Thursday, August 28, 2014

Water Plan: Part II

How much water can be purified with a gallon of Clorox bleach?  Avoid using bleaches that contain perfumes, dyes and other additives. A bottle of 121 ounce Clorox will cost about $3.50 at China-mart. Thanks Clorox, we get 7 full ounces less for the size that looks like a gallon!

First we need to look at how to purify water with bleach (source). It takes 20 drops (1/4 teaspoon) for a gallon of untreated water, and 60 minutes.


Next, there are .945 gallons in the 121 ounce bottle. Plug that number into this converter, and you get 71,554 drops of bleach in 121 ounces. Let's just round down to 71,500 for an easier conversion for gallon amounts.

Divide 71,500 by 20 drops (amount for 1 gallon untreated water) and we can treat  3575 gallons.

For the price of $3.50, we can treat over 3500 gallons of water (10 gallons for a penny) and have sparkling whites.

Keep Right On Prepping - K

4 comments:

  1. I wonder if you can freeze bleach to prolong the shelf life, I never thought about it much but it goes bad after a short while. When I was growing up, most people had cisterns and all kinds of filth washed into those things and I remember them putting maybe a cup in the underground cistern as the water would start to smell bad in the summer. I don't know if it was a cup but it was some measurement that they recommended for maybe 1000 gallons. I guess it worked, nobody died from it. We have a spring so the ground filters it fine so far.

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    1. Freezing would probably be a bad idea. The powdered form would be more preferable in a SHTF scenario, except that it is extremely caustic.

      1 cup is about 4720 drops or about enough to purify 236 gallons. I sure wouldn't second guess the older timers and their experience in correcting the cistern problem.

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  2. Good post my friend. Senior and I were just today discussing that same topic with a neighbor.

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    1. I have more posts planned on water plans.

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