Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Everyone knows the importance of water in a survival situation. You can only survive without it for three days, but you’ll feel severely dehydrated after just one.
This is why water needs to be one of your biggest priorities. You should stock up on two gallons per day per person, but you should also know how to find water.
Why? Because disasters happen when you least expect, and you could be away from home when the next one strikes. Or worse, your home–along with your water supply–could be destroyed.
In case either of these things happens, you need to know how to collect water. Here, then, are 10 ways to collect water during a disaster.
Want to save this post for later? Click Here to Pin It on Pinterest!
1. Natural Water Sources
The first way of finding water is obvious. Simply walk downhill (or toward clusters of bushes and/or trees) until you find a natural source of water in a lake, stream, river, or pond. If you can’t find one, try digging a hole about a foot deep. If the soil is moist enough, the hole should fill with a bit of groundwater. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?
Unfortunately, there’s also no guarantee you’ll find water this way, which is why you should know about some other methods…
2. Rainwater
Stretch out a tarp and tie it between four trees. If you can’t find four trees near each other, dig a wide and shallow hole in the ground, then lay the tarp over it and hold it in place with a heavy object over each corner.
When the rain falls, it will collect in the middle of the tarp. Pour the water from a tarp to a bucket when it starts to get heavy, then set the tarp back up to collect more rainwater. Repeat this process until it stops raining or you have plenty of water.
Want to prep but not sure where to begin?
Click Here to Get Your FREE One Year Urban Survival Plan!
Better yet, modify your house’s gutters to direct rainwater into barrels with a rain catchment system.
3. Solar Stills
The solar still is a classic survival method for collecting water. You’ll need a bucket, some rocks, green leaves, and a plastic sheet such as a tarp or a shower curtain.
Dig a hole about two feet wide and one foot deep, then set your bucket in the middle of the hole and surround it with the green leaves. Spread the tarp over the bucket and secure it with rocks on all four corners. Set a smaller rock in the middle of the tarp so that it weighs down over the bucket.
Over the course of the day, water will drip down into the bucket, and you should have around 150ml of water by the end of a twelve hour time period. Watch the video below for more details.
4. Transpiration Bags
Another classic water collection method is the transpiration bag. Although this method yields less water than a solar still, it’s also less work. All you need is a clear plastic bag and some cordage. Tie the bag around a branch that has lots of green leaves.
Throughout the day, moisture and water will collect in the bag. You can also set a small rock in the bag so that the water collects in one place. NOTE: Make sure the tree you use is not poisonous. The video below describes the method in more detail.
5. Gathering Dew
In the morning when it’s still moist outside, tie a clean rag around one or both of your feet and walk through an area of green grass where the dew has yet to evaporate. Each rag will become soaked with water which you can then squeeze into a bowl.
Repeat this process until the dew evaporates or you have plenty of water.
6. City Parks
Most city parks have fountains, ponds, or streams. Collect as much water as you can but don’t drink it yet. Most park water has chemicals and pesticides in it, meaning it’s not safe to drink yet. To remove chemicals from water, it’s not enough to simply boil it or use a standard water filter. You’ll need a high-quality water purification system.
Check out this article for a few suggestions.
7. Office Buildings
Scavenge office buildings and businesses for water dispensers, vending machines, and refrigerators. If you’re lucky, you’ll also find soda, coffee, tea, chips, pretzels, crackers, and so on.
Want to prep but not sure where to begin?
Click Here to Get Your FREE One Year Urban Survival Plan!
8. Water Heaters
Water heaters are capable of storing anywhere from thirty to a hundred gallons. Unlike water from city parks, the water in heaters is safe to drink because it has already been treated. The first step you will want to do is plug all the sinks and bathtubs and then run the water until they fill up or until the water quits running. Then you can get into the pipes in the walls and collect the water in there.
It’s going to require a lot of work to break through the walls and access the pipes, but if you’re really thirsty it will be worth the effort. This article explains how to drain a water heater.
