It is mad that the government is asking us to stockpile water. 3 litres per person per day would barely cover my tea, and for washing and cooking, flushing the toilet, it's much more. I'd say at least 5l per person per day for just cooking and drinking, but you have to keep it sterile so refresh and sterilise those bottles every week. Where are you going to store all of this? Good luck if you live in a pokey little HMO
Anyway. Best is probably to buy a stack of sealed drinking water bottles, they'll keep indefinitely and you don't have to use them all at once. We use 20l jerry cans at work to take onto the island, but they need sterilising regularly, are heavy, and the stupid taps always leak
just checked our island manual, although it's quite old and we're stricter at rationing water now, it suggests, for 3 - 4 people:
toilet: 60 - 70l per day (10l cistern)
Bathroom handwashing sink: 5 - 10l per day
Kitchen sink: 20 - 30l per day
..which matches what I read elsewhere, 20 to 30l of utility water per person per day. No showers though!
@sarahdalgulls They're just saying this so that they can blame the public when they've failed us. Passing the buck.
You don’t have space in your garden for a few dozen 1 ton IBC water tanks? You don’t have servants to boil each day’s ration when drawing it off in the morning? Maybe you just need to work harder.
@OccasionalDucks it's a good job the government had been providing comfortable, roomy, affordable homes for the entire population all these years so we've all space
Indeed. Might have to raffle off some of the less perfect vintages to make room in the wine cellar for tins of pemmican though.
@OccasionalDucks @sarahdalgulls
"Maybe you should just work harder"
I blame the take-away coffees and Netflix subscriptions!!
Maybe it is because we buy my agèd father-in-law his weekly treat - an avocado.
@sarahdalgulls I store 2 jerrycans. I used to refresh them every 6 months but last week someone explained to me that that is not necessary since there are no bacteria and hardly any oxygen.
@heleenkuiper we store drinking water on the island I work on, we do sterilise the cans between refills and we'd probably refresh the water every month or two to be safe but so long as it's not in direct sunlight it doesn't go green. Do you try the water to make sure?
@sarahdalgulls Doesn't the plastic degrade? I suppose that doesn't matter much for non-drinking water.
How about a load of sterilising tablets and some big containers to fill up from your local river?
@sarahdalgulls I'm just going to stockpile guns n ammo and then take my neighbours water. /s