I've got a question for you guys/gals. While I wouldn't consider myself to be a hardcore prepper, I do think a lot about what we'd do if a big twister leveled our home or if the grocery stores suddenly emptied out. Over the last year or so, we've been stockpiling food and I'm pretty confident that I could feed the two of us for six months.
My problem is water. My last home had a swimming pool and my emergency water supply plan involved using the 40,000 gallons that it provided. But, my new home has nothing like that. I have no water well and if my rural water district stops pumping water to me, I'm out. Driving to/from the closest lake doesn't sound like a workable plan, nor does waiting for rain.
I'm thinking about adding a couple of water barrels to my (outdoor) underground storm shelter. A pair of food-grade 55 gallon barrels would sure go a long way to helping, if the water flow stops. Theoretically, I could rig up a way to collect rain water as well and use it to top off my barrels.
One of my big concerns is freezing. Over the last ten years, we've had some very cold winters here. I'm wondering how much cold a 55 gallon barrel of water could take before it burst. I could leave some expansion room in the water level, but I'm just not sure how well an emergency supply of water would do in barrels outside--underground, but still outside. I could try to insulate them somehow, but I'm not sure how much that would really help if it's sub-zero for a few days/weeks.
Any ideas on this? I have no room in the house to store my water supply. So if I do something, I've got to make it sub-zero temperature capable. Thoughts?
My problem is water. My last home had a swimming pool and my emergency water supply plan involved using the 40,000 gallons that it provided. But, my new home has nothing like that. I have no water well and if my rural water district stops pumping water to me, I'm out. Driving to/from the closest lake doesn't sound like a workable plan, nor does waiting for rain.
I'm thinking about adding a couple of water barrels to my (outdoor) underground storm shelter. A pair of food-grade 55 gallon barrels would sure go a long way to helping, if the water flow stops. Theoretically, I could rig up a way to collect rain water as well and use it to top off my barrels.
One of my big concerns is freezing. Over the last ten years, we've had some very cold winters here. I'm wondering how much cold a 55 gallon barrel of water could take before it burst. I could leave some expansion room in the water level, but I'm just not sure how well an emergency supply of water would do in barrels outside--underground, but still outside. I could try to insulate them somehow, but I'm not sure how much that would really help if it's sub-zero for a few days/weeks.
Any ideas on this? I have no room in the house to store my water supply. So if I do something, I've got to make it sub-zero temperature capable. Thoughts?
