It wasn't really meant for this, but I guess it will do.

This forum is dedicated to talking about house hold products that can be u in SHTF situations. An example, in another thread some one mentioned using cheese clothe to cover air sources in the case of nuclear fall out. I have often concidered the use of coffee filters to filter water as well as air.

Somehow I would not trust cheesecloth and coffee filters to safeguard my well being from nasty water and radiation. On the flip side a gallon of unscented bleach can purify a whole lot of water, so that is certainly a plus when considering the usefulness of household products. Also moist tobacco draws bee sting venom out quite nicely.

Yea, I know one teaspoon of bleach can make about a gallon of water safe, or something like that.
I always carried a bottle of bleach with me whenever I went to work in hurricane affected cities and states.
Heres a page with bleach/water ratios for purifying water.

OoO

WATER PURIFICATION 1) Clear water is a sign of pure water. Always drain long-standing pipes for 30 seconds to one minute before drinking! (Cheap remote motels?) 2) 1 Gallon water is disinfected by 8-16 drops of regular household bleach (visually about 1/4 of a teaspoon) - double that for cloudy water. Shake and let stand 30 minutes. One teaspoon will disinfect 5 gallons. Immediately after treating, water must initially have a slight smell of chlorine. If it does not - repeat the process. 3) Household bleach is relatively harmless. The smell or “waft” of chlorine is not bad: it indicates that water is treated and germ free. Once treated and disinfected, the chlorine smell will go away in a few days. 4) Regularly used water from large tanks may be treated once or twice a month with 1 Oz. bleach per 200 gallons or 5 Oz. bleach per 1000 gallons. 5) Long-standing water in tanks will be disinfected w/ 1 pint household bleach per 1000 gallons. (2500 gal tanks are fine with 3 pints.) 6) Bleach effectively kills bacteria and viruses, stops smells and then breaks down. It's effective germ killing alkaline property is completely neutralized very quickly. It does not stay chemically active in tanks for more than a few days. Most germs require sunlight to grow. Store water in the dark. 7) If water is relatively clear: but has a noticeable smell of chlorine: it is drinkable, disinfected, and harmless. Humans need 2 quarts per day.

I'll refrain from discussing the merits of common household chemicals and how they can be used because doing so would violate the Patriot Act.

However, as for other things...

Dental Floss makes great material for emergency stitches. Super Glue is great for sealing smaller wounds that would normally require stitches.

Straws and Bic Pens are also good to have handy in certain emergency First Aid situations where a proper EMT Kit is not available. Straws can be used for emergency blood transfusions and bic pens can be used for tracheotomies.

Turkey Basters also can be used as a substitute in emergency First-Aid if an EMT Kit is not available.

Frying Pans make for good weapons (far more useful than a baseball bat, no one is going to harass you for carrying a Cast-Iron Skillet concealed...and you can cook with them too!).

Coffee Filters are good for separating any kind of precipitate from a chemical.

Aluminum Cans, especially after you've consumed the contents, make for good low-tech security systems when attached to trip-wires (string). Before the contents are consumed they make for very good impromptu short-range weapons (if you've ever gotten hit in the head by a can of Baked Beans thrown at you, you'd know exactly what I'm talking about! There is more concussive force in a can of Baked Beans than there is in a rock!).

Of course, any aerosol can, like hairspray, can be a nice impromptu flame-thrower or incendiary device.

Bed Sheets and towels can be useful for trapping water during rainfall. Any kind of large area cotton-based fabric can absorb and hold a lot of water for a day.

Windex is perfect for keeping Ants and other insect pests away from an area. Just spray it in around where you don't want them to go, and it will keep them away for a year.

That's all I can come up with off the top of my head at the moment, but I'm sure I will have more as I give it more thought.

I'm probally giving away way too much info but...

Most Bacteria are under 10 micron, usually 3 microns in size or as small as 0.3 micron. Viruses go as small as .03 micron in size.

Radiactive dirt in water would be usually in the 1 - 50 micron size.

Coffee filters have pores as large as 100 microns.

The usual limit of human eyesite is 50 microns.

A single cofee filter will not stop anything you want it to. You can layer them but again it will work better but still not perfect.

A research project done on 3rd world water filtration a few years ago looked at using 7 layers of fine silk and it removed 95% of the various water born problems.

If you can fint one the really fine wine filters (disk and a special holder) can take out stuff to 1 micron. Also those house filters that you get at Home depot and other places work very well.. but the filters they sell only go down to 10-20 micron. There is a company called Osmonics that sells filters for those housings that go as low as 0.03 micron (water for hospitals) but I havn't had any dealings with them since they were bought out by GE a while ago.

