Water. In tough times it is easily the key between life and death. Most disaster preparedness plans consist of bleach to use as an emergency method in making your drinking water safe to consume. Bleach does destroy most (not all) organisms that cause disease by chemically disinfecting it.
While bleach works well enough it degrades over time and eventually loses all potency. Its sad to think of how many people probably have expired bleach in their disaster preparedness kits that will ultimately be used for treating contaminated water and poorly at that. For those of you who wish to follow the older traditional way of using bleach to disinfect water it is quite simple.
The old Way: Using Bleach to Disinfect Water
Most “preppers” like to stock a few gallons of unscented bleach aside for making water safe for drinking in large quantities. This is more times than not the chemical of choice mainly because it being readily available.
To utilize household bleach for disinfecting water:
Add 2 drops of bleach per liter of water.
Stir well.
Let the mixture sit for one half hour before consuming.
If the water is cloudy or has visible particles filter the water first and double the recommended dose.
There you have it. The only problem is that it breaks down over time and loses its potency. After 6 months or less its quality is compromised and it may fail to adequately disinfect your families drinking water, leaving you to cycle your bleach out of your cache every 6 months!
Using bleach to Disinfect Contaminated Water is a Problem for anyone looking for long term storage. A Chlorox bleach representative produced this statement when asked about shelf life:
We recommend storing our bleach at room temperatures. It can be stored for about 6 months at temperatures between 50 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. After this time, bleach will be begin to degrade at a rate of 20% each year until totally degraded to salt and water. Storing at temperatures much higher than 70 degrees Fahrenheit could cause the bleach to lose its effectiveness and degrade more rapidly. However, if you require 6% sodium hypochlorite, you should change your supply every 3 months.
Fast forward to a much better method. Calcium Hypochlorite. AKA pool shock.
Average package
So what is pool shock? It is an excellent product created for people with pools to disinfect water so we can swim in it with out obtaining any water born diseases that usually accompany standing water. Not to mention keep mosquitoes at bay. Pool shock however can serve for more than just aiding in a recreational swim time.
The main ingredient in pool shock as mentioned is calcium hypochlorite. In fact it should be the only active ingredient in the pool shock you are looking to buy. Some shocks contain antifungual ingredients which can make human consumption dangerous.
Use Calcium Hypochlorite to disinfect your drinking water.
A one pound bag of calcium hypochlorite in a granulated form can treat up to 10,000 gallons of water. Calcium hypochlorite is much better than bleach for chemically disinfecting water as it destroys a variety of disease causing organisms such as yeast, fungus, bacteria, spores and viruses,that a dated form of bleach may not disinfect properly. You have seen calcium hypochlorite before I am sure, probably in the form of pool shock.
Amazon has these bags pretty cheap: Chlorine Pool Shock – 6 X 1 lb. bags
This is a simple, two step process. You can use calcium hypochlorite to create stock chlorine or simply disinfect drinking water depending on how much calcium hypochlorite you cut into your water.
To make stock chlorine dissolve a quarter of an oz (1 full teaspoon) of granular calcium hypochlorite (78%) into two gallons of water.Do not drink this. To disinfect water add one part of the chlorine solution to 100 parts water you intend to treat. Before drinking let the water sit for approximately 30 minutes.
The key here is obtaining dry granular calcium hypochlorite. Once it is mixed into its liquid state it will eventually degrade and become useless just as its household bleach counterpart will. With this said it is wise to make your drinking water in small quantities, enough for a few weeks to a month at most.
Better still is emergency use. A one pound bag really foes a long long way. It only cost a few dollars at any swimming pool store, yet a bag of calcium hypochlorite can treat up to 10,000 gallons of drinking water. A family of four using a gallon of water a day can have their water treated for 6 years with the use of just one bag of pool shock! Who knew?
Get rid of the bleach today. Add calcium hypochlorite into your disaster emergency cache. It last far longer than household bleach and treats more water than its chlorinated bleach water counterpart. A great side note to urban preppers: those pools and large bodies of water in the suburbs and inner cities would no longer be maintained if society ever broke down. Creating additional health hazards to be wary of.
For near a hundred dollar bill you can get 25 pounds of this stuff, enough to treat roughly 500,000 gallons of water Cheap enough to help out your ENTIRE neighborhood if you are into networking or live in one. Be that guy (or gal) that helps people in need. Good deeds never go unpunished.
If you are looking to pick up some as I mentioned earlier Amazon has a decent deal going on: In The Swim Chlorine Pool Shock bags
15 Comments
DorianGreer
This is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in a (very) long time. It could actually make liquid chlorine, for water purification, obsolete. Do you mind if I ask where the “parts per” ratios came from? And how does one eventually verify the end product as drinkable (regardless of method)? Thanks.
CeliaHolmes
I am confused, I was told pool shock had stabilizers and other thinks added that made them unsafe to use in purifying drinking water. Is there a special kind of pool shock to use for this purpose?
David Becker
Yes there is. I linked you to it in the bottom of the article.
DorianGreer
Well, not having definitive answers, I emailed the CDC. That might turn out to be an exercise in futility, but we’ll see. At present, this “very good idea” lacks too many concrete answers. I may bathe in my pool water if push comes to shove, but drinking it is an entirely different story. I’ll update with whatever they come back with – but I’m not holding my breath.
David Becker
That’s fine. I could care less what the CDC tells anyone. Do you drink city water? You should probably pay them a visit and look to how they purify the water you drink. I bet it is chemically dosed. I’m close with a man who is in charge of treating his entire towns water supply who has confirmed this as being the exact equivalent of chemically dosing drinking water with a bleach or chlorine solution. This technique is far from new. Good luck fella.
