Drinking Water Storage During winter months?

[irishanimal917]

Looking for some ideas here... I just purchased some 55 gallon food grade drums to store emergency drinking water in but have to store them in an outside garage. During the winter months the garage temperature will drop below freezing as it is not heated. If SDHTF during the winter months I'd be screwed if they were frozen. The only thing I have been able to come up with is to fill them to about 80% to allow room for expansion, cover them with a tarp & then put R30 insulation around them. Does anyone have a better idea or solution to the problem? I've tried researching it on the net but haven't been able to find a easy non-energy solution.

 

[eldirector]

Are you worried about them freezing and cracking, or about having access to the water if frozen?

I have a 55 gallon rain barrel (food-grade plastic container) for the garden. It has frozen several times with no ill effects. Like you said, leave a little room for expansion. You would also need to leave a cap/lid off to let air in/out.

As for "access" when frozen: have a couple of furniture dollies handy. If the need arises, roll one into the attached garage or house to thaw. Keep a couple of cases of bottled water indoors to use while your drum thaws.

 

[irishanimal917]

Ryan "ElDirector"

I am worried about them both freezing and cracking and access if frozen. I had considered taking 1 in at a time as needed to thaw and I did put several cases inside in case of emergency. I guess I'm trying get in front of this and come up with a solution pre-freeze. Looking at the big pic, if power loss was an issue for an extended period of time, the internal house temp would eventually also hit freezing as well. I don't have a fireplace and haven't purchased and installed a wood burner yet...

 

[mom45]

I do a lot of canning for us and follow some canning groups on Facebook. One lady on their said that as they empty jars, she fills the with water and processes them to seal them so they can be stored on the shelf. It sounded like she boiled it first to sterilize it/remove any impurities and then canned water. She figures if she has to store the jars anyway, they may as well be stored full of something she could use if needed. It would take extra lids, but I'm thinking it's a pretty good idea.

 

[eldirector]

Does the detached garage have power? A tarp and old incandescent 100W bulb may be enough to keep the water from freezing solid.

I don't think you'll find a zero energy option. At some point, the water will reach the temp of the room it is in, unless you find a way to add a little heat.

@ mom45; for some reason the ideas of "dehydrated water" and "canned air" popped into my head!

 

[irishanimal917]

That's what I figured, I'm going to have to get a wood burner out there to do the zero energy option idea. I'll start with the tarps and R30 insulation around them and see how that works. The only other solution I can come up with would be to syphon each barrel into each other making a compete loop system to keep the water moving to maybe slow down the freezing process.

 

[mom45]

@ mom45; for some reason the ideas of "dehydrated water" and "canned air" popped into my head!

 

[vzdude]

Stock tank heater. Rural king, Farm and fleet have them pretty reasonable.

 

[.356luger]

Stock tank heater. Rural king, Farm and fleet have them pretty reasonable.

beat me to it if it wasnt 55 gal i was going to say fishtank heater instead of a 100w light bulb

 

[csaws]

How about some alcohol (vodka), it will at least keep it from freezing

 

[eldirector]

How about some alcohol (vodka), it will at least keep it from freezing

That would take a LOT of vodka in a 55 gallon barrel!
Ethanol Freeze Protected Water Solutions

Vodka is typically 40% ABV. To drop the freezing point to 25*, we need the barrel of water to be 10% ABV (more than almost every beer - by a lot). That is 5.5 GALLONS of alcohol in 55 gallons total, or 13.75 GALLONS of vodka in that barrel.

I think I could find a better use of that much hooch.....

 

[tobi]

Insulation will only slow the heat transfer. It will not prevent freezing, only delay it for a period of time - depending on the temperature difference. It will also slow the heat transfer when warming up (during the day???)

 

[Spudgunr]

I'm kind of a nerd, though only enough so that we are going to do a calculation to get close to the right answer, because frankly it doesn't matter if it is EXACTLY right (the cylinder shape throws it off a hair, not much).

Surface area of a 55 gallon drum:
(pi*D*L) + 2(pi*R2) = 3.14* ((24*36)+(2*12*12)) = 3617 square inches.
Heat loss = k *A*deltaT/s (thickness of insulation)
= .023 (fiberglass BTU/(ft*hr*degreeF)*3600*32 (assuming garage gets to 0 and you want to keep the water at 32)/(1 (1ft insulation)*144 (to convert square inches to square feet surface area)
=18 BTU if you use a foot of insulation = 5 watts. So if you use an inch of insulation (assuming I did this math right) you would need 60 watts. It'll actually be more, you will be setting this on the ground, IF it will work I'd set it maybe on some of that rigid foam insulation.

Still, get a small submersible heater and if you insulate it you should be ok. I very much could have made a mistake here, its been several months since I've last done a heat transfer equation.