9. Backyards
If you find a home that’s been abandoned, check the backyard for a pool. If you can’t find a pool, check garden hoses. You should be able to collect enough residual water from them to last you at least a day. Hoses are everywhere, from houses and apartments to golf courses and hotels.
If the water won’t run through the hoses when you turn it on, simply cut into the hoses to get to the water that way. Have a cup on standby to catch it when it spills out.
Note: Pools usually have harmful chemicals such as chlorine in them, so before you drink the water, be sure to run it through a high-quality filter such as a Big Berkey water filtration system, a Megahome countertop water distiller, or a reverse osmosis water filtration system.
10. Toilets
Yes, if worst comes to worst, you can always access the water in a toilet, at least in the tank. Unless your dog is with you, you probably won’t want the water in the bowl of the toilet for obvious reasons.
Most toilets hold anywhere from one and a half up to six gallons of water, so that’s too much water to pass up. You should absolutely boil and filter any water you collect from a toilet before you even think of drinking it.
Most of the water in the tank should be safe to drink (at least according to the CDC), unless someone recently pushed contaminated water back into the tank with a plunger. No one’s saying that it isn’t gross to think about, but if you want to stay alive and have no other water, it might be necessary.
Like this post? Don’t forget to Pin It on Pinterest!
In fact in the cities, criminals and gangs will probably take over the water supplies, as it is an easy way to get control of the remaining population and any resources that they have..
Very wise words Mic.
criminals will use fear and intimidation as a method of control and coercion.
So the best thing you can do, is get out of there as fast as you can.
Take your supplies with you little bits at a time.
Use the “paint can” water filter. Take an empty paint can, drill a hole in the bottom. Scrape off any leftovers paint. Put some medium size gravel on the bottom as your final layer. Next a two inch or more layer of charcoal.(crushed into smaller chunks) Then a layer of course sand, with a top layer of fine sand. Leave about two or three inches of empty space at the top. Cover with a cheese cloth or a bandana to keep out the bigger bits. Hang the can by the handle, slowly pour water in. Hold your pot underneath the hole in the bucket. The first few times the water will be cloudy from the charcoal. After that it will be clear. The chemical potential is now way smaller and acceptable. Not to mention the filter is portable.
Most of these are very short term water solutions.
Solar stills and transpiration bags might work in a short term survival situation but not in the long term,
to much work for to little water.
If a city is partly occupied then city parks, ponds, water heaters, office water coolers and the like will quickly be drained.
The amount of water it takes to live long term is about 10 gallons per person per day,( not just a gallon as some sources suggest, that is a minimal survival amount, until you are rescued).
Multiply that figure, by say, only 10 thousand persons (100,000 gallons) and that is a lot of water needed by all those people, every day.
In fact in the cities, criminals and gangs will probably take over the water supplies, as it is an easy way to get control of the remaining population and any resources that they have..
A solar still will not produce a realistic amount of water. How much physical energy and sweat will you use up digging that hole?
I saw your trump survey question. At one of his early political rallies; a protester was given a MAGA cap.
Before he was EJECTED; he screamed out THE HAT’S WERE MADE IN CHINA!!
Downspouts are also a great place to find water when it rains. Of course it still needs to be purified.
A couple of times you mention “check the video below”. There were no videos below, just large open areas.
That’s strange. The videos are embedded from Youtube, so it’s either a problem with Youtube or your browser. Sorry.
You can’t use a filter for pool water at all & a RO would probably do it but it wont operate without water pressure. I’m not sure if the solar method would separate the chems. from the water. Pool water could still be used to flush your toilets & wash up.
Thinking of having a house built and was wondering what the thoughts are on having a water storage “tank” placed inline (similar to a hot water tank) so that there is always a source of water?
An interesting discussion would be what would people recommend for a bugin house. Since the design has not been determined all thoughts would be welcome.
My grandparents built a house in the 1950’s before town water and sewer was a “thing”. They had a well outside and a cistern in the basement to store water which was used as their water source. From time to time they would run a trough from the well to the cistern hatch in the side of the house (think coal shoot), and refill the cistern.
There are tanks that can be purchased. Another option would be to watch for a Swiss Portable Water Cistern on Surplus sites. These big bags can hold up to 250 gallons of water. They should though, be place in a vessel or crib to help support the bag. Last time I checked there were two sizes. 100gal and 250gal.
An inline storage tank, such as a water heater installation has some negatives for use as a backup water supply.
The tank has to be one that can handle the water pressure of the city water service. Open tanks will not work, nor will most plastic or polymer tanks, or cisterns.
Plus, when the city water goes off, there is no good way to get the water out of the tank. Having a cistern that the city water fills, with a float valve that shuts the flow off when the tank is full, and then a pressure pump with pressure tank pulls from the cistern and feeds the house plumbing. The primary pump would be a decent size AC powered pump, but it would be very easy to add a 12vDC pump for when the power is out.
Now, there is one way to have a feed through tank kept full by city water pressure. If the tank is a tank with an air badder in it, as used with many home water well pumps, as long as there is a check valve on the input from the city water, the air bladder will maintain enough pressure to move water through the plumbing up to the capacity of the tank. Although the pressure will be dropping constantly. A two story home would quickly lose water pressure. And if the tank is in the basement, the first floor would also lose pressure.
The bigger the tank, of course, the more water you would have. Do remember, however, that the bladder full of air compressed by the incoming water pressure will take up nearly half of the space in the tank. So, for example, a one-hundred-gallon compressed bladder tank would only hold around fifty-gallons of water.
You can, of course have multiple tanks to increase capacity. I think an option for a prepper house in the city would be a combined system. The direct pressure tank, plus a cistern kept full from city water, a precipitation collection system, and possibly a well if you can get one installed without too many hassles from the local government or any HOA in existence.
I have many more ideas for prepper homes and such. Feel free to contact me. I will monitor this article for additional replies for a couple of weeks to see if you respond. If you do I will give you my email so you can contact me directly.
Just my opinion.
I’m sorry, but you mention in both 6 & 9 that if there are chemicals in the water to just boil it. That not only DOES NOT remove chemicals, it actually can make it WORSE!
Think about simple Salt Water. If you boil it, water evaporates, leaving the salt. If you took a gallon of salt water, boil it until 1/2 gallon is left, you will have DOUBLED the Salt ratio. NO salt is removed.
This is true for most other chemicals, like pool/pond additives.
Boiling water KILLS germs, bugs, living things.
It does nothing to remove chemicals.
Thanks for catching that! The article has been updated.
Other than Reverse Osmosis, the only other safe way would be to distill the treated water. A time consuming and not real practical way to go about it. Carrying the components needed for a still would be problamatic.
There are some chemicals that are violatle, having a boiling point below that of water, so boiling will remove those chemicals.
You don’t drink the water that is left behind ! You collect the water that has evaporated for drinking, and yes the chemicals will STAY in the remaining water in your still .
Dew and transpiration bags are great. Not a fan of the solar still. If you are in a desert and there is nothing around maybe. If you are surrounded by trees and bushes like I am then no. In the time it takes someone to dig a solar still I can put up a hundred transpiration bags. And without breaking a sweat. Using a bandana tied on your feet like you mentioned and I can gather water while setting up my bags. I like the biggest bang for my buck.
no need to be dealing with individual sinks/tubs – open both a hot/cold faucet on the highest building floor possible ….
great majority of the pipe trapped water will drain down to the lowest building level – collect thru the water heater(s) (hot water for sure) or a set of convenient faucets ….
great little prep tool to have in your BOB pack is a 4-way sillcox key for accessing a building’s outdoor faucet …. no need to enter the building
https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A4-Way%20Sillcock%20Key
tap the faucet for running water or again drain trapped water in the building’s plumbing ….
You can’t force toilet bowl water into the tank by plunging the toilet bowl. It isn’t built that way.
You caught that too. LOL. Thomas Crapper’s design was genius.
came here to say that.