Water usage with illness.

[Mortblanc]

I fear that the situation Pete is describing is one where there is no return to past technology as a solution. Using a brace and bit instead of a power drill is one thing, and making it rain another.

Digging a well in the back garden is not possible for most in the world of today, in order to prepare for an apocalyptic world of tomorrow scenerio.

Most people are pushing the council rules to have water butts in their own gardens.

Not to mention where all that water will wind up??? What goes in must come out and in the case of sickness such as Pete visualizes it will come out in some very unpleasant ways and in less than manageable condition.

If your mains water is out your mains sewer is probably also out. What to do with 500 liters of infected liquid crap???? Do you really want that in a hole you dug in your back garden?

That might be the spark that starts the sickness in the first place, it usually is.

[Mortblanc]

Lets just face it..

We're all gonna' die!

[MaryN]

Honestly, MB, you sound like someone out of Dad's Army. We're doomed, doomed!

[Pete Grey]

MB is right we are all going to die. When the ALL MIGHTY calls your number that’s it, i just hope HE doesn’t call soon.

[Mortblanc]

Yep it's a fact, and one that preppers tend to lose track of. Terribly sorry about that!

It harks back the the old "death and taxes" thing. Preppers seem to feel that once they are "post event" and shut of TPTB they will be tax free and live forever!

And us old preppers have additional facts to deal with, because when the lights go out we revert to the life expectancy that folks had back when there were no lights to turn on! Just check out the life expectantcies of people in some of the third world nations. Last time I checked even some of the eastern European countries were sitting on age 56!

And oddly enough, that was the life expectancy when my grand dad was born.

Yet we trundle on in the certainty that WE will not be part of the great "90% die off" that is a requirement for the prepper community to presumably flourish "post event".

So the thing Pete has not considered is that no matter how much water he has on hand if there is pandemic to deal with the chances are that there will be no one in the house well enough to go outside and fetch the vast store of water inside.

In the historic past the reason most pandemics raged was due to lack of patient care because of the weakened state/sickness of the care givers.

No one to bring a cool glass of water to prevent the dehydration that was certain due to watery diarrhea associated with many epidemic diseases, probably the most common and most certain killer of all time.

[Pete Grey]

Hey MB thanks for cheering us all up, if we are going to die from plague or dead dogs disease i don’t intend to go quietly i have sufficient malt whiskey, i will play some Eric Clapton, Jeff Lynn, The Who and Pink Floyd VERY LOUD and await the grim reaper .

[Straight Shooter]

You missed out King Crimson ,and spooky tooth Pete ! Btw MB is really a happy go lucky type of guy !
Even hippy traits .....but when you reduce him down to concentrate his content you will always find something of worth.....normally weeks later though !...

[bigpaul]

The average UK roof collects 300 water butts of water annually , that's 12,000 gallons of water, how much water do you think you need?

[Straight Shooter]

Well Hello BP ! ……………….just going on what we use in the caravan we use about six to seven gallons per day , showers , cooking , toilet and hot drinks some days as little as four gallons …..now we could stretch the use by reusing the shower water for washing clothes etc however as I have stated many times on here we are lucky to have a well that never runs dry …..great for bugging in ! however if a BO situation developed a sponge bath would have to do , even then I would say you are going to need at least a minimum of two gallons per person to stand a chance ,per day …...the berky big boy would be in use (any situation) .

[bigpaul]

in a SHTF situation our water requirements would be different, we would have to conserve what we had and what we could get.
not so bad where I live as its a mild climate with plenty of rain fall, plus rivers and wells and springs.
the minimum requirement is at least 2.5 litres/half a gallon for drinking purposes, then you have cooking, washing- no showers "strip wash" would be the thing to do, washing clothes would be done in a bucket or adobe washing in a stream if near one.
I personally will allow 1 gallon per person per day, that should cover all bases.
all water should be treated before use, goes without saying.