Rocket Stove… You’ll need one of these when SHTF!

Rocket Stove… You’ll need one of these when SHTF!

When SHTF you will need a rocket stove. This is because we’re going to have to find new ways of doing just about everything. One of those things will be cooking our food. Electric ranges aren’t going to work too good when there isn’t any electricity and it’s doubtful that gas will be available for gas ranges. That means most people will be cooking on their barbecue grills, in their fireplaces or over a wood burning stove. While all of these methods are workable, they aren’t as efficient as cooking on a rocket stove.

Rocket stoves are a rather unique invention which uses kindling sized sticks as fuel, burning them very hot and very efficiently. This creates a hotter fire than you can usually get out of kindling, as well as providing sufficient heat to cook with from very little fuel.

While I suppose it would be possible to use a rocket stove for heating, that’s really not what they are designed for. The rocket stove produces a lot of heat at the cooking “burner;” it doesn’t really radiate heat like a fireplace or wood burning stove would. This means that they aren’t an efficient heater, even though they are an efficient cooking stove.Rocket Stove

Nobody really knows the origins of the rocket stove. Dr. Larry Winiarski described the principles in 1982, but in reality the rocket stove is based upon much older designs. The Mexican people, for example, have a stove which they call a “chimnea” which is very similar to a rocket stove, although it does not have a fuel magazine. Interestingly enough the Spanish word “chimnea” means “chimney.” Nevertheless, even without this magazine, the chimnea works essentially the same as a rocket stove.

How a Rocket Stove Works

Regardless of how a rocket stove is actually built, they are all essentially the same thing. The easiest way to think of it is as an elbow. One leg of the elbow is horizontal, while the other is vertical. This provides four separate functions for the rocket stove:

Fuel magazine – To hold fuel that is going to be burnt and provide a means of feeding it into the combustion chamber. This is the horizontal portion of the elbow, leading up to the corner.

Combustion chamber – Where the fuel is actually burnt. This is the corner of the elbow.

Chimney –Like any chimney, it provides a means for smoke to escape. However, that isn’t its most important function. The chimney also provides a means for the heat that the stove produces to reach the food to be cooked.

Heat exchanger – This is whatever is used to transfer the heat to the food being cooked, such as a pot sitting on top of the chimney.

A key element in the function of a rocket stove is the airflow through the stove. This requires that the openings at both ends of the elbow not be blocked. If a pot is put on the top of the chimney which totally covers it, airflow might be blocked. Although not as likely, the same thing can happen if too much fuel is placed in the rocket stove.

Airflow is controlled by simple convection. As the air inside the stove heats, it is drawn up the chimney. This creates low pressure in the combustion chamber, causing more air to be drawn in through the fuel magazine; providing a constant source of fresh, oxygenated air to the stove. More than anything, it is the chimney which causes the draft which controls the airflow through the rocket stove.

That constant airflow provides for very efficient burning of the fuel. The fuel in the combustion chamber has a more abundant supply of oxygen than it would in a stove which with a stagnant air supply. This increases the temperature of the burn, in much the same way that adding extra oxygen to a blowtorch increases the temperature of the burning gas. Any hydrocarbons which don’t burn in the combustion chamber are carried up the chimney and burn in the chimney, making for very efficient fuel consumption.

With the efficient combustion rate of the rocket stove, it doesn’t need large pieces of fuel or use as much fuel as other stoves do. Smaller diameter pieces of wood, which we would normally consider kindling, work exceptionally well for a rocket stove. This adds to the burn efficiency, by providing a larger surface area for the mass of wood being used.
A heat exchanger can be mounted to the top of the rocket stove for heating water or for using it as a heater, rather than putting a pot on top of it. Water from an adjacent vessel can be circulated through the heat exchanger by convection, with the heated water being cycled back to the vessel to be replaced by cool water to be heated.

How to build a Rocket Stove

As already mentioned, the basic rocket stove design is a 90 degree elbow, with a shorter horizontal leg and a longer vertical one. This can be made of literally any non-flammable material. Successful rocket stoves have been made of steel pipe (stove pipe), clay, cinder blocks and a variety of other materials. I’ve even seen temporary rocket stoves made by connecting a series of tin cans together.

The materials used aren’t as important as the basic design. While not a requirement, it is a good idea to use some insulating material around the entire rocket stove to protect users from being burned. The insulation will help contain the heat as well, ensuring that the most possible heat reaches the top of the chimney for cooking.

