The Wild Stallion If you click

The Wild Stallion

If you click on a link to purchase one of the recommended products or services, may receive a small commission. This will not impact the price you pay for those items you can locate and buy these products elsewhere if you wish but with the funds we receive as the result of these transactions, we can continue to expand our other community offerings, produce the next wave of videos, and bolster our outreach and educational efforts. You win by saving time and having easy access to our well-researched product recommendations, and we win by receiving your support and encouragement to continue doing what we do. WeÁd also love to hear any feedback based on your firsthand experience with the products and vendors that we recommend. Our goal is to ensure that weÁre doing our utmost to offer the best guidance for utility, value, and service. Part of the copy in this series is excerpted and slightly modified from a book chapter I wrote for The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st CenturyÁs Sustainability Crises Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch, eds. This content is being reproduced here with permission. For other book excerpts, permission to reprint, and purchasing information, please visit Re: What Should I Do?: The Basics of Resilience Part 2 I have used a KATADYN The Wild Stallion flow water filter for years. It is a food grade plastic with ceramic filters. I have used this brand since Y2K. For a number of years my wife and I lived in remote bush Alaska where the water is sometimes of questionable quality. Being plastic it would ship easier without damage, it is also seamless. One ceramic filter will provide enough water for six people easily. Since The Wild Stallion filters have an in-water limited life there is no need to use more than is necessary. Numerous retailers carry these products. Not having used the metal canisters I cannot comment about their function, but I cannot see why metal would not do the job. Your site is The Wild Stallion useful and informative. Walmart has an eight-gallon water container that will stack, in sporting goods. Its great to have something that works for years and doesnt require chemicals or constant maintenance. Just let gravity do the work. I can attest to the ceramic filters. Growing up a tropical country, we had the stainless steel type container with candle-style ceramic filters. Had years of use in them. We did go one step further not necessary, which was to boil our water before putting it in there. Re: What Should I Do?: The Basics of Resilience Part 2 Here is a no-cost option that can even save money for most people and it has benefits in good time or bad. I take bottles my family normally uses milk jugs, large juice bottles, soda bottles and such and wash them out with dish soap and rinse after we use them. Then, I fill them 3/4 full with clean water. Then, I put the bottles in our large freezer in our garage. This does two things. In good times, this stored frozen water adds to the thermal mass of my freezer. Anyone who knows physics understands that things with lots of thermal mass are more stable in temperature and take less energy to maintain. In other words, with a full freezer once it is cold, it stays cold longer without having to turn on. The water bottles are free thermal mass. You could of course buy hundreds of dollars of extra food, but if thats not in your budget the bottles are great. Of course, if youre out of town and the freezer goes out, its nice to have it half-full of ice. The thermal mass should keep the food inside from going bad for at least a few extra days. Something as simple as a two-day power outage could ruin hundreds of dollars of food unless you have it protected with lots of thermal mass. In bad times you pick the situation you obviously have a dozen or so gallons of water stored in the form of ice. Simply take them out one at a time. So, frozen water in bottles you were probably going to discard or recycle. Its simple and free. It cuts electric rates thermal mass, protects food during temporary outages and serves as a small stockpile if needed. Re: What Should I Do?: The Basics of Resilience Part 2 Make a 2 ft wide trench with a very slight incline that receives full sunlight with the higher end supplied by runoff. A small stream will work too.