
Hi, I'm not a PhD OChem guy but I am a Geologist that mostly works with sedimentology (soil) and hydrology (water in soil). "Dissolved solids" or "total dissolved solids" as we commonly refer to it is the measure of dissolved material other than water (mostly, salts) contained within a solution primarily composed of water. This is a technical term used when looking at the composition of water. It is not a marketing term or something similar, it is a term used by scientists all over the world, including the US Geological Survey (USGS). They use it here because their product happens to remove more than a Brita filter. I can't imagine this being a bad thing. The product is really just bringing the water from what is considered "hard" (a lot of dissolved solids) to "soft" (few dissolved solids). I'd rather have a filter that removed more arsenic, sulfur, calcium, sodium, etc. than other filters, because if any of these are overabundant they may cause health issues.
Clean water is obtained by filtering out suspended solids (dirt/organic debris) by running it through a filter of a size smaller than than the products you want to keep out. (zerowater does this) Then the water is filtered through carbon, mostly to remove organic products, chemicals, and organisms (zerowater does this). Resins can also be used to remove dissolved solids (salts) [this is a major step included specifically in reverse osmosis filtration systems in homes for example](zerowater does this).
Basically, dissolved solids are a real thing, we talk about them a lot when discussing water quality in the industry, and a zerowater is a better version of a brita.
"I agree with the phrase "total dissolved solids" being used to described the amount of solids dissolved in water. Its a phrased used in geology but its not something thats commonly used in chemistry, which is okay and I'm glad I learned new terminology. I also agree that Zero Water removes more than Brita however I do imagine this being a bad thing. Both Brita and Zero water uses activated carbon to remove organics and some heavy metals but Zero Water also uses an ion exchange resin to remove salts from the water like Na, Ca, Mg, Cl to make 100% pure water. However drinking 100% pure water isn't ideal as its hypotonic and requires salts from the body to match its concentration. A quick google search of "Is it okay to drink 100% pure water?" can show this. Granted if you have hard water Brita will not soften the water and remove those salts and drinking an excess of those salts can be hard on the kidneys. So in the case of very hard water neither Brita, nor Zero water is perfect. But I wouldn't claim that Zero Water is better because removes more, because 100% pure water isn't ideal either."
We have a camper ready to go with full tank of diesel, food cupboard, water tank, 2 propane bottles, 12v heavy battery system supplied by either house current, alternator, or solar panels on the roof, plus an inverter. Ready to go, ready to stay.
Yeah - I do not consider myself as a "prepper" - but you never know... The last warning call was Covid in early 2020.
So I bought 3 boxes with 24 packs each of those "NRG-5" bars that contain everything to survive - at least for 5 weeks for my wife an me. I have never tasted one - and it is completely irrelevant to me, as I do not expect to ever eat them.
The NRG-5 bars have a best before date of 30 years (!). I And I do not believe, that I have to throw them away when I'm in my late 80s.
We have 100 liters potable water stored - which is replaced every year. That's not too much for two persons - but we neither would cook (see above) nor would we not need to flush the toilet with it (river).
If Mr. Putin decides to close that gas valve - we have a furnace in our living room, that is fired with wood and that can keep the entire house at least frost free. We have a small "party room" - which has another wood fired oven and which is easier too keep warm. And I keep about 4 cubic meters of fire wood - which we use to fuel our romantic fire place.
And then we have an RV / Camper Car with solar panels, 220v inverter, 200l water, toilet, stove, heating, which I usually keep with full Diesel and water tanks and LPG bottles. It's a hobby and fun car to carry our e-Mountaibikes and golf equipment. But it has a double use, just in case.
Do I believe that I will ever need all this for emergency purpose? Defininetly not!
It's like an insurance that you hope you never ever need at all. We live some 5 miles of a nuclear power plant - which was recently shut down, but it still contains the nuclear material for cooling down. Our house is just 500m from one of the largest rivers in Europe, which was close to reaching its all time high just this spring. Yes - there's a dam and a pump station - but what if?
