r/preppers • u/Parking-Scale-9058 • 3d ago

Advice and Tips Best Water storage systems for off grid

What's everyone's best water storage setup for long term use and sanitation. I've heard about rainwater collection systems with UV but wanted to see what everyone had to say. I'm in the Appalachian mountains of South Carolina

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8

u/theislandhomestead 2d ago

I have a 10+k gallon rain catchment system.
First a 40 micron prefilter, then a 20 micron, 5 micron (with carbon), then 1 micron.
After that it passes through a UV and it's ready for general use.
Drinking water goes through a 4 stage reverse osmosis system with a second UV light.

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u/phsyco009 2d ago

Rainwater systems work well. I've used them for many years living in places without running city water. I had a reverse osmosis filtration system with alkaline and UV that we would use to filter the water. Now because the flow from the filtration system produced some waste water and the flow was quite slow anyway we would use unfiltered water for washing dishes etc but for cooking or consuming we would use the filtration system. And that worked fine but the only thing is that you have to periodically treat the rainwater with small amounts of clorox to kill bacteria. So just a minor maintenance but otherwise works well

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u/Remarkable_Gene4264 2d ago

You don’t need to use the bleach, the UV will kill both viruses and bacteria.

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u/phsyco009 2d ago

Yes I said we treated it because we used it unfiltered for other things like shower or laundry etc.

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u/Total-Reasonable 2d ago

Keep greywater and toilet liquids separate from your stored drinking water plan; it makes the sanitation side much simpler. I use a Pi-Pi Standard Plus to send urine to a separate canister, which keeps it out of the composting toilet tank; https://pi-pi.ee/products/ shows the hookup-free options, and it needs no water or sewer line.

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u/pretzelsRus 9h ago

Too bad that company don’t have options for my girls.