Water and Emergency Storage - The Off-Grid Build-Along Video Vault
The Off-Grid Build-Along Video Vault
The one thing you cannot go three days without. Hand-dug wells, rain barrels, a filter build under $100, and official emergency guidance.
On this shelf
10Hand-Pump Well Installation, Start to Finish26 min11Helpful Resources: Official FEMA PSAs from ready.gov12 min48Set Up a Rain Barrel to Harvest Roof Runoff3 min118Build a Gravity Water Filter for Under $10013 minHand-Pump Well Installation, Start to Finish
A village crew bores a well by hand and fits the pump, every step from first pipe to first water.
26 min
Municipal water is a service someone else can switch off. A well in your yard is yours. This film follows a working crew as they put one in with pipe, muscle and a single market run for parts.
You watch the bore driven section by section until it reaches water bearing sand, then a filter pipe built on site, softened over a fire and wrapped in double cloth so sand stays out of your drinking water.
The joints get solvent cement and a packed mud seal, because a pump that pulls air will never pull water. A primed bowl means one stroke brings water, even after the well sits idle for ten or fifteen days.
When the mains fail, this keeps running on your arm alone.
"Hand-pump well installation, full process" by My Village Food Secrets, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Helpful resources from official sources
Helpful Resources: Official FEMA PSAs from ready.gov
Seven short official PSAs from FEMA's ready.gov program: earthquakes, floods, wildfires, storm surge, and the basics of a family emergency plan. This is the government's own material, included because it holds up.
Watch them with your family, then agree on three things: where you will meet, who you will call, and what goes in the kit that carries your household for at least three days.
When the Earth Shakes (Earthquake)
When the Clouds Form (Flood)
When the Fire Starts (Wildfire)
Storm Surge: Jim's Story
Wildfire Evacuation: Charles' Story
Wildfire Evacuation: Kathleen's Story
Preparing Makes Sense (Plan and Kit Basics)
Set Up a Rain Barrel to Harvest Roof Runoff
A quick tour of a working rain barrel in a Washington DC demonstration garden, downspout to hose
3 min
Every storm sends water off your roof and into the drain while your stored supply sits at zero. A rain barrel closes that leak.
This tour of a working demonstration garden shows the whole setup: a gutter and downspout feeding the barrel, a fastened lid so only water gets in, and the barrel raised high enough to fill a watering can.
An elevated barrel earns two taps: a middle bib for clearer water, a lower bib that carries more sediment. A hose and gravity handle the watering, no pump and no power.
It does not take a big roof to matter. When the taps stop running, a full barrel is water you already own.
Build a Gravity Water Filter for Under $100
Two food grade buckets, a ceramic candle filter, and gravity, a hands-on 2012 home build
13 min
Clean drinking water for under $100, no electricity and no plumbing: two 6.5 gallon food grade buckets, a ceramic candle filter and a cheap spigot.
The build is all on camera, up close: drilling the 29/64 guide hole, cutting half inch threads with a tap, and flushing a full round through before you drink a drop.
The finished rig moves about a gallon every 15 to 20 minutes, and the silver impregnated ceramic element scrubs clean and reuses up to 100 times.
When the taps stop running, this sits on a counter and keeps the drinking water coming.
License: CC BY 3.0. From the original source. Full attributions on the credits page.
Keep this shelf on your own drive
All 10 videos in this category, in their numbered folder, ready to file into your vault.
Download the Water and Emergency Storage shelf (867 MB .zip)