Will a still purify water for cunsumption?

[BUBSDAD]

I have a spring fed creek that runs thru my yard and have plenty of water for household use year round if I need it. My question is about making it drinkable, what is the best cheapest way to make this water fit for drinking and cooking? I have been thinking a still might work, but I am ignorant as to what kinds of bacteria boiling will kill or leave behind to give my family the squirts.

What are you all doing?

[BWHLover]

I live in the city on a city lot. I plan on staying where I am at when SHTF. I also have water concerns, I can boil water but what if I have no power or gas?

I purchased the AquaCera water purification system with 5 10" candles & 5 extra candles.. I live in California and cannot purchase the Berkley.

http://www.stpaulmercantile.com/index.php?action=store&item=Aqua1010

[Dame]

Getting the water tested before doing anything to it would be where to start, including a test during spring run off. Some spring fed creeks are fine to drink with only minor filtering. Other natural water cources have real problems.

Distilling will certainly removes minerals, suspended particulate, and most biological contaminants. For some water you may also need to irradiate and/or put through a reverse osmosis unit.

Unless you have it tested there is no good way of knowing what you would need to do or not do to make it potable (drinkable).

[Travis]

I live in California and cannot purchase the Berkley.

http://www.stpaulmercantile.com/index.php?action=store&item=Aqua1010



Huh?? Seriously you cannot get a water filter in CA. I say its time to get an address out of that state.

I grew up on a well and never had a problem with it and never purified it. But now when I go home for visits sometimes it bothers me. So in short it may give you the squirts to start with but maybe after a while you system may get use to it.

[NCLee]

Agree.... get the water tested so you know what's needed to make it safe to drink.

All that may be needed is to bring it to a boil for 1 to 3 minutes based on your altitude. OTOH, distilling may not be enough, if you have some types of chemical contamination. Some may distill right along with the water, and thus will be in the distilled water, when you finish.

An option for making water safe to drink where fuel for boiling is a problem is to use a solar still or a solar heater. (Put the water in a clear soda bottle and put it on a roof in the sun will heat it enough to make it safe to drink, if the contamination is fecal bacteria.)

Again, get the water tested. With that info you can zero in on what will work the best for you.

Lee

[BUBSDAD]

Thanks for the input, looks like I need to figure out what i need to kill or filter out befor making any decisions.

[Dame]

Or spending any serious amount of money and effort.

[keydl]

You are collecting from an open creek so there is the probability of biologic contamination from runoff into the creek so it will need treatment for that all the time.

Chemical contamination is unknown and subject to most of the same randomness from other peoples activity.

Unless the creek is used by healthy people downstream you need a full lab test for contents to use it as drinking water.

Or as you say a still with a slightly altered operation - hold the water temp at 3 to 5 deg below boiling for 15-20 minutes to flash off volatile chemicals be for running the still.
An activated charcoal filter will take a limited amount of volatile material out of the water but there is no alarm when it quits working so you need to keep track of time and gallons used.
Boiling will kill nearly all biologic as will UV light.

My experience is that small springs are not reliable in dry years so the recommendation would include a cistern to hold treated drinking water and a second for untreated water so that your choices for hauling water are not limited.

[Mad_Professor]

It should remove biological but may not remove chemical (volatile organic) contamination.

If the water just has microbes you should be good to go.

It will remove poisonous salts such as arsenic and lead and other heavy metals. It will also be "soft water" (no minerals/salts) good for making soaps.

[S2man]

Bubsdad, to summarize the previous, excellent posts, distillation will remove the bugs, but not some chemicals, which I would find acceptable in a SHTF situation.

I am in the same situation with my reverse osmosis filter. It will remove the chemicals which get past distillation, but let through some of the other nasties. But at least, neither of us will get the squirts.

For optimum drinking water, I think we should both run our water through an activated carbon filter to sequester the remaining impurities.

Note to self: stockpile copper tubing and fittings for distillery operations. (both drinking and sipping ;-)

[NCLee]

Forgot to mention earlier......

Distilling water removes all the trace minerals found in it. From what I understand, this isn't healthy over the long haul, if we don't find another way to replace those minerals in the water.

For more information on how to deal with water that may be contaminated check out these two web sites.

http://drum-runners.survivaltimes.info/ This is the mirror site for Drumrunners which is being taken off line soon. Scroll down for the section on water. You may also want to take a look at many of the other items while they're still available.

http://www.grandpappy.info/indexhar.htm This is another good site that covers much more than having a supply of drinking water.

FWIW, I've saved and printed out hard copies of things applicable to our situation. The fact that Drumrunner's is being taken down is one reason. The other is that even if sites like these stay up, I may not have any way to access them, nor working computer equipment to retrieve what's been saved on it.

Couple more...
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/well/resources/fact-sheets/fact-sheets-htm/Househ2.jpg - Slow sand filter

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/content/water-treatment.aspx - directions for boiling water to kill the "bugs" that can get you.

One other point to consider. Look at what's happening in Hati now due to water contamination. Generally, we're concerned about eColi and such in our water that doesn't come from the tap. However, the really bad killers are out there, just waiting for the opportunity to strike, too. Regardless of the cause for disruption of that tap water, we should be prepared, IMHO, for the possibility of an outbreak like the one in Hati.

Hope this helps further.
Lee