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Blossom
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# Posted: 26 Nov 2011 11:40am
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We have a cabin on the lake in upper New York state. We cannot reach it by vehicle of any kind. We must climb a small mountain and carry EVERYTHING in by hand, including drinking water. Because my daughter is very ill we go through gallons and gallons of water. At the present we use the lake water for bathing but must haul all drinking water in. We are looking for an inexpensive but reliable system so we can also rink the lake water.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
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razmichael
Member
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# Posted: 26 Nov 2011 07:25pm
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Lots of options depending on how comfortable you are with chemicals or want a filtration system. Also depends on whether you are worried about viruses as well as bacteria. Boiling is always a great method but not always practical. Chemicals include Iodine, chlorine, Hydrogen Peroxide (you can even make your own chlorine derivative from the stuff used in pools - this needs only a small amount of the granules to mix fresh chlorine when you need it rather than take normal chlorine with you that does have a limited life). There are lots of sites providing information so I'm not going to go into great details. here a a few:
Princeton
Dummies
Climbing High
I have used a Sawyer .02 drip filter for a number of years for drinking water (and chlorine for washing dishes, shower etc). The Sawyer filters come in a number of packages but also have two degrees of filtration - the .1 for bacteria and the .02 for everything. I have my .02 hooked in through a pump but it is good as a basic drip system (depending how quickly you want the water). This type of filter does not do anything for smell if that is a problem - for this you need to add a carbon filter or similar. Links for Sawyer:
Sawyer Products
Backpacking Magazine Reviews
There are a number of other good filtration systems out there but some are very costly and check the specifications carefully to make sure they meet the filtration needs and don't just remove basic bacteria and smells.
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Berkley
Filtration systems - removes bacteria and cysts along with metals, odor etc (carbon and ceramic filters). Does not remove viruses (discusses using Chlorine to kill viruses and then Big Berkley to remove odor etc). If virus contamination is not an issue these work well but are expensive and require filter replacements which are also expensive. Th OP mentioned an ill daughter so, depending on the issue, virus contamination may be a concern which is why I mentioned the Sawyer .02 filter system. Again, lots of options.
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nicalisa
Member
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# Posted: 26 Nov 2011 07:28pm
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We have a 3 part filtration system we installed for spring water going to an artesian well. We have a .5 microgram filter that filters out the rough stuff, that then goes to a .5 down to a .3 microgram which removes all of the nasties.
You can read more about it here:
http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/8/KitchenBath/Plumbing/WaterFiltration/PRDOVR~0 621001P/Rainfresh+Drinking+Water+System+2.jsp?locale=en
We are there lots, and drink a ton of water between the 4 of us and have not been sick. (My graduate degree was in epidemiology, so I researched what we were getting to ensure that we did not become an outbreak of 4 people!)
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easyshack
Member
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# Posted: 27 Nov 2011 02:24pm
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Many city water municapalitys use lake water and even some recycle sewer water for drinking in many citys. The only thing they do is add clorine. Clorine kills bactiera. Find a safe way to clorinate the water, and your done. The us army has clorine pills you add to ditch water for soilders to drink. If there are any cooties in water, clorine kills them.
We drilled a few wells with help from www.drillcat.com , a kind of DIY drilling deal. It did work. Maybe you can do a sand point shallow well where your at.
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TomChum
Member
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# Posted: 27 Nov 2011 04:38pm - Edited by: TomChum
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You might consider collecting rainwater from the roof for cleaning, and maybe for boiling (coffee, tea, other cooking). Maybe it can be filtered to drink too. It could reduce the amount you have to carry up the hill.
A LOT of households in Hawaii use ONLY the water from their roof. My parents house was switched over to city water around 1998, simply because a few drought summers were just too difficult. And the cost of buying water by the truckload approached the cost of hooking up to city water. Prior to that all household water came from the roof.
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CabinBuilder
Admin
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# Posted: 27 Nov 2011 05:35pm
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This thread on cabin drinking water options may help.
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Mtnviewer
Member
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# Posted: 27 Nov 2011 07:23pm - Edited by: Mtnviewer
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Recently had an retired (67 years old) Austrailian guest at my place who has also lived in New Zealand for 20 years & who has only ever used water collected from his metal roof & stored in an above ground metal cistern. He says the water is not treated other than very basically filtered for some debris from leaves & twigs & neither he nor anyone that he knows has ever had any health problems. He says that he's never seen any critters in his cistern either. The water is always cool even though the cistern is above ground. He says that this is the most common system that he knows of when people are off town connected water sources. I have gravity feed mountain water but my log cabin does not have any water source, so when I redo the cabin roof with metal, then I will add a roof water collection system.
Might be worth researching what they do down under if it's as common as my friend said it was.
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Bzzzzzt
Member
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# Posted: 27 Nov 2011 09:45pm
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I have worked at several water treatment facilities (as an electrician) and have been there when "Boil Orders" were given. They suggest that you boil water that is "potentially contaminated" for 3-5 minutes before consuming. My suggestion would be to collect water from the lake and simply boil it and run it through something like a Britta pitcher. Also, you might take an empty 55 gallon barrel up there, fill it with lake water and add a cup of chlorine bleach.
Here's the government web site about boil orders:
http://www.doh.wa.gov/phepr/handbook/purify.htm
There is a table at the bottom with bleach mixing formulas.
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bobrok
Member
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# Posted: 28 Nov 2011 04:18pm
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Quoting: Blossom We have a cabin on the lake in upper New York state. We cannot reach it by vehicle of any kind. We must climb a small mountain and carry EVERYTHING in by hand, including drinking water. Because my daughter is very ill we go through gallons and gallons of water. At the present we use the lake water for bathing but must haul all drinking water in. We are looking for an inexpensive but reliable system so we can also rink the lake water.Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
Depending on where you are in upstate NY I can suggest a lab where you can get your water professionally tested for $25. Good deal.
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Montanan
Member
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# Posted: 29 Nov 2011 03:48pm
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nicalisa~ that filtration system looks great! It's pretty affordable too. That might be a great option for us, since we're using untreated spring-fed creek water at our place. Thanks for the link!
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TOOFEWWEEKENDS
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# Posted: 30 Nov 2011 02:45am
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Check out the gravity fed Sawyer filters. We filter creek water in Alaska in the summer. It's not particularly fast, and it can clog pretty easily, but we'll get 5 gallons filtered in less than an hour. The version we have doesn't take out viruses but that is not an issue with our supply.
I think we paid about $75 for the filter, and just use food grade 5 gallon buckets to carry water off the creek. If we're not drinking it but instead taking showers, we don't bother using filtered water. That way 5-10 gallons is plenty for a weekend.
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brokeneck
Member
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# Posted: 4 Dec 2011 05:52pm
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Boiling will guarantee that it's parasite and germ free --chemicals are another matter. We've used filteers when camping but if you have a fire going fdor cooking or heating anywany I'd always use it to boil up some...
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