Home Water Storage - Part II
You'll need to purify the water you're storing yourself. It will insure good clean water for you to drink in the case of an emergency. If you are drawing your water from a municipal (city) well, then more than likely it won't need to have anything more done to it. Just go ahead and store it, as most of these water supplies have already been purified.
But if you're drawing your water from a private well, then you'll want to add 1/8th of a teaspoon of bleach (use the kind without any scents or additives) for every gallon of water you're storing. Bleach is a great way to purify water. Non-chlorinated water should be treated with 1/8 teaspoon of bleach for every gallon of water. Just use plain bleach and that'll do the trick! That will help to keep it clean and fresh for when you need it. When you go to use it any residual smell (from the bleach) will dissipate if you leave the container to sit out in the open for awhile with its top off.
Of course, you can always buy water filters and purifiers from almost any store that specializes in camping gear. This would greatly increase your ability to find and purify the water around you. The variety of filters you can get is outstanding, but I would recommend staying away from those that require batteries as I never remember to buy them; and those that require a lot of hand pumping.
The best ones to get are like the one pictured that allow you to fill the top up with water and then gravity slowly pulls it through the filter(s) to the bottom of the container. The ceramic filters are great because they last forever. Very little work required for the entire set up. The water filter pictured has four ceramic elements. The more elements in container the my quickly water is processed, other than that, more filters is not any better. Scrub down the outside of the ceramic filter with a mild abrasive like steel wool, scratch pad, or similar as needed (not very often).
These commercial water filters come in all sizes now, from single serve that fit easily into a backpack all the way up to ones large enough to quench the thirsts of large groups of people. Just remember that all these are somewhat finite in how much water they can purify before the filter needs to be changed. However in an emergency they would be wonderful assets to have.
Finally there are water treatment tablets that you can buy from these same types of camping stores. They will treat the water for you and make it drinkable. They kill almost anything that is in the water, but you need to read the package for specific directions and amounts to be used. These tablets sometimes leave a strong chemical taste behind. If you're planning on using these, just make sure to have some powdered juice handy as that will help make the water easier to drink.
Storing water is not difficult once you decide what you're going to use the water for and how you want to store it. Once you start planning it out and following through, it all begins to fall into place and before you know it you'll have your 14 gallons stored and maybe even more!