Water

The water at our house is horrible. It's filled with iron and no matter what we do we can not get the color or smell out of the water for more than a few days. We added a large filter and now we have two full house filters. We put bleach into the well. In fact only after dumping one and a half gallons into the well does it smell okay for a few day. The smell of bleach is better than the smell of iron! We don't know what else to do so if anyone has any suggestions please let me know. Filters are costing us $50 a week and we can't go on paying this much. We've just been letting the filters go as long as possible but honestly by the time we put a filter on by that night it's completely black.

Needless to say-we do not drink the water. My toes are stained permanent rust color. Can you imagine if I put this water into my body? Every week I haul in 12-14 gallons of water for drinking and cooking. I use vinegar bottles and a Reliance 7 gallon water jug (which sits on my counter with an easy spout to get the water from) for collecting water from my father's house. The Reliance water jug is one of the best investments I've bought this year. It cost about $11 at Walmart and I've filled it at least a dozen times already. So already it's cheaper than paying a dollar a gallon for water from the store! As soon as I can get a little extra money I'm going to buy at least two more of these!

As of now I have no real water storage to talk about. There is 2 store bought gallons in my pantry and an additional 6 gallons in a camping water jug. So on hand I have between 8 and 23 gallons of water a week. So if I couldn't get out to get more water today than I have about 10 gallons on hand. That would not even last me a week!

I need 12-14 gallons a week just for cooking and drinking. Add to that washing and cleaning and it will more than double the amount needed. So at the very least that would be 30 gallons a week needed.

I've been thinking about what I have to do to store water. I think a hand pump for the well would be a good investment. I can see the top of the water about 5 feet down when I take the lid off so a hand pump will work and this will be good but only for bathing and cleaning. In a pinch I could add some drops of bleach to each gallon of water to drink it if we had to. After all it's mainly our hot water that is discolored and stinks the most.

There is also a lot of standing water around here. Part of this land is swampy and holds water well. Even the lawn is soggy for days after it rains. In a pinch I could filter this water with a cotton shirt or something and add bleach. Also this is the area for lack effect snow. Plenty of ice, rain and snow to gather into buckets. But all this is the last resort. I don't really want to drink from the tadpole hole or even from my own iron well so I must find a way to store water.

I have to come up with money for jugs or just start purchasing water a little at a time. On a $10 a week budget it's hard. I don't even think I'll be able to come up with $10 this week because I had to pay my first internet payment. I feel the internet is important so I can keep in touch and learn from other preppers. How else will I know what to do? Anyway I work online and to make even the little bit of money I earn now it is a necessity.

When I do begin storing water, where am I going to put it all? Can't leave it outside it will freeze so it must be stored in the house. Well, I'm not going to make up my mind today. I'm going to keep pondering how to afford the water and where to put it. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know and I'll keep you informed as to what I'm doing next.