Lastly I started a thread a few days ago about defeating technology
www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'd never heard that about putting bleach in water. Interesting though. But, wouldn't adding the bleach make the water poisonous then? Or is the level of bleach so small that it is harmless to the human body?

Edited to replace rude sounding comments with these non-offensive and awesome smileys..

[edit on 6/26/2009 by Kr0n0s]

(mass smilie edit)

[edit on Sun Jun 28 2009 by Jbird]

reply to post by Kr0n0s


Settle down now. I'm only human and I happened to have missed that part that you just quoted. Thank-you and I apologize.

reply to post by octotom


Sorry man, i didnt mean to sound rude. That wasnt the way i was thinking as i typed it but i see now that it looks like i was being short with you.
wasnt my intentions though, again sorry.

Originally posted by fraterormus
Straws can be used for emergency blood transfusions and bic pens can be used for tracheotomies.

Turkey Basters also can be used as a substitute in emergency First-Aid if an EMT Kit is not available.

Ok, I can buy the bic pen tracheotomy...seen it on MASH. but I really want to see a demo of how I can use a straw for an emergency transfusion....man, no one ever said emergency SHTF medicine was gonna be painless did they?

Whats the turkey baster for? Sit-X artificial insemination? no really...

Thanks for the tips.

Originally posted by octotom
reply to post by Kr0n0s

 

Settle down now. I'm only human and I happened to have missed that part that you just quoted. Thank-you and I apologize.

Thank you for not allowing that to go as far as it could have. I wish more of us were as gracious.

reply to post by Kr0n0s


No worries.

It happens to us all from time to time. That's a disadvantage of the internet I guess.

Originally posted by KSPigpen

Originally posted by octotom
reply to post by Kr0n0s

 

Settle down now. I'm only human and I happened to have missed that part that you just quoted. Thank-you and I apologize.

Thank you for not allowing that to go as far as it could have. I wish more of us were as gracious.

Yea, it was just a mis-understanding, i take full responsibility too.

No worries.

It happens to us all from time to time. That's a disadvantage of the internet I guess.

Thanks for understanding.
If im able to, i will edit out the offending parts of the sentence

reply to post by Kr0n0s

If im able to, i will edit out the offending parts of the sentence

Ha. No need for that, but I will admit that the bagillion smilies are kinda funny!

Originally posted by KSPigpen
Ok, I can buy the bic pen tracheotomy...seen it on MASH.

but I really want to see a demo of how I can use a straw for an emergency transfusion....man, no one ever said emergency SHTF medicine was gonna be painless did they?

Whats the turkey baster for? Sit-X artificial insemination? no really...

A Turkey Baster would act as a suction device to decrease hemorrhaging or edema when performing First or Second Aid in the field. It can be used in an emergency to help drain fluid from the lungs or remove blockages from the throat. It can also be used to treat venomous bites, but the actual effectiveness of using suction to remove venom is highly debatable.

As far as using straws for a direct interhuman blood transfusion, you are using them in place of not having plastic tubing available. Just put one end of the straw in the other end of another straw, and you can make a tube as long as you need. You would still need to have something to perform the actual venipuncture in the median cubital vein, but you could actually do this with a knife tip if the situation were dire enough. Just insert one end of your straw tube in donor's arm, suck on the other end of the straw to get flow, and insert that other end into the recipient's arm. Of course there are a LOT of risks involved in interhuman blood transfusion, even under ideal medical conditions. Doing it in this makeshift way should only be done in a life or death situation where no other options are available.

I also heard that if ur trying to wait out and your using a bucket as a latrine, adding a fresh layer after each bathroom usage can help keep things livable. I also would imagine that kitty liter would make good sand bags.

you can use an aluminum can for a miniature stove and you can use sand to help purify water so you dont get giardia or some other harmful bacterias. Also plastic can be used to help purify water its some technique you like dig a hole and whatnot dont feel like explaining it . Ummm anybody have an idea on possible household chemicals to act as a clotting agent? Oh yeah there is always the possibility of molotovs

reply to post by T_Clem


A steel can would be better. Most aluminum cans are thin-walled, and your fire will erode an aluminum can quickly. A large restaurant-sized steel can can easily become a sand-diesel (or sand-gasoline) stove, but be careful with the gas. The steel can is sturdy enough to hold your pan or pot on top.

lol they make steel cans? I guess we do learn something new everyday!

Though I myself have yet to try this, I would imagine that tampons could be useful in the first aid of bullet wounds. I also heard that pads are useful pressur bandages. Non lubricated condoms also make great water collection devices, they can store somthing like 2 litres of water.