Remember that sinking feeling when the teacher said, “Clear your desks. Pop quiz.”? Well, class is in session, and today’s quiz is about your water.
Most of the smart, preparedness-minded people I talk with feel pretty good about their water. A case or two in the garage, a few jugs in the closet, maybe a filter under the sink. But “I have some water” and “I have water I can count on” are two very different things. Containers fail. Light and heat do their dirty work while you’re not looking. And the supply that looked just fine in April can be cloudy, sun-cooked or half-evaporated by the time you actually need it.
I’m Morgan, Lead Preparedness Consultant here at 4Patriots and the lead instructor of our water filtration, storage, and catchment courses at 4patriotsuniversity.com. Instead of a lecture today, I’ve got five yes-or-no questions. Answer honestly, keep count, and we’ll see how you did at the end. (Go stand in front of your water right now if you can. This works a whole lot better when you’re looking at it.)
Question 1: Is your water in containers built for the long haul?
This is the one that trips up the most people, because the containers that seem most convenient are the worst offenders.
Rinsed-out milk jugs and juice bottles? A hard no. Milk protein and fruit sugar never fully rinse out, and whatever’s left behind becomes a buffet for bacteria. The thin plastic also starts breaking down within a year or so. Same story for those flimsy gallon jugs from the grocery store. They were designed to sit on a shelf for a few weeks, not in your closet for two years. They crack at the seams, the caps loosen, and you find out about it when you find the puddle.
Remember: not all plastic is created equal. Some plastics are made for short-term use, and others are designed for the long haul.
What passes: thick, opaque, food-grade plastic made for long-term water storage (look for HDPE, marked with a “2” in the recycling triangle, and “BPA-free”), with a cap that seals tight. Commercially sealed bottled water counts too, as long as it’s within the date on the label. And if you can stack it? Bonus points. Stackability is a must in my book.
- YES if every container you’re counting on was made to hold drinking water long-term.
- NO if any of it is repurposed or thin store jugs.
Question 2: Is it in the dark, out of the heat, and out of sight?
Where does your water live? Be specific.
Light is your water’s enemy. Fungus and other biofilms love to grow when light can pass through a clear or semi-clear container. Heat speeds up how fast that plastic breaks down and, in a hot attic or a parked car, can push a container past what its seals were designed for. And a shed that swings from freezing to sweltering every year is hard on everything.
What passes: a cool, dark, level spot that’s not in a direct traffic path, and not where passersby can see it. (In a real emergency, your stored water is a priceless commodity. Protect it.) A large pantry, a walk-in closet, a basement that doesn’t flood, under a bed. Boring is good here. The water you forget about in a dark closet will be in far better shape than the water you can see from the driveway.
- YES if your water lives somewhere cool, dark and out of sight year-round.
- NO if it’s in the attic, a shed, a sunny room, or anywhere it bakes.
Question 3: Do you know when you filled it?
Here’s the one almost nobody can answer with a confident yes. When did you fill or buy the water you’re looking at right now?
If you don’t know, well, that’s your answer. Water you filled yourself from the tap should be dumped and refilled about every six months. That’s the guidance from the CDC and Ready.gov, and it’s there for a reason: the chlorine that keeps your tap water clean fades over time, and once it’s gone, anything that got in has free rein. Commercially bottled water lasts longer because it’s sealed and treated, but it carries a date on the label for a reason, and the plastic keeps aging whether the water does or not.
The fix takes thirty seconds: write the date on the container with a marker, every single time. Then put a note on your calendar six months out.
And while we’re here, let me repeat the rule I want you to put a star beside in your preparedness notebook: regardless of how long that water has sat, ALL Water gets Filtered Before Use. Period. Dating your containers keeps your supply fresh. Filtering is what keeps you safe.
- YES if every container is dated and you’ve refreshed it within its window.
- NO if you’re guessing.
Question 4: Is it off the concrete and away from chemicals?
This one surprises people, because it’s about what’s next to the water, not the water itself.
Plastic breathes. Not much, but enough that strong fumes can work their way in over months. If your water shares a shelf with gasoline, paint thinner, pesticides, pool chemicals or even strong cleaners, you may end up with water that smells and tastes like the garage. The CDC specifically says to keep stored water away from those kinds of products, and it’s an easy thing to get wrong when the garage is the only place with room.
Bare concrete is the other culprit. Concrete holds moisture and temperature, and a lot of long-term storage guides recommend a board, a shelf or a pallet between the slab and the container. It also keeps the bottom of your container out of any water that finds its way onto the floor. (Yes, the irony of your water being ruined by water is not lost on me.)
- YES if your water is on a shelf or board, with nothing chemical on the same shelf or nearby.
- NO if it’s sitting on bare concrete or sharing space with anything you wouldn’t want to drink.
Question 5: Is there enough for everyone, pets included?
Last one, and it’s the math question. (I know, I know. There’s always a math question.)
Ready.gov’s rule is one gallon per person per day, with at least three days on hand and two weeks if you can manage it, because a real outage rarely wraps up in 72 hours. Consider that the floor. As I’ve said before, a preparedness mindset plans for three gallons per person per day, because one gallon covers drinking and not much else. Cooking, hygiene and all the other necessary uses come out of the same supply.
Now do the count. How many people are in your house? Multiply by the days you want to cover. Then add the animals. A common rule of thumb for dogs is about an ounce of water per pound of body weight per day, so a 60-pound dog drinks close to half a gallon a day all by himself. Cats need less, but they still need some. And if anyone in the house takes medication that requires water, or you’re caring for an older relative, round up.
Most people who run this number for the first time discover they have one or two days, not two weeks. That’s not a reason to feel bad. It’s just the gap, and now you know exactly how big it is.
- YES if what you have covers every person and pet for at least three days, with two weeks as the goal.
- NO if you came up short, or if you’ve never actually done the math.
Pencils down. How did you do?
Count your yeses.
5 out of 5: Gold star! You’re in better shape than almost everyone reading this. Put a reminder on the calendar for your next rotation and go pour yourself a glass of good water.
3 or 4: You’ve done the hard part, which is thinking about it at all. Whatever you said no to is usually a one-afternoon fix: move it out of the heat, get it off the floor, write the dates on.
0 to 2: Don’t you dare be discouraged. Most households land right here, because nobody ever taught them this. The good news? Water storage is the cheapest, simplest piece of preparedness there is. You can fix every one of these answers this week.
If you only do one thing after reading this, make it Question 3. Grab a marker, write today’s date on every container you own, and set a six-month reminder. That single habit fixes more water problems than anything else on this list.
If your containers were the problem
A lot of the no answers above come back to the same root cause: thin store jugs that were never meant for long-term storage. They crack, they leak, they don’t stack, and they hog more room than they should.
That’s exactly what the Patriot Pure Water Storage System was built to fix. It’s four heavy-duty water bricks made for long-term storage, with a spigot so you can pour a glass without wrestling a jug. They stack (see Question 1; you know how I feel about that), so a 13-day supply tucks into a closet or pantry corner instead of sprawling across the garage floor. And because they’re built to last, you’re not starting Question 1 over again next year.
Get your water into containers you can manage and don’t have to worry about, write the date on them, filter every drop before use, and you’ll pass this quiz every time.
Let’s Thrive Today, Together.
Missed the first lesson? Catch up with Water Storage: For the Sake of Future “You.” And if you want to go deeper, join me live for a 4Patriots University Water Solutions Class. It’s free for you as a customer! Just click the link above and scroll down to “Book My Spot.” I really hope to see you there!
See you in class,
Morgan
Lead Preparedness Consultant, 4Patriots University