The easiest way to make a rocket stove is out of three cinder blocks. You need the kind of blocks that have two holes, not three. The bottom block, which is going to be the combustion chamber and fuel magazine needs to have the web between the two holes broken out. This is actually fairly easy to do, as cinder blocks aren’t really all that strong. The other two cinder blocks are used for the chimney and need to be broken so that they make an eight inch square. In other words, the central web becomes one side of the square and everything past it gets broken off.

Place the base block on a bare patch of ground and stack the other two partial blocks on top of it, so that the openings in them form the chimney. That’s it; the rocket stove is now ready to use. Load some sticks into it and light them on fire.

Knowing how to build a rocket stove will likely proof useful in a survival situation.

Comment below with any questions or share your experiences with a rocket stove.

7 Survival tools every prepper must have

7 Survival tools every prepper must have

7 survival tools every prepper must have

7 survival tools every prepper must have

Prepping is so multi-faceted, that it seems like you never have all the prepper tools you need. I like to go for multi-purpose tools as much as I can, as they give me more capability than what I can get otherwise, for less cost, less space and less weight. Actually, I’m talking about survival tools more than anything; but to me, the distinction between the two is very slim. So, here are a few of my favorites:

Gerber Steadfast – Fine Edge knife 22-41120 – Out of all the survival tools available the knife is the number one survival tool, bar none. If I had to head off into the woods with only one thing to help me survive, it would be my knife. I use a Gerber Steadfast  survival knife, their model number 22-41120. This is a fairly simple sheath knife, without any serrated edge, double edge or other fancy modifications you’ll find on some knives. But it’s a quality blade with a fine point and a rubberized, easy grip handle.

Chainmate CM-24SSP Chainsaw – Since I don’t have a saw on my knife, I need one in my kit. I carried a three wire saw for years, which was all right, but then I found this baby. This is actually a manual chain saw, with a 24 inch chain. Straps at both ends give you something to hang onto firmly while cutting. The chain-saw style teeth are great for cutting off limbs and cutting up firewood.

Sona Enterprises 9-in-1 Emergency Tool Kit – I used to carry a separate camp shovel and hatchet before finding this one. Granted, the hatchet had a hammer too, but it wasn’t as versatile as this one. This one tool combines a shovel, hatchet, hammer and saw, along with a few smaller tools. It’s not all that heavy either and takes up less room than the separate hatchet and shovel did.

Multi-tool – There are lots of good multi-tools out there. I turned to Leatherman for mine, as they are the original multi-tool company. I like their “Rebar” model because the wire cutter jaws are replaceable. I’ve replaced more than one tool in my life because of ruining the wire cutters on something that was just too hard for them. This way, I just replace the cutters and save myself money.

WAPI (Water Pasteurization Indicator) – Water purification is such an important part of survival. Everyone knows that you can purify water by boiling it, but not many people realize that you don’t need to boil it, you can pasteurize it instead. This means raising it up to 160oF, rather than the 212oF required for boiling. That saves fuel and allows the water to cool down quicker for drinking as well. The WAPI is a plastic capsule that floats in the water. A wax pellet inside it melts and drops when the water reaches 160oF, letting you know that it’s hot enough.

Lifestraw – Speaking of purifying water, I always keep a straw-type water filter with me. The one I prefer is the Lifestraw. It was actually designed for use in third-world countries, where they don’t have enough clean water. A Lifestraw allows you to filter 1,000 liters of water for personal consumption. It’s larger than the other straw-type filters around, which I think makes it filter better.

Headlamp – I’ve become so addicted to headlamps that I have several of them I use. The headlamp allows you to keep your hands free, while providing light right where you’re working. Some of the newer ones are really bright as well, providing as much light as a tactical light does.

What would you add to the list and why?

Where and How to Find Flint

Where and how to find flint

“Where and How to Find Flint”

Knowing where and how to find flint is a useful skill to have in a survival situation.

The two main uses of flint are :

  1. For starting fires by striking it together with steel or iron and
  2. “knapping” it (chipping it) to make arrowheads and knives.

While most people probably won’t need these skills in a survival situation, you can never be sure. It’s better to know and not need that knowledge, than to find yourself in a situation where you wish you knew.

Flint is actually a form of quartz. It occurs naturally in sedimentary rock, often as nodules in chalks and limestone. It can be black, green, white, dark grey or brown in color and is typified by a glassy or waxy appearance. It’s not as glassy as obsidian, but rather more like a dull glass. It fractures along crystalline lines, so it will pretty much always have sharp edges.

You can find flint almost anywhere that you can find stone.

While some areas of the country are more likely to have it than others, the crushed rock used to pave dirt roads often has some flint mixed in. It can also be found mixed in with other types of stone in streambeds. 

New construction sites will often unearth flint while excavating, so if you’re trying to find flint, be sure to check out any construction sites near your home.

Since flint fractures, it is important to find flint that is not shattered, but rather solid pieces.

This can be difficult, as water can get into the flint through air holes and expand when it freezes, causing the flint to crack. Flint that is uncovered during excavation for a building won’t have this problem, as it hasn’t been exposed to freezing.

Pieces of flint may not be obvious when you pick them up. In that case, you may need to break the stone open to see what’s inside. You can do this by using a larger piece of hard stone as a hammer and striking across the edge of the stone you want to break. If it is flint, this should cause a piece to flake off, allowing you to see what’s inside.

Identifying flint is easy.

Start with its appearance; if it doesn’t fracture leaving a waxy looking surface, it’s not flint. I remember hearing a survival instructor say,

“If you’re looking for flint, pick up a likely looking stone and strike it with the back of your knife. If it sparks, you found flint.”

That advice still works just as good today, as it did years ago. While there are some other types of stone which will spark when struck on a knife, only flint has the right appearance, as well as sparking when struck against a piece of steel.

If you’re looking for flint that you’re planning on using for knapping, you want to be picky about the pieces you save. Look at them closely, preferably with a magnifying glass, to see if there are any cracks air bubbles. Those air bubbles will cause the flint to fracture in ways you don’t want, so only save stones which don’t have air bubbles in them.

Have you every set out to try and find flint? If so, where did you find the flint and how long did it take?

(Comment below)

Prepping for the Ebola Pandemic

Prepping for the Ebola Pandemic

With the appearance of the first Ebola case in Dallas, Texas, many people have suddenly awakened to the high risk we are all facing from this pandemic. Previous Ebola outbreaks have all been small, with the largest infecting only 425 people in Uganda, and only 224 of them dying from the disease. The current outbreak has infected 8,399 people, with 4,033 deaths as of the date of this writing. Computer models are projecting over 1.4 million people infected by Ebola by the end of January 2015 (source).

This is getting scary. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been downplaying the pandemic, making several press releases stating that it won’t get to the United States and even if it does, our medical community is ready to deal with it.

All those assurances went out the window when that first case broke out in Dallas.

It was clear that we were not ready to deal with this.

What Exactly is Ebola?

Ebola is a virus; an organism about 0.02 microns in size. It is so primitive, that it’s unable to live and reproduce on its own. All it can do is live in a dormant state, until it comes into contact with a living cell. Once it does, it enters that cell, hijacking its nucleus and turning it into a reproduction factory, creating new Ebola virus strands. This ultimately kills the cell.

As the virus continues reproducing in the body, it gradually consumes more and more of the body, causing a massive amount of internal bleeding. Ebola is known as a hemorrhagic fever for this, as it causes both a fever and hemorrhaging.

It takes anywhere from two to 21 days for this incubation period to complete, in which the virus is replicate itself enough within its victim for symptoms to appear.

Once they do, Ebola appears much like the flu, making it hard to diagnose. However, the sickness accelerates rapidly from that point, killing most patients within ten days.

Prepping for the Ebola pandemic

How Does Ebola Spread?

The CDC has been touting that Ebola spreads only by contact with bodily fluids and is not airborne. This is true, but it’s not all of the truth. Ebola is not airborne, as that would mean that it could float around in the air, waiting until it encountered a victim to infect. It can’t do that. However, the term “bodily fluids” doesn’t just mean a puddle of blood or urine. It can also mean saliva and mucus. So, when patients who have Ebola cough and sneeze, they are spreading Ebola through the droplets of saliva and mucus that are leaving their body.

This sort of spreading is known as “aerosol”

We’ve also heard from the CDC that an Ebola patient isn’t contagious until they show symptoms. That’s true in most cases, but coughing and sneezing are definitely symptoms. So, they are contagious from that first sneeze. Here’s the worst though, if they were already coughing or sneezing, before becoming infected with Ebola, they’re contagious much earlier.

Ebola can also live for short times on surfaces which have been in contact with the bodily fluids of people who are infected. So, if someone has Ebola and sneezes, the droplets from their sneeze contaminate all the surfaces they come into contact with. That could be all the way across the room.

The Ebola virus survives longer on hard surfaces, such as Formica and glass, than it does soft or porous surfaces, such as cloth. So a tabletop which became contaminated might be contaminated for a few hours after becoming infected. Anyone who touches that tabletop could become infected, especially if they ate a hamburger with the hand that touched the table.

How Can You Kill Ebola?

As a virus, Ebola is actually rather fragile. Ultraviolet light is uniformly deadly to viruses, destroying part of the protein covering for the virus and preventing it from working. So it can be killed by being exposed to direct sunlight (which contains ultraviolet) or a black light (which also contains ultraviolet).

Viruses, like Ebola, can also be destroyed by contact with disinfectants. A mixture of 1/2 cup common bleach in a gallon of water makes a great disinfectant. This can be used to decontaminate objects which have come into contact with the bodily fluids of Ebola patients, as well as decontaminate the protective clothing of those who have been in an Ebola environment.

Unfortunately, there is no known medicine which can kill Ebola in the human body.

Some experimental drugs are being fast-tracked into testing, but there is nothing conclusive on this yet.

There is no vaccine either which will stimulate the human immune system to produce antibodies for Ebola.

How Can You Protect Your Family From Ebola?

With the ease that Ebola spreads from person to person and the lack of available treatment, the only real way of stopping an Ebola epidemic is isolation and quarantine. That either means finding everyone who has been in contact with a victim and putting them in quarantine for 21 days, until the incubation period is over or quarantining areas where the virus is active, condemning everyone in that area to death.

You and I can’t do anything about quarantining other people, but we can quarantine ourselves and our families from them.

In other words, if there is an Ebola outbreak in your area, you either need to bug out to a remote location, before any of your family can become infected or bug in, sealing yourself off from anyone else.

Bugging in is actually a fairly good option, if you have the means to keep yourselves alive while you are waiting for the epidemic to burn out. Water and electrical service will probably remain on, unless the disease becomes so bad that there is a general breakdown of society. But you’ll need to have everything else you need to survive already stockpiled in your home.

You’ll also need to be able to filter your water to get out any viruses that may appear in it. That means using a 0.02 micron filter. The only companies that I know of which produce water filters which will work for that are Sawyer and Berkley.

By staying inside your home, while the disease is wrecking havoc outside, you should be perfectly safe. If you have to go outdoors, anywhere where you might have contact with people, you’ll need to dress yourself in a bio-hazard suit. That’s the type of suit you see the healthcare workers wearing in pictures of the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

While actual bio-hazard suits are expensive, you can make some substitutions to have your own bio-hazard suits which are just as effective, for a much lower price.

Tyvek coveralls, like those that are used in factories and for hazardous waste cleanup work extremely well as a bio-hazard suit. You’ll also need rubber gloves, rubber boots (or Tyvek boot covers), goggles and medical masks.

When you put the suit on, you’ll need to tape the wrists to the gloves and the cuffs to the boots, to close off any air passages. This can be done with clear packing tape or masking tape. Duct tape will work as well, but it won’t come off as easily. To ensure that no viruses can make it through the medical masks, spray them with the same bleach disinfectant that I mentioned earlier. Be sure to put the hood up on the suit and cover your face with the goggles, mask and hood.

Before taking off the suit, you need to be sprayed down thoroughly with the disinfectant solution. This will kill any Ebola virus particles that have gotten on the outside of the suit. Once you take it off, your body and clothes should be sprayed with disinfectant as well, as an added safety precaution. Then you can shower off the bleach.

With these precautions in place, you will be well protected from any chance of contracting Ebola. It would require someone trying to infect you maliciously for you to become infected.

What one thing are you going to do to be better prepared for the Ebola pandemic?

Let me know in the comments below.

What are Survivalist Preppers

What are Survivalist Preppers

As the prepping movement has grown, it has changed as well. Preppers, especially more experienced preppers, are expanding their ideas about what it takes to be prepared. They are learning new skills and becoming more self-sufficient. Some are even buying land out in the countryside and starting homesteads; returning in many ways to the lives of our great-grandparents.

There are two terms which are bandied about the prepping movement and there seems to be a bit of confusion about the difference between the two of them. These are the words “prepper” and “survivalist”. To many people, the two terms are pretty much synonymous; but in fact, there is a true difference between the two. The difference, not surprisingly, is in how they focus on the problem of surviving a disaster.

Back when I got started in all this, there was no such thing as a prepper. We were all survivalists.  We made plans for getting out of Dodge (bugging out) if Washington ever pushed the button and tried to learn the necessary skills for surviving in the wilderness and rebuilding some semblance of society.

When I first became aware of prepping, I saw a distinct difference from the survivalist mentality I had known. Most preppers aren’t really focused on bugging-out, but rather on bugging-in. 

Their survival philosophy is based upon having the equipment and supplies to make sure they can make it, even if the rest of society collapses.

They stockpile supplies and work towards getting off-the-grid, so that even if something catastrophic were to happen, they’d be able to survive.

Even preppers who were planning on bugging-out held to the same basic prepper mentality. They would prepare their stockpiles as well, only they’d have the stockpile at their prepared bug-out retreat. They wouldn’t be planning on living off the wild, more like “bugging-in” in an out-of-the-way location.

Being a long-time survivalist, I quickly embraced the prepper mindset and started building my stockpile; even though I didn’t give up any of my woodcraft skills. But as time has gone on, I’ve seen more and more preppers adopt more of a survivalist mentality. Mostly, these are people who have been preppers a while and already have a fairly good stockpile on hand. As they continue in their preparations, they seek to learn more skills, so that they can survive, even without all those supplies.

Some preppers are building bug-out retreats, much like the survivalists of old did. Others are building bunkers under their homes; once again, copying the survivalists I knew.

So, what’s happening is that preppers are becoming more like survivalists, or becoming a “Survivalist Prepper”

Actually, this is a sensible progression. True survival requires skills, knowledge, supplies and equipment. The more of any of those you have, the better your chances of survival.

Just being a prepper isn’t the final answer, nor is just being a survivalist. Combining the two strategies together and becoming a survivalist prepper makes the most sense of all.

As the prepping movement continues to grow, I think we’ll see more and more preppers morphing into survivalist preppers. These people will have their homes ready for surviving, a prepared bug-out location ready for any emergency and the necessary skills that they can get by without either of the two.

 

When a crisis comes, the survivalist prepper will have a leg up on any and all others, including either preppers or survivalists.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
How to Purify Water in the Wilderness with 3 Different Methods

How to Purify Water in the Wilderness with 3 Different Methods

How to purify water in the wilderness

Knowing how to purify water in the wilderness can be the difference between life and death. Regardless of what anyone might try to tell you, surviving in the wilderness is a full-time job. Although it might be fun to try doing it for a few days sometime, even as a training exercise, if you had to do it all the time, you would find it quite challenging. Coming up with enough food, water and fuel to keep you alive would occupy pretty much all your time, leaving you little time to enjoy the scenery or better your lifestyle.

Clean, drinkable water is a constant need. Even if you have a ready water supply, such as a stream or lake, that doesn’t mean you have drinkable water. That water can be filled with things which can cause you harm, even to the point of killing you.

Most of what will kill you in water is too small to be seen with the naked eye. On the other side of the coin, what you can see probably won’t hurt you. 

Nevertheless, you should never trust water you find in the wilderness, but should purify all water in the wilderness before drinking it.
You can use it for washing as it is, but not for consumption.

It is the biological pathogens in the water that you have to watch out for. Many bacteria, protozoa and viruses can live in the water. While many of these aren’t really dangerous, there are others, which if you ingest them, some will cause you to become sick.

In a survival situation, sickness is extremely dangerous and can weaken you to the point where other things can kill you even easier.
 

That’s why survival instructors recommend having at least two means of water purification in your survival kit. With two, you’ve got a backup, just in case your primary means fails, so you are assured of always being able to purify water in the wilderness.

There are a lot of people who will tell you that you can make a water filter to purify water in the wilderness by layering gravel, sand and charcoal in an old soda bottle. Watch out for this. What they’re talking about making is called a bio-filter. However, you need activated charcoal to make one, not the charcoal from your campfire. One made with charcoal won’t make your water safe to drink. A bio-filter made with activated charcoal works great, but one made with normal charcoal is an invitation for trouble.

How to Purify Water in the Wilderness Video

Purify Water in the Wild with Straw-type Water Filters

Straw type filters are one of the most common types of water filters used to purify water in the wilderness survival situation. There are a number of these on the market, such as the Lifestraw. These filters work by taking out anything that is larger than 0.2 microns. Since most bacteria are larger than 2 microns, that’s a pretty good safety margin. The Lifestraw will filter up to 1,000 liters of water.

Straw type filters are used by putting one end directly into the stream or lake and drinking through the straw. This is very convenient, but it doesn’t allow you to purify water to carry with you in a canteen or water bottle.
When you look at straw-type filters, there are two important things to look for, the filtration size (the 0.2 microns above) and the number of gallons of water that the filter is good for. Some straws don’t filter as well or last as many gallons as the Lifestraw will.

Purify Water in the Wilderness with Bag-type Water Filters

Many people carry a bag-type filter in their bug-out bag as well. The major advantage of a bag type filter over a straw type is that the water you run through the filter can then be put into a canteen or water bottle to take with you and drink later. This is important, as it allows you to move away from the water as you are traveling.

Lifestraw also makes a bag-type filter, although it doesn’t actually use a bag. In this case, the bag is a hard plastic cup, but the idea is the same. Since it uses the same filter as the other Lifestraw, it gives you the same level of protection. Another excellent filter is the Sawyer Mini Water Filtration system, which uses a hollow fiber design. The is design not only filters finer at 0.1 microns, but can be back-flushed, allowing the filter to be used for 100,000 gallons of water.

Purify Water in the Wild with Water Purification Tablets

Iodine is commonly used as a means of purifying water; however, iodine is a bit inconvenient to carry with you. Therefore, people use iodine tablets, such as those by Potable Aqua. These are easy to work with, and provide a convenient way to purify water in the wilderness. The biggest problem with counting on tablets of this sort is that they eventually run out, leaving you without a means of purifying water.

To use the tablets, a canteen or water bottle is filled with stream water and the tablets added. The water needs to be allowed to sit for 30 minutes before using, so that the iodine can kill any pathogens in the water. These are great for an emergency situation, keeping them in a survival kit, but you wouldn’t want to use them for long-term water purification.

You can accomplish about the same thing using ordinary household bleach. Bleach is chlorine, the same substance that’s used in municipal water systems and for keeping pathogens from growing in swimming pools. The trick is coming up with a container to carry the bleach in, so that it won’t leak out all over your food and other equipment. You’ll need an eye dropper as well, as you need to use eight drops of bleach per gallon of water to purify it. Like the iodine tablets, allow the bleach 30 minutes to kill off any pathogens.

Purify Water in the Wilderness by Boiling or Pasteurizing

You can also kill the pathogens in water by boiling it. This merely requires having some sort of container, like a canteen cup, which won’t melt or burn and a fire. In a pinch, you can make a cup out of birch-bark and boil the water in it. As long as the flames are kept below the level of the water, the cup won’t burn.

You can save fuel and time by pasteurizing your water, rather than boiling it. To kill the bacteria and protozoa you only need to raise the water’s temperature up to 158oF, not the 212oF required for boiling it. So if you have a means of telling you when the water reaches that temperature, you can save yourself from having to get the temperature all the way up to the boiling point.

The WAPI (water pasteurization indicator) has been designed just for this. It consists of a plastic capsule, with a wax bead inside it. It is submersed in the water when the water is being heated. When the water reaches 160oF, the wax bead melts, dropping down to the bottom of the capsule to indicate that the water is ready to use. Designed for use in third-world countries, the WAPI is an ideal means for purifying water in the wilderness.

Purify Water in the Wild by Solar Power

The WAPI can also be used for purifying water by solar power. To harness the sun’s power to purify your water, put the water into an old clear soda bottle or a clear water bottle. Put the WAPI inside with it. Lay the bottle somewhere that it is in direct sunlight; preferably someplace where it is laying on a black or dark colored background.

The sun will heat the water inside the bottle, hot enough to bring it up to the pasteurization temperature. You’ll know that it’s hot enough, because the wax pellet in the WAPI will melt.

Water purified in this manner can be easily cooled before drinking by submersing the water bottle in a stream or lake and allowing the heat to bleed off. You’ll have to be careful when drinking the water though, making sure that your lips don’t touch any part of the outside of the bottle, except what was covered by the bottle cap. The bottle might have picked up pathogens by being submersed in the water. It would be even better to pour the water into another container to drink it.

If you’re reading this you must have read the article above showing you some ways on how to purify water in the wilderness.

Have you used any of my recommendations, or have suggestion of your own?

Comment below, I want to hear from you!

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