you can get light and heat from fire!!!! you can use wood to burn fires to cook/heat/distill etc

A quick note on rain barrels.
I wish someone had explained this to me, but now learn from my mistake.

At the beginning of last spring (2009) I got three 55 gal rain barrels.
You simply run your downspouts into them, and they fill up.

They have two threaded areas, with spickets, where you can attach hoses for watering, which I did.

Here it is, March in Wisconsin, and I have three barrels of ice, with my downspouts frozen solid, about six inches into the barrels.
Needless to say, my downspouts are pretty much useless.

Anyone have a guess on how long it takes 165 gallons of ice to melt if the average temp. is about 33 degrees?

Yeah, a long, long, long time.

Water heaters are a great source of fresh water in a pinch. 40 to 50 gallons on average. However, it is important to maintain your water heater now just in case you need to tap it later.

Remember that the drain is at the bottom of the tank. The same bottom that collects all of the sediment. Take the time now to drain and flush your tank and then simply repeat the process twice a year. It will help you tank last longer and will give you the maximum amount of fresh water if you ever need it.

I had to tap the tank back in 1989 when Hurricane Hugo hit the Charleston SC area with a vengeance. Not only did we have the hurricane to deal with, we had the storm surge and the multitude of tornadoes that spawned off of that system. The water tanks came in very handy.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Hmm...

If I find myself sucking on a radiator or spooning out toilet water to live, then I think I might just kill myself. What shape would the world be in if that was the senario...and why even bother living if that is what existance will hold for the rest of your life...

Dig a well :-)

Hello! Wells require electricity, have a back up generator, or build one from a gas powered lawn mower to run to draw water up from the well, should the electric go off. Wells cost up to $10,000.00 plus USD to dig.
Fill up bath tubs if you know a disaster is comming. Have two clean garbage cans made out of plastic for rain barrels. Cut a small square in the lid and insert under you rain gutter's down spouts. This will help keep the mosquitoes out? Save your used bleach bottles, these make perfect water storage containers. Milk jugs and soda bottles are not so good due to the high bacteria content. Some Briittish guy developed a water bottle called the? Life saver bottle? Anyways, it can be found on the web and is very expensive, but works where ever you are. Good luck! Don't give up hope so easily. I had a well collapse on the well pump after Hurricane Fran
in 1995. I had no water for one month to the house while waiting for the well diggers. I filled up new garbage cans in the back of my truck at the neighbors and then pumped the water into the house so the down stairs toliet and kitchen sink would work. I didn't have a shower for a month but took washcloth baths. It was bad, difficult, but doable. The mental stress
of my property being worthless should we not find water was the worst part about it. We hired a geologist and he located a good spot. I take
water very seriously as a result of the hurricanne disaster, most people
take it totally forgranted!

As kids, we roamed for hours in several square miles of sandhills

We discovered fresh water usually lies about a foot below the sand, in depressions

Same on the beach, quite often. If you scoop down to about the depth of your elbow, water will begin to seep into the hole, very often. And it's drinkable

Maybe it's the same in arid regions .. don't know

There are gallons of water in the water lines under the house.... what we did when we built this house was install a small spigot under the house at the crawl space door and this way if we have to we can drain all the water in the lines from the street and from the house lines into containers.... took about 45 minutes to install and is very efficient.

If there is space in your house...eg, basement, cupboard, garage etc, fit a storage tank that is CONSTANTLY filled and re-filled when normal house water is used.

Make sure it has an accessable drain tap.

If the shtf then you have a supply of FRESH water.

No need to treat, boil or suck on pipes.

You would have as much as the tank holds. Think of it as a reservoir that is "in line" but refreshed as you use normal domestic water.

If you can't plan far enough ahead for one of the most basic of human needs then I hardly think you'd survive anyway.

Me....I'm fortunate to have a 20,000 litre rainwater reservoir and a well with an average of 3 cubic metres of water most of the year. I'll manage.

Get yourself a colloidal silver generator, solar or alternate powered. A spoonful of the silver solution will kill any water borne diseases/bacteria in minutes. So even if your emergency water doesn't look or taste so good, at least it will be safe