I'm interested to know what it takes to make rainwater drinkable. Is it a matter of filtering and boiling or is it more complicated than that?
how to make rainwater drinkable
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Depends... are you talking about rainwater stored for use in the house or out on trips?
If it's out on trips then filter and boil is fine.
Stored rainwater for the house is a bit more complicated but essentially the same by using filters and usually UV treatment to finish the job
If it's out on trips then filter and boil is fine.
Stored rainwater for the house is a bit more complicated but essentially the same by using filters and usually UV treatment to finish the job
Ive never treated collected rain water myself, just drank, collected via guttering or tarp traps. was taught that there's no need to treat it.
I always thought rainwater was OK to drink provided what you collected it in was clean. I don't drink from the water butts in my garden, though!
I'm talking about out on trips/ in the woods. Interesting to hear Southey say he's never had a problem drinking it 'neat'. I wonder what the possible dangers of that are assuming you collect it direct from the sky, as it were, not from rivers/ streams or puddles.
If you can make sure what you collect the rain water on is spotless clean as well as what you collect it in then yes, I'd drink it without filtering or boiling.
But in most woodland evironments your tarp is far from clean with various debris resting on it and this can contaminate the water plus the water coming off of trees isn't totally clean hence the filter and boil advice. Don't forget also that your tarp might have proofing agents that can leach out and into the water as well.
But in most woodland evironments your tarp is far from clean with various debris resting on it and this can contaminate the water plus the water coming off of trees isn't totally clean hence the filter and boil advice. Don't forget also that your tarp might have proofing agents that can leach out and into the water as well.
It is probably as cleaner source of water as your gonna get without chemical treatments, I don't treat water from transpiration bags either, just make sure what ever I'm using to collect is clean, if from a tarp then let the rain wash it before putting a can under the line, if from a guttering butt the collect from the top with a ladle rather then the bottom( just always done it that way, probably makes no diff) but then i have no issues with drinking water from mountain streams untreated, below the habitation line or from stagnant water I always filter with a milbank then bring to the boil. but rain water is IMO cool.
What Southey said!
If low on water and in the rain a poncho is great to collect water, just tie 4 corners to trees and the water will run into the middle
I've used water, rough filtered straight off my tarp many times, it tends to taste a bit smoky at times but that's never bothered me.
If you are under trees it can get a bit tannin-ish but no worse than tea imo.
If you are under trees it can get a bit tannin-ish but no worse than tea imo.
What he said, it tastes smokey but it's much better than the other alternatives when you're in the middle of nowhere.
I've drunk untreated water from transpiration bags without ill effects. Made them and used them on survival training in Australia. It was hot so the relatively large volume water yielded may have been due to the heat. The corner where the water collected was tied off to allow water in but reduce debris getting in, especially when you remove the bag. Something similar may work with a tarp or poncho. Before anyone brings up solar stills, they're a waste of time and effort to construct compared to the volume of water they produce, unless it's the inflatable type contained in a life-raft. Don't waste your sweat on them!
Ah but the beauty of a solar still once set up, is that you can just leave to do what it does, if there's no water going into it, it just gets hot till water goes in then it's all there waiting to give you a beautiful, thimble to cup of water a day.
All depends on what the rain clouds have passed over. Industrialised Towns & cities can spew out via factory chimneys all sorts of harmfull chemicals & particles which wil accumulate in the clouds, form water droplets then fall with the rain. Heavy traffic exhaust fumes too will end up in the clouds too.
If the rain is comming in off the ocean without passing over major towns, cities or motorways, then it will be safer to drink.
If the rain is comming in off the ocean without passing over major towns, cities or motorways, then it will be safer to drink.
Bingo on what blacktimberwolf said. Rain clouds form by the moisture condensing onto dust particles in the air. If those are pure dust particles such as are offshore or from a rural area the rainwater will be good to go (sort of; rural dust is often polluted with pesticides) If they are from over an industrial area it may well be acid rain or otherwise polluted. If that's the case (chemical pollutants) then boiling or purification tablets won't do any good as they are only intended to kill biological threats; more complicated methods are needed to remove or neutralize chemical pollutants.
Key West, Florida actually had no public water system until the 1960s (the island is a coral island with no natural fresh water supply over a hundred miles from the mainland) The locals all had metal roofs and used cisterns to collect the rainwater (untreated) for their fresh water needs until the Navy installed a pipeline to the mainland for it's fresh water needs early in the 1960s.
Key West, Florida actually had no public water system until the 1960s (the island is a coral island with no natural fresh water supply over a hundred miles from the mainland) The locals all had metal roofs and used cisterns to collect the rainwater (untreated) for their fresh water needs until the Navy installed a pipeline to the mainland for it's fresh water needs early in the 1960s.
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Hmmmm.....the cold hand of reality....thanks Santaman and Blacktimberwolf for pointing that out. In this small island, heavily congested and industrialised as it is, I guess you can never be sure what pollutants are in the atmosphere - unless you're somewhere like Cape Wrath!
I'm surprised I haven't died yet with all the contaminated air I must be breathing in.
Now it looks like the rain is going to kill me as well.
It's no wonder no one ever survives life...
Now it looks like the rain is going to kill me as well.
It's no wonder no one ever survives life...
Too true.
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