If you consider the cost of thos NRG-5 bars and the water, its absolutely negligible. For me it's just a question of common sense and preparedness.
Side remark: We spent some years in Hong Kong - and our "look and see trip" was on the peak of the SARS crisis 2003. We still read once in a while South China Morning Post - and so it happened that I read about Covid-19 first on December 31st, 2019 (!). I read the article "about that strange disease on a wet market in Wuhan" to my wife and we thought "well - sounds like SARS - we better follow this". I run a midsize German company as MD. End of January 2020 I thought - well, this Corona-thing might be still far far away, but I called our EHS guy and said: "You remember our pandemic emergency plan? Lets have a look at it". So we looked and he ordered disinfectant, face masks - and we made a clear plan to keep our operations and R&D running on site and how to operate sales/marketing/admin etc. remote from home. When I mentioned this to my management team, most of them thought "now he's paranoid". Four weeks later we were all in homeoffice, working very effectively remote. The rest is history...
One more thing - your generator. Exactly what are you going to do with it? You can't just plug it into your whole house electric system. How are you going to power your refrigerator, pull it out of its tight space and run an extension cord to it? What about your heating system fan. Even if you have nat gas you need a fan to have heat. Don't think there is a plug for the fan. If you have a well, you need electricity to run the well pump. No receptacle on my well pump. You are going to need a full back up generator tied to your electrical system. How are you going to power that, nat gas, propane, desiel (sp?)? My friend on the coast of SC has a 500 gal propane tank. Are you going to burry it? Or are you going to keep 10-20 propane tanks in your garage? You have to run a test of your system about every week; fire the thing up and see if it works. Your neighbors might not be to wild about the noise. Those back up systems are $20-30K. This prepper stuff gets complicated pretty quickly. How long are you going to prepare for? The TX freeze out lasted from Monday midnight to Friday at 10:30 so 4/5 days. I think a lot of other things could have gone wrong that would have extended that time.
Great topic though. I really enjoy your blog. Good luck with it.
Actually yes. During the Texas storm I ran an extension cord from my 2000 watt generator on my carport through a window and i plugged in my refrigerator and freezer. Generator was 900 dollars
For heat I have a back up propane radiant heater that doesn’t require electricity I have a 125 pound propane tank for back up heat.
Did that for 5 days. I have had to do it for as long as 3 weeks.
Thanks very helpful. Does the propane heater give off carbon monoxide? Did you bring the propane tank inside? What fuels your generator? How much fuel do you keep? Where do you store it?. How many propane heaters do you have? I don't think I could keep my whole house from freezing with just one. Sorry to bug you. Appreciate the insight
You can’t keep the whole house from freezing unless you have a whole house generator or a generator you can hook up to the heat pump.
I have a gas generator which I run outside. With extension cords, that runs the refrigerator and freezer. Unplug now and then to charge phones. Though I do have backup phone batteries. I would turn off the water and drain the system. I have stored drinking water and water for flushing toilets. For heat, I have a Mr. Buddy indoor heater. It runs on propane. I use it with a carbon monoxide alarm. I would not run it at night, however. That’s when I get into the 0 degree sleeping bag.
It’s not about running my house at full power, just about being able to stay safe and somewhat comfortable. I also have several battery lights and packs of batteries.
Is there something we don’t know about chook, sounds like we should be heading down to the local shops. I have thought about these issues for quite a while (I’m old) but I wonder if the world requiring all this would be worth living in. I think if we get to the stage we need food and water for a few months and no power what comes after that, just sayin... love your work👍😎
We were visiting my nephew in New York just before hurricane Sandy hit. Having grown up in Montreal and being used to power loss from ice storms, I said - fill the bathtub and every container you've got with water. They had to go out to get a plug for the bathtub (had to hunt for it too, the afternoon before it hit). But that bathtub kept the toilet going and basic washing water. Kept 5 of us for the several days it took to get out of there, and our nephew managed until power was restored 10 days later.
