Hi PPers:
Great article but I’d like to tell you what happened to me storing Pool Shock, calcium hypochlorite. I had about 15 pounds, all one pound bags in their purchased bags. I put them in cardboard box and up in the cupboard in the outside laundry room. About 18 months later my husband found metal items in that room that had inexplicably turned into red-dirt colored items flaking rust. The pool shock had leaked from the bags and just from the exposure to the fumes, everything in that room made of rustable metal turned into chunks of rust. Some could be saved and some not. If I ever buy pool shock again, I will store it in mason jars with plastic lids and duct tape the lids shut. Then I’ll check them carefully and with gloves on every 2 months. My husband has put countless hours in trying to clean up the mess. Please don’t be me!
Robie and thecountmc, thanks for your ideas on dealing with the “expired” treated water in my 55 gallon water barrels. Maybe I’ll retreat it AND run it through the Berkey if/when we ever use it.
Hi Pinecarr,
I had a similar situation where I had a big 350 gallon water storage tank in my basement. I needed to empty the tank for a different reason. So I needed to drain the water “uphill” to the outside of the house.
My buddy suggested a cheap sump-pump. These are pumps that you lower down into water (even dirty water in you basement) and the water is pumped out a pipe or hose to where-ever. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Superior-Pump-Sump-0-33-HP-Thermoplastic-Submersible-Sump-Pump/1000737686
Worked pretty well. Other pumps had to have the intake hose carefully filled with water first before the pump was started (primed). Siphoning did not work uphill.
I also decided the basement was not a good place to store water!
Thanks for the suggestion on how to deal with my 55 gallons of “expired” treated water, sand kitty!
I get water in my cellar (which is a major motivation for wanting to move!), and so I do have sump pumps in my cellar: a main pump, back-up and battery back-up. I had considered draining the water from the barrel into the sump pump pit and letting the sump pump remove it. But I am concerned that could stir up sediment and harm the pumps, and I don’t want to take that chance. I have to have a working sump pump system, and have gone through more sump pumps than anyone I know, so don’t want to risk messing them up when they are working.
So I think I have come to the same conclusion that you have; that the basement is not a good place to store [large containers of] water!