Water! A Video On Purification & Preparedness On The Homestead. I Use My Sawyer Life Straw For 1st Time With Water From Our Dam & Discuss Water Independence For Plants, Animals & Us!
Today I was working with water. We are very dry here after a period of no rain for months and our homestead tanks are getting low.
I moved our potted vege garden down to the dam as the plants aren't getting rain and I wanted to conserve the rest of our tank water. I'll water them with a jerry can from the dam.
I also set up a test tub with dam water for the horses. We normally water the horses from our garage tanks that are gravity fed but months of doing that at no less than 20L a day has taxed our tanks.
Then came the fun. I always preach about getting into practice with using your prep so that you're not faced with unknowns if you need to use anything in an emergency (I did a video on the difficulties I had using our solar fire starter for example - check back in my feed if interested). So today I did what I recommend to others and opened my Sawyer mini filtration system (AKA life straw) for the first time and tried it out.
Using it and our Brita domestic filter to share the load I recorded a demo of me turning gunky water into drinkable water.
The horses got a bit too interested so there's some demo distraction mid way which was kinda funny but you will get the idea.
Now I feel much more confident in our water preparedness as I know that I can get potable drinking water from our dam. It's no longer an assumption.
Enjoy the video and constructive comments welcome as always!
What volume can you put through one of those before it needs replacing?
The colour is probably tannins from plant matter in the dam, which should be harmless but may affect the taste. If you were doing it on a larger scale, you could get some activated charcoal and mix in the the water before one of the filtration steps. Those filters would have some charcoal in them, but evidently not enough to completely clarify the water.
Have you heard of biosand filters at all? They are a low-tech solution that works very well at purifying water and you could build one with higher throughput than the life straw.
Hi @brendio. These little filters are rated at 100,000 gallons. Great thinking with the tannins, I've seen "stained" water from rain water tanks too come to think of it and that was perfectly fine to drink.
Great tip with the charcoal. Haven't heard of biosand filters I'll have to check out out.
Thanks so much for your detailed additions & sorry for the late reply.
That's a lot longer lasting than I expected for such a small filter. I wouldn't think the Britta filters don't last that long.
It's impressive isnt it. Not sure on the britas. They have that silly timer thing build into the jug which is a time based replacement indicator rather than a volume one. It's probably a conservative measurement in order to sell more filters. Weve keep them going longer than we probably should. It's hard to say.
I liked your post so much that I linked it in my weekly Look What I Found! You can take a look at it here: https://steemit.com/curating/@stortebeker/look-what-i-found-self-sufficiency-gardening-and-adventures
Wow @stortebeker I'm very appreciative of your efforts! Thank you.
@nolnocluap
water is truly an essential requirement for life ... you reall doing great in that video which quite educational... those horses are lucky to have your expertise... thanks for sharing
Thanks so much @kenhudoy! Great that you enjoyed it 😉
Of course and you doing great...thanks and do find time to check my blog posts
Good post thank you for sharing
Thanks @alidervash
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This post has received a 1.56 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.
Amazing!!! Very very wonderful!!! ilike it and upvoted ;)
Thank you @vikfrei 👍