Water is life. Literally. We can go weeks without food, but only a few days without water. Yet in a survival situation, finding a source of clean, potable water can be a challenge. Rainwater collects contaminants as it flows, streams contain bacteria and parasites, and even clear mountain springs can harbor viruses.
Luckily, with a few key materials, you can craft your own water filter to turn murky pond water or a muddy stream into drinkable water that could save your life. This DIY water filter guide collects expert tips to help you build a system that fits your specific situation and purification needs. Let’s quench that thirst!
The Cold Hard Truth: Untreated Water Can Make You Very Sick or Even Kill You
Before we dig into filter materials and mechanics, it’s critical to understand why untreated water, even if it looks clear, can be deadly. According to the EPA, the most common waterborne pathogens are:
Bacteria: Salmonella, Cholera, E. Coli
Viruses: Norovirus, Hepatitis A
Parasites: Giardia, Cryptosporidium
Drinking water contaminated with these bugs and parasites can lead to severe vomiting, diarrhea, fever, cramps, and dehydration. And in some cases, particularly with high-risk groups like young children, the elderly, or anyone with a compromised immune system, it can even cause death. Not worth the risk.
The bottom line is this: you should always assume that any freshwater source may be contaminated, and take precautions to treat or filter it before drinking, if you want to live. Let’s look at smart ways to do that with DIY filters.
Level 1 Water Filtration: The Minimalist Survival Sediment Filter
The crudest survival filter isn’t much of a filter at all. It’s just a way to remove floating chunks, mud, debris, and sediment from water. Think of this first level as a screen to make water clean enough for washing or cooking, but not drinking.
Materials Needed:
- A container to collect water – water bottle, bucket, bowl. Plastic or metal work best.
- Sand, crushed charcoal, or small pebbles
- Coffee filter, paper towel, bandana, or clean fabric scrap
- Rubber band, vine, string, or duct tape
How To Build It:
- Place your filtering material like sand or crushed charcoal in the bottom of your container. You want 1-2 inches deep. This will trap the bulk of sediments and solids.
- Place your fabric filter material over the container opening and secure with a rubber band or string. This further screens out remaining particles.
- Slowly pour your untreated water into the filter. Let it pass through the layered filtration materials. The filtered water will collect in your container.
4. Use the cleaner water for washing and cooking. Do not drink it! This basic filter does not purify water of biological contaminants.
This rudimentary debris-screening system at least gets you closer to drinkable water. But to make muddy water truly potable, you need to remove bacteria, viruses, and protozoan parasites. The next sections cover how to do that.
Level 2 Filtration: Activated Charcoal for Removing Toxins, Bacteria, and Viruses
The next step up in DIY water filtration uses a process perfected over thousands of years: activated charcoal. Ancient Egyptians used charcoal to filter liquids. In World War I, soldiers used activated charcoal in gas masks to neutralize toxins.
Today, activated charcoal remains a powerful purification substance. It works through the magic of adsorption. Charcoal’s porous surface contains tons of binding sites that adsorb and hold on to a wide range of microscopic contaminants like heavy metals, chlorine, bacteria, viruses, and more.
When you run water through activated charcoal, all those nasty impurities stick to the charcoal while the clean water flows through.
To make an activated charcoal filter:
- Find a container like a bottle or bucket. Remove the bottom.
- Tape a coffee filter or fabric over the open bottom (this will hold the charcoal in).
- Crush charcoal from your fire to powder (a ziplock bag and a rock work). Or use commercial activated charcoal if you have it.
- Fill your container with 2-3 inches of charcoal powder.
- Place a final filter like a T-Shirt on top to screen out charcoal dust.
- Secure the top filter with a rubber band or tape.
- Pour water into the top and let gravity filter it through the charcoal.
Your filtered water will now be free of many contaminants, including giardia and E. Coli bacteria! But activated charcoal cannot trap the smallest pathogens like cryptosporidium. For that, we need to take filtration up another level…
Level 3: Small Particle Mechanical Filter for Removing Parasites
Cryptosporidium and other waterborne parasites can slip through an activated charcoal filter’s pores. To mechanically block them, you need a filter with smaller pore spaces. This means filtering water through packed sand, which traps the tiniest particles.
The key is using the right sand. You want a mix of grain sizes like course sand, fine sand, and diatomaceous earth. This creates layers and spaces that mechanically catch and hold parasites.
To make a sand filter:
- Use a bucket or bottle with the bottom cut out, covered by a fabric filter like before.
- Layer in your mix of sand, with the largest grains on the bottom. The layers should be 2-3 inches deep total.
- Slowly pour your water through the sand filter to remove parasites.
You now have a layered filtration system that can remove sediments, toxins, bacteria AND parasitic cysts like cryptosporidium and giardia! Just one step left to make water potable…
Final Level: Disinfection to Kill Viruses and Remaining Pathogens
To meet EPA standards for safe drinking water, you need to add disinfection to your filtration. This kills any nasty viruses or pathogenic stragglers than make it through mechanical filtration.
Common DIY disinfection options include:
- Boiling: Bring water to a rolling boil for 1-3 minutes kills most viruses, bacteria, and parasites. But this uses lots of fuel.
- Bleach: Add 1/8 teaspoon (8 drops) of bleach per gallon of filtered water. Stir and let stand 30+ minutes before drinking.
- Iodine tablets: Dissolve according to package instructions. Let water stand for 30 minutes.
- UV light: Use the sun! Sunlight kills most pathogens in 6 hours in clear water. Just put it in clear containers in direct sun.
With a disinfection stage following your filtration, you can rest easy knowing your DIY filtered water meets EPA potable water standards!
Key Filtration Takeaways:
- Sediment pre-filter: Removes chunks and debris
- Activated charcoal: Eliminates toxins, bacteria, viruses
- Sand or mechanical filter: Traps pesky parasites
- Disinfection (boiling, bleach, iodine, UV): Kills remaining viruses and pathogens
Using these principles, you can filter and purify water from virtually any freshwater source to make it 100% potable. Let’s summarize it all with a mock scenario…
Imagine you’re lost in the wilderness and stumble upon a pond. It looks clear, but you know it likely contains contamination.
First, run the pond water through a debris pre-filter like sand or crushed charcoal to remove sediments and floating material.
Next, pour your pre-filtered water through an activated charcoal filter to remove toxins, heavy metals, bacteria and viruses.
Then, run that water through a mechanical sand filter packed with different size grains. This will trap any remaining parasitic cysts.
Finally, disinfect your filtered water by boiling, treating with bleach or iodine, or leaving it in the sun.
The water that comes out the other end will then be sparkling clear and free of biological contamination – ready to drink and keep you alive!
Having the knowledge to purify water in any situation empowers you to take control of your survival, no matter how grim things look. We need water to live, but we can only drink clean water. With some basic materