3 Mistakes Preppers Make When Storing Water

Don’t Drink the Water! How long can you safely store water? 

One of the most common questions I receive in emails is, “How long can you safely store water?”  I have several videos on the channel about water storage, various containers, and preservation methods, and there is plenty of information on the internet about this subject.  Most information you can find online doesn’t address this question of an expiration date on water because there are too many variables.  So, the honest answer to how long you can safely store water is “It depends.” As quickly as I can, let me explain how long you can safely store water.  We’ll talk about the methods to ensure that you can safely store it for a long time.

Let’s start by defining what I would consider, three ways we can view water which we’ll cover in this course.  For our discussion, let’s categorize them as wild, stored, and treated.  Wild water is anything in nature or falling from the sky.  Stored water has often already been treated at a municipal site. Additional additives like chlorine or hydrogen peroxide are added to the container to prevent algae or microorganism growth.  Then, there is treated water, be it chemically treated again, filtered through a charcoal and sand filter or a ceramic filter, boiled or pasteurized, or evaporative distilled through a solar or boiling process. 

So having formed a framework of how we can categorize water, let’s get back to answering our main question about water’s longevity.  Water doesn’t really have an expiration date.  It’s easier to rephrase the question to explore why water goes bad and what you can do about it.  Your stored water can go bad for three main reasons.  First is the growth of microorganisms that can render the water undrinkable or toxic.  To prevent this, we take several precautions when we store the water.  One is to keep it in a sealed container not exposed to direct sunlight or air.  These airtight containers need to be fully opaque and free of harmful chemicals like BPAs which we now know can cause harm.  Storing water long term in a clear container gives microorganisms what they need. Microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, and mold and photosynthetic organisms like algae typically need light and oxygen to proliferate.  Keeping the water stored away from light and the exchange of air by keeping the lid sealed significantly reduces the water’s susceptibility to these invaders.

Many municipal water systems put plenty of chlorine and other substances in their water to kill these microorganisms.   When you store water, I you might want to consider adding chlorine.  While I don’t think that’s entirely necessary because of the levels of chlorine already in some municipal water supplies, adding your own gets the water to a guaranteed level.  If you know how much chlorine is in your water, you will also know if you need to add any.  Many water districts release an annual report and have this information on their website.

It doesn’t hurt to add chlorine, though, as I said, it may be overkill.  The recommended amount of chlorine to add to water for long-term storage is eight drops of 6% sodium hypochlorite bleach per gallon of water. The recommended amount of hydrogen peroxide to add to water for long-term storage is eight drops of 3% hydrogen peroxide per gallon of water.  These chemicals at that level are enough to hold at bay microorganisms and algae but are not harmful for human consumption.  In the past, I recommended water preservatives that you can buy on Amazon.  Again, they’re nothing more than overpriced bleach, so stick with the recommended amounts of chlorine or bleach instead.  Plus, when you aerate the water before you use it by pouring it between containers, for instance, or letting it stand for 30 minutes, these chemicals vent off.  The last time I filled up my water storage barrels in my garage, I didn’t add anything chlorine to them.  I’ve done this in the past and after opening them up 2 years later, there was no growth.

The second reason stored water can go bad is due to chemical contamination from using a container that previously stored non-water substances or from using a container made for storing non-drinking water. Have you ever re-used a plastic bottle like an orange juice bottle and couldn’t get the orange taste out of it?  Try drinking water out of your favorite stainless steel coffee cup.  It will probably have a hint of coffee flavor to it.  That’s chemical leaching.  Far worse and potentially with serious health consequences in the future would be re-using something like a laundry detergent container that may contain harmful phosphates.  The water may not kill you right away, but doing such a thing would have long-term health consequences, and it could seriously make you ill just minutes after consuming it.  Using any non-approved water storage container can result in harmful chemicals embedded in the plastic leaching into your water. To avoid this, use a container labeled as food-grade or specifically made for storing water.  Additionally, and I get asked this all the time: should you buy a used barrel or IBC tote you find online to store water or for your rain harvesting?  The answer is no.  You have no idea what was stored in it.  Unless you really trust the source and they’ve told you exactly what was stored in it and it’s not a chemical, then sure, but again, you better know the source very well. 

One additional note: ideally, you want to store the water in a temperature-stable location.  If it’s stored in a very hot area, it could accelerate growth.  Having said that, I do store my water barrels in my garage where it gets pretty toasty and I haven’t had any issues.

As you can see here, this is a typical water storage containers I have next to our vehicles in case we have to leave.  They’re small, portable, opaque, food grade, and can be sealed off.  I did an entire video a few years back which I recommend you check out that goes into the various water storage options on the market that I’ve used.

The third reason water can go bad is from chemicals contaminating it from the surrounding area.  This isn’t so much of an issue if your container to start with is approved for water storage and airtight.  Even a pinhole leak, though, could result in a bacteria like legionella pneumonia (aka Legionnaires’ disease) or something far worse like animal feces getting into your stored water supply.  While chemicals like Benzene might spill into your wild water supply of a river or even trickle down into your aquifer and well water, it’s not likely that it is going to get into your stored water supply unless it was part of the container you are storing your water in, to begin with.  Even then, it likely won’t be at levels high enough to kill you.  Speaking of which, I dedicated a whole video going into detail regarding cleaning out a 55 gallon drum in order to store it away.  The same principles I lay out apply to any sized water storage container.

So, let’s say you have taken the proper storage measures of using an approved container, added chemicals for storage, kept it airtight and out of the light, and free from biological or chemical contamination.  How long is it good to drink?  Technically, if you are prepared to treat or filter the water once you remove it from the container, the answer is indefinitely.  Typically, you will hear that water should be rotated out every 6 months, but that is a practice, not a rule.  While water that has been properly stored may still be safe to drink after six months or longer, rotating stored water every six months is a good practice to ensure that the water remains fresh and of good quality.  But as I’ve mentioned, I’ve opened my water barrels I store in the garage years after filling them up and there’s no growth and no smell.  Sure, I could filter it just to be sure, and I’ve got plenty of water filters.  Or if I was really worried, I could boil it or add chemical treatments.

Here’s one thing you may note. After six months, your water may taste flat or have an aftertaste of plastic.  You can eliminate some of that by aerating it before you drink it by either stirring it and leaving it in the open air or pouring it between containers.  If you know you’re not going to rotate procedurally every 6-months or so, then you should have the means to treat your water for consumption when you pull it out of the container.  Again, I have multiple filter options.

A simple life straw, homemade charcoal filtration system, Brita or Berkey filtering systems, or boiling the water can make it drinkable just as it would be if you were pulling the water out of the wild.  Additional chemical or UV light treatment can be applied to stored water that appears questionable but may be overkill.  You could even pump it out of your container through a filter.  At the far extreme, you could always solar distill your stored water before drinking.  I imagine, though, that most people want to simply pump the water out of their storage and drink it.  For the safest, cleanest, and best-tasting drinking water, plan to at least filter and aerate the drinking water that you pull from your storage.

So… “Does water go bad?” Technically, no, but it can become contaminated if not properly stored, and I think we covered how to ensure it does not.  Have a plan to store water in an approved, food grade water container.  The safest plastic containers to hold water are polyethylene-based plastics, or plastics #1, #2, and #4.  If you look at the bottom of this water storage container, it’s a food grade container, you can see (HDPE) #2.  All food-grade plastics are made of High-density polyethylene. But be careful, because something made out of HDPE #2 might not necessarily be food grade.  You always want to check the manufacturer’s website to ensure they state that it is food grade.  The recommendation is to store at least a 3-week supply for every person and animal in your household.  That amount will get you through most disasters.  The general rule of thumb, and this is a very conservative number, is one 1 gallon of water per person per day.  Ideally, you can store more, but that’s a starting point.  Follow good practices to treat the water going into the container and making sure the water is cleaned properly in advance.  Ensure the container is not transparent and is stored airtight in a relatively temperature-stable environment.  Keep the temperature free from wild fluctuations.  Plan to filter and aerate your water when you remove it from the container.  I’ve got a whole video dedicated to options for filtering and treating your water to make it safe which I’ll link to below.

If you can do all those things, you can confidently drink stored water several years after you put it away.  If you can get into a 6-month or annual rotation of your water, you gain several advantages.  First, you will know if your storage technique is working.  If you open the container and the water is tinged, discolored, tastes or smells strongly of chemicals or earthy, you might have a problem with your storage method.  You don’t want to find that out after a disaster.  Second, rotating your water keeps your mind focused on your supply and water as a resource.  By rotating, you better understand what you should be doing on the front end, fluctuations of quantity needed, and what you might need when you extract it for consumption after a disaster.  There are a lot of benefits to getting into a rotation practice, which is why I still recommend it.  Admittedly, I don’t rotate sometimes as I should, and some people never do.  But I store it properly and I’ve got multiple methods to make it suitable for drinking should it have issues.

If you don’t, your water probably won’t kill you after you take your first drink, but it might not taste very good, and it could make you feel ill.  I’ll link to our playlist on water for you to better understand your full range of options when it comes to water storage, treatment, quantity needed, and more.  I hope this has answered your questions about how long you can store water.  

If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to post it below.  As always, stay safe out there.