CeliaHolmes
Thanks, just got ahead of myself. I compared it to my pool shock and it does have less inert ingredients.
DorianGreer
Do I drink city water? Very rarely; did as a kid though. Not sure why the attitude against the CDC (they are scientists specializing in disease control). Can’t think who else would know better. I know that city water is chemically treated. That doesn’t mean if you “chemically treat” contaminated water it is therefore safe to drink. The issue is “with what” and “how much.” My original question asked where did the “parts per” ratios come from? And how does one eventually verify the end product as drinkable (regardless of method)? I wouldn’t want to rely on “luck” for this. Safety is important “especially” when medical services are down. Is that unreasonable? Bleach is good (chlorine). The CDC gives exact dosages per quantity. But not using the “scented” kind because of the “other stuff” that’s not chlorine (additives). Does the pool shock contain additives (inert to the pool) but maybe not to the human body? I don’t know why these wouldn’t be worth finding out.
David Becker
The granulated chlorine I linked to in this article contains the lowest level of additives and stabilizers on the market. As for the CDC saying something is good or bad, they ultimately do not decide for me. I do not have any hatred towards them… and I refer to them often! But in the end I do not care what they say. For example they (CDC) say not to pour peroxide on cuts or ever gargle with it. They often advise against holistic care methods such as using apple cider vinegar to treat things such as warts. Point being they are often very conservative and follow their own guidelines and no other. But who knows… they may endorse the use of granulated chlorine as many water treatment facilities use it.
David Becker
And to answer your question our figures came from a representative of the “in the swim” company.
David Becker
And lastly, I recently published this article and figured you would personally enjoy it: surviveourcollapse.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-water-contamination-and-purification/
DorianGreer
I read your article: The ultimate guide to water contamination and purification. This is a very great and thorough article and covers all the bases.
David, one of the reasons the pool shock is of great interest to me is because I have a pool. This could either mean a very good supply of water OR a very bad nightmare after 30 or so days without circulation and filtering if the power goes permanently out, (think: mosquitoes, algae, flies, roaches, rodents, etc.). Now, multiply this times a couple of hundred. You see, I live in a neighborhood where probably 50% of the houses ALSO have pools. The Calcium Hypochlorite solution could therefore cure two very big potential problems with one stone! So it’s a very important concept.
But before I could offer this as a community solution, I damn well better be sure of it’s efficacy in terms of “how” to use it safely and that it is in fact as represented. (I am in no way questioning your integrity or the integrity of your sources. But the fact is, I am not a chemist or biologist and wouldn’t know a chlorite from a chloride.) Therefore to offer this as a solution on a neighborhood scale, should someone ever ask me how I know, I better come up with more than “I read it on a blog.” Agreed?
I want my ducks in a row with verifiable sources willing to demonstrate the science behind the claim long before it’s needed. *Having the right verification behind this technique could make this article go viral.* It would represent a major shift in the entire prepper community, as clean water availability is typically No. 1 at the top of any prepper’s resources. A very tiny amount of Calcium Hypochlorite, and thus easily carried with you, can go anywhere virtually forever. That’s another reason it’s so important. But the “How To” and efficacy have to be right. Thus the reason for objective authoritative verification; the CDC. Again, I am in no way questioning your integrity. In fact I’m applauding your ingenuity. It’s a very important and positive shift in how we do things. (Just making sure you know where I’m coming from. Okay?)
David Becker
Understood and thank you for your feedback and reinforcement. I can try and concrete my findings for you OK?
DorianGreer
No need. The CDC got back with me sooner than I thought and was very thorough with their answer! Short answer “it’s a go;” long answer, “here’s how.” Here’s the sh*t (verbatim):
Dear Dorian,
Thank you for your inquiry about the use of dry calcium hypochlorite bleach for long-term storage of safe water.
The activity in bleach is due to the chlorine, and so using dry calcium hypochlorite or liquid sodium hypochlorite (household bleach) will be effective given that the concentration of free chlorine after the water has been treated is sufficient to kill any pathogens. Note that parasites like Giardia and Cryptosporidium are more resistant to bleach solutions, and so a pre-filter step is recommended.
To ensure that your drinking water supply is safe to drink you can measure the free chlorine directly, to ascertain that concentrations are high enough to prevent microbial growth.
At 30 minutes after the addition of sodium hypochlorite there should be no more than 2.0 mg/L of free chlorine present (this ensures the water does not have an unpleasant taste or odor).
At 24 hours after the addition of sodium hypochlorite to containers that are used by families to store water there should be a minimum of 0.2 mg/L of free chlorine present (this ensures microbiologically safe water).
These concentrations and recommendations for treating and testing water for free chlorine can be found here:
http://www.cdc.gov/safewater/chlorine-residual-testing.html
Most of the calculations and concentrations available from CDC are based on household bleach, which is about 5% sodium hypochlorite. To use these calculations for a granular product, you will need to create a liquid stock solution (granules + water) of known chlorine concentration and then dilute to the recommended levels in the document linked below. Follow this up with free chlorine testing (i.e. using a pool test kit) to be sure your water is microbiologically safe.
http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/safe_water/personal.html#make_safe
Thanks again for your interest in this important topic,
Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Georgia 30333 / USA
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My comment… sweet!
David Becker
Awesome response. Thank you for sharing your findings.
DMag
Please comment on proper storage for this as it is highly corrosive!