Water Storage: Hot Water Tank

[whenfires]

I have been neglecting a glaring hole in my preps which is drinkable water. Ages ago, before I even thought ot prepping, I changed our heating system and decided to stick with a hot water tank instead of going for a combi system. I therefore have a 140L hot water cylinder and a 225L header tank in the loft.

I seem to remember old advise about not using the water from the hot system for drinking as it could contain more minerals from being heated and contaminants which might have fallen into the loft tank. But this is a modern all-plastic tank with only a removable service hatch in it, so no chance of anything falling in.

Would you guys drink it as-is or boil/filter it?

[jaffab]

I was struck by the Movie "The Road". In the first 2 minutes, "something happens" (you don't see what" and the first thing he does is fill the bath with water.
Depending on your bath, a bath can hold 35 to 50 gallons of water - which is 132 to 190 litres of water.

Would rather drink that than the water in the water tank. But, assuming you fill your bath, plus sinks, plus pots plus pans etc - a cold water tank will be empty and will then refill with new clean water. I am not sure about drinking heated water in a water tank.

Of course, in terms of cold water tanks, it all depends on when your house was built. The EU law changed at some point in the 1990s and they stopped putting them in (everything direct feed).

[ChefSimon]

I would imagine that providing you have the facilities to re-boil/sterilise the water before consumption it should be fine. If it has got to the stage you need to consider drinking that water then it's going to be the better option than standing water outside etc.

[jansman]

If that were all there was,I'd drink it.We do have rain catchment here,and a well too ( ours is an old drum).If you are able to set up a water butt,I would urge you to.A renewable resource and so simple.Chuck in a 20 odd quid Sawyer filter ,an old tee shirt for pre filtering and a big vessel to boil if you have to,and you are good to go.

[poppypiesdad]

They advised you not to drink water from hot water cylinders because . In the old days we used lead based solder go join the copper pipes together . By heating your water it dissolved a wee bit more lead into the water than from the cold as due to temperature difference.

Best thing to do .

Scrap the copper cylinder . Put the money into a filter system and water butts on the downpipes .

Unless your going to plumb the header tank back in . Your going to possibly run the risk of a legionella outbreak in the stagnating water tank unless you cycle the water .

Jamie

[pseudonym]

If you are able to set up a water butt,I would urge you to.A renewable resource and so simple.Chuck in a 20 odd quid Sawyer filter ,an old tee shirt for pre filtering and a big vessel to boil if you have to,and you are good to go.

+ 1 to that.

Tesco have water butts for £20 at the moment. I have 2 of them. That and 2 Sawyers ready to go.

[Jamesey1981]

Before buying a water butt (although 20 quid is a good deal) have a look on your local water company's website, they often subsidise them and they'll have a link to whichever company they're working with.
Mine didn't subsidise them much, although I did get a fiver off one of them which basically paid for delivery.

Some of the discounts can be well worth having, I got a huge composter for a tenner thanks to a subsidy from my local council.

[whenfires]

I have a few Saywer Minis to hand and my plan for water preps is for a blend of water butt (one possibly two), four 25L food grade water containers as well as some off-the-shelf bottled water. But I keep thinking of this stored water I already have. Because of showers, cleaning and so on, about 100L of the 300L gets used every day and is refilled from the cold main. So, depending on what kind of SHTF event occurred I would have quite fresh water in there in the short term. There are no lead pipes and both the copper tank and header tank are sealed so it is just a question of what contaminants are either already in the tanks or have been caused by the heating/cooling of the water.

Basically, It seems a lot of water to ignore

[jaffab]

I will be picking up 4 x 25l Jerry Cans this weekend just to have on hand. If I get notice of something, I would fill them up. I am also going to do a bath test - fill it up, leave it for the weekend to see if the water level drops at all to know if I need a SHTF bath seal - my bath holds 120 litres, so that would give me 220l - for the two of us, at 2l a day each, that's 100 days worth.

[Britcit]

I will be picking up 4 x 25l Jerry Cans this weekend just to have on hand. If I get notice of something, I would fill them up. I am also going to do a bath test - fill it up, leave it for the weekend to see if the water level drops at all to know if I need a SHTF bath seal - my bath holds 120 litres, so that would give me 220l - for the two of us, at 2l a day each, that's 100 days worth.

I see your math here to get to 100 days, but have you taken into account washing and cooking?

I have seen many different opinions on how much water per day, per person so I won't start quoting numbers, but I would say that 2ltrs per day per person wouldn't be enough.