Just thought I would mention that the white plastic, food grade, 2.8L jugs that you get when you buy things like OJ and Milk work really well to store water after a good cleaning. Here's what I do. -Rinse/shake with cool water until all juice or milk appears to be cleaned out. -Put a few drops of dish soap in and rinse/shake with warm to slightly hot water to help left any remaining residue out. You may have to do this a few times until the soap is all cleared out and the water is clear with no soap bubbles forming. -Rinse/shake with cool water again to cool down the plastic before filling. Make sure you dump this water out. -Make sure cap is clean -Make sure threads on cap area on container are clean -Fill with COOL water (can't stress this enough). Cap, mark a date on the jug and store it.
Some may know this, others may not. I always do this during hurricane season. Freezers use less energy when they are full or close to full. Half full freezers are energy eaters! Clean your juice or milk jugs as indicated above. Fill with water leaving an air space so they do not split when frozen. Use as many of these as neccessary to keep your freezer near full. They then can reduce your freezers energy consumption. They are available for ice cold water on any warm day outside work or trip away from the house. A couple of these in a cooler will not melt quickly like bag ice will, so in a big cooler, like on a fishing trip with high hopes of a banner catch, you can put a few of these frozen jugs and one bag or crushed or cubed ice and you are set. It's good ice cold water for that trip also. If and when the power goes out these will keep your freezers contents safe. If it is a chest type freezer (the most energy efficient type), shift things around so that these jugs are on top. (heat rises, cool drops). Shift a couple of these to your frig when the power goes out and try to limit opening and closing the cotton pickin' door. It will help extend the life of the contents there as well. Frozen ice jugs are great! I hope a few of you can and do use these tips.
I prefer the 1 or 2 liter pop bottles, the bursting presure is 800psi or so. They are more durable. I think I remember (odd phrase that) that the 'milk jugs' are bio-degradable and get brittle when exposed to the sun or heat. The ice jug thing works well, do it all the time. If you are on city water I don't think you need to put the 2 drops of bleach in, there was a discussion on that here at one time as I recall. When you freeze the pop bottles lay them on thier side to allow for expansion of the ice, placed vertically they may burst.
I used some of "milk jugs andOJ containers" back during the Y2K thing and they did infact leak after about 8 months.
I rotate my water every 4 months. These are the white plastic containers and I do leave a little air at the top for expansion in case they freeze. I keep them in a basement where there is no light. During the summer, when I rotate the water, I use what's in them to water the garden. Almost as important as rotating is making sure there is a date on there. No date, no drink or I boil it. Otherwise, it's toilet water