Now, we live in the country, earthquake country, so prepping is normal. We're with you, chicken - keep waving the flag!
If you live in America, remember you have 40-50 gallons of potable water in your hot water heater at all times. This 40-50 gallons may save your life! Follow these steps: shut off the electric or gas to the hot water heater, close the valve at the top of the tank which allows cold water to enter. With a pair of Channellocks, undo the other line (the outgoing line) at the top of the water heater. This allows air to come into the tank and water to drain. Next, open the drain valve at the bottom of the tank and collect your potable water.
If there is poor flow out of this drain, poke a small, clean screwdriver up into the drain to dislodge any calcification that might be preventing flow. Try to drain your hot water heater once a year to ensure there is minimal buildup of minerals.
Really appreciate this, as well as the dialogue below. Would be very keen to hear more from you on this, perhaps something a bit more detailed and technical. I realize its polarizing, but you don't seem to shy away from that... Keep on brother!
Most people don't seem to realize that they could go several days without any food at all, once they got over the initial shock of missing the first meal. (Some, it appears, could go much longer.) Today, we're hearing about a multi-day power outage in North Carolina, due to vandalism of power substations. Who could have predicted that? Those of us with gardens & gardening tools could dig a latrine, and we might also have rain barrels for non-potable water needs. We might have unharvested root crops hidden in the ground, etc.
A great read is ‘One Second After’ based on the hypothetical EMP attack and what happens ‘one second after’ the attack. 30 days of water, food and protection is a minimum requirement.
Reductionism embodied
"Natural" gas is for fee-males. If it is so 'natural', why do they need the qualifier. Sorry, no one is pumping any kind of gas into my home, or wiFRY for that matter. Supposedly I AM anti social as I don't use cell phones. Fee-males hate it when you don't play that game.
Hi great article thank you for sharing. Do you have any suggestions how to deal with the output, garbage and sewage?
Doomberg or anyone- I’m looking for a water purifier thats on a larger scale (think Big Berkey) than a hand pump. I’m assuming you guys have researched and bought such a thing? Do you have any recommendations? I’ve read good and bad things about Berkey filters but don’t know anyone that has one. Any recommendations?
Appreciate any insight!
Best,
John Galt
Great article, unfortunately prepping is second only to Ham Radio in terms of highly opinionated followings. Good luck with all the comments from self certified survival and logistics experts!
Hi Doomberg, I started reading and enjoying your work after the Grant Williams appearance. What I'm about to write is to let you know comes from a good place; I'm not trying "to come at you".
I read your piece and I was interested in Zerowater filters. I asked my brother, who has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from UCLA, what he thought. This is what he said:
"As for the zero water, it looks sketchy to me. I noticed they used the phrase 'dissolved solids' which is an oxymoron like 'Wet dry paper.' Something cannot be both dissolved (in solution) and solid (not in solution) at the same time. I understand they want to say their water has a lower ppm (parts per million) value than Brita but lower ppm value does not equal safer.
I would not recommend using zero water over Brita. Brita uses an activated carbon filter and it removes most heavy metals and poisonous stuff from water very effectively, but it does not remove salts like sodium and chloride (the stuff that gives water taste). Zero water also uses a carbon filter but also an ion exchange resin so they remove both metals and salts from the water. So both remove metals, but Zero water also removes salts, which is bad. Drinking 100% pure salt free water is actually unhealthy because it requires your body to lose salt to have it match the salt concentration of your body and over the long run has negative health effects. "
Hi, I'm not a PhD OChem guy but I am a Geologist that mostly works with sedimentology (soil) and hydrology (water in soil). "Dissolved solids" or "total dissolved solids" as we commonly refer to it is the measure of dissolved material other than water (mostly, salts) contained within a solution primarily composed of water. This is a technical term used when looking at the composition of water. It is not a marketing term or something similar, it is a term used by scientists all over the world, including the US Geological Survey (USGS). They use it here because their product happens to remove more than a Brita filter. I can't imagine this being a bad thing. The product is really just bringing the water from what is considered "hard" (a lot of dissolved solids) to "soft" (few dissolved solids). I'd rather have a filter that removed more arsenic, sulfur, calcium, sodium, etc. than other filters, because if any of these are overabundant they may cause health issues.
Clean water is obtained by filtering out suspended solids (dirt/organic debris) by running it through a filter of a size smaller than than the products you want to keep out. (zerowater does this) Then the water is filtered through carbon, mostly to remove organic products, chemicals, and organisms (zerowater does this). Resins can also be used to remove dissolved solids (salts) [this is a major step included specifically in reverse osmosis filtration systems in homes for example](zerowater does this).
Basically, dissolved solids are a real thing, we talk about them a lot when discussing water quality in the industry, and a zerowater is a better version of a brita.
Cheers
This my response from my PhD brother:
"I agree with the phrase "total dissolved solids" being used to described the amount of solids dissolved in water. Its a phrased used in geology but its not something thats commonly used in chemistry, which is okay and I'm glad I learned new terminology. I also agree that Zero Water removes more than Brita however I do imagine this being a bad thing. Both Brita and Zero water uses activated carbon to remove organics and some heavy metals but Zero Water also uses an ion exchange resin to remove salts from the water like Na, Ca, Mg, Cl to make 100% pure water. However drinking 100% pure water isn't ideal as its hypotonic and requires salts from the body to match its concentration. A quick google search of "Is it okay to drink 100% pure water?" can show this. Granted if you have hard water Brita will not soften the water and remove those salts and drinking an excess of those salts can be hard on the kidneys. So in the case of very hard water neither Brita, nor Zero water is perfect. But I wouldn't claim that Zero Water is better because removes more, because 100% pure water isn't ideal either."
Cheers! ;0)
This is great information, and an excellent writeup. Please tell him thanks from me!
Already did. I'm glad you enjoyed his writeup!
We have a camper ready to go with full tank of diesel, food cupboard, water tank, 2 propane bottles, 12v heavy battery system supplied by either house current, alternator, or solar panels on the roof, plus an inverter. Ready to go, ready to stay.
Yeah - I do not consider myself as a "prepper" - but you never know... The last warning call was Covid in early 2020.
So I bought 3 boxes with 24 packs each of those "NRG-5" bars that contain everything to survive - at least for 5 weeks for my wife an me. I have never tasted one - and it is completely irrelevant to me, as I do not expect to ever eat them.
The NRG-5 bars have a best before date of 30 years (!). I And I do not believe, that I have to throw them away when I'm in my late 80s.
We have 100 liters potable water stored - which is replaced every year. That's not too much for two persons - but we neither would cook (see above) nor would we not need to flush the toilet with it (river).
If Mr. Putin decides to close that gas valve - we have a furnace in our living room, that is fired with wood and that can keep the entire house at least frost free. We have a small "party room" - which has another wood fired oven and which is easier too keep warm. And I keep about 4 cubic meters of fire wood - which we use to fuel our romantic fire place.
And then we have an RV / Camper Car with solar panels, 220v inverter, 200l water, toilet, stove, heating, which I usually keep with full Diesel and water tanks and LPG bottles. It's a hobby and fun car to carry our e-Mountaibikes and golf equipment. But it has a double use, just in case.
Do I believe that I will ever need all this for emergency purpose? Defininetly not!
It's like an insurance that you hope you never ever need at all. We live some 5 miles of a nuclear power plant - which was recently shut down, but it still contains the nuclear material for cooling down. Our house is just 500m from one of the largest rivers in Europe, which was close to reaching its all time high just this spring. Yes - there's a dam and a pump station - but what if?
If you consider the cost of thos NRG-5 bars and the water, its absolutely negligible. For me it's just a question of common sense and preparedness.
Side remark: We spent some years in Hong Kong - and our "look and see trip" was on the peak of the SARS crisis 2003. We still read once in a while South China Morning Post - and so it happened that I read about Covid-19 first on December 31st, 2019 (!). I read the article "about that strange disease on a wet market in Wuhan" to my wife and we thought "well - sounds like SARS - we better follow this". I run a midsize German company as MD. End of January 2020 I thought - well, this Corona-thing might be still far far away, but I called our EHS guy and said: "You remember our pandemic emergency plan? Lets have a look at it". So we looked and he ordered disinfectant, face masks - and we made a clear plan to keep our operations and R&D running on site and how to operate sales/marketing/admin etc. remote from home. When I mentioned this to my management team, most of them thought "now he's paranoid". Four weeks later we were all in homeoffice, working very effectively remote. The rest is history...
One more thing - your generator. Exactly what are you going to do with it? You can't just plug it into your whole house electric system. How are you going to power your refrigerator, pull it out of its tight space and run an extension cord to it? What about your heating system fan. Even if you have nat gas you need a fan to have heat. Don't think there is a plug for the fan. If you have a well, you need electricity to run the well pump. No receptacle on my well pump. You are going to need a full back up generator tied to your electrical system. How are you going to power that, nat gas, propane, desiel (sp?)? My friend on the coast of SC has a 500 gal propane tank. Are you going to burry it? Or are you going to keep 10-20 propane tanks in your garage? You have to run a test of your system about every week; fire the thing up and see if it works. Your neighbors might not be to wild about the noise. Those back up systems are $20-30K. This prepper stuff gets complicated pretty quickly. How long are you going to prepare for? The TX freeze out lasted from Monday midnight to Friday at 10:30 so 4/5 days. I think a lot of other things could have gone wrong that would have extended that time.
Great topic though. I really enjoy your blog. Good luck with it.
Actually yes. During the Texas storm I ran an extension cord from my 2000 watt generator on my carport through a window and i plugged in my refrigerator and freezer. Generator was 900 dollars
For heat I have a back up propane radiant heater that doesn’t require electricity I have a 125 pound propane tank for back up heat.
Did that for 5 days. I have had to do it for as long as 3 weeks.
Thanks very helpful. Does the propane heater give off carbon monoxide? Did you bring the propane tank inside? What fuels your generator? How much fuel do you keep? Where do you store it?. How many propane heaters do you have? I don't think I could keep my whole house from freezing with just one. Sorry to bug you. Appreciate the insight
You can’t keep the whole house from freezing unless you have a whole house generator or a generator you can hook up to the heat pump.
I have a gas generator which I run outside. With extension cords, that runs the refrigerator and freezer. Unplug now and then to charge phones. Though I do have backup phone batteries. I would turn off the water and drain the system. I have stored drinking water and water for flushing toilets. For heat, I have a Mr. Buddy indoor heater. It runs on propane. I use it with a carbon monoxide alarm. I would not run it at night, however. That’s when I get into the 0 degree sleeping bag.
It’s not about running my house at full power, just about being able to stay safe and somewhat comfortable. I also have several battery lights and packs of batteries.
I believe you forgot something - phone. During 911 the volume of calls shut down all cell service. I'd suggest a land line
Is there something we don’t know about chook, sounds like we should be heading down to the local shops. I have thought about these issues for quite a while (I’m old) but I wonder if the world requiring all this would be worth living in. I think if we get to the stage we need food and water for a few months and no power what comes after that, just sayin... love your work👍😎
We were visiting my nephew in New York just before hurricane Sandy hit. Having grown up in Montreal and being used to power loss from ice storms, I said - fill the bathtub and every container you've got with water. They had to go out to get a plug for the bathtub (had to hunt for it too, the afternoon before it hit). But that bathtub kept the toilet going and basic washing water. Kept 5 of us for the several days it took to get out of there, and our nephew managed until power was restored 10 days later.
Now, we live in the country, earthquake country, so prepping is normal. We're with you, chicken - keep waving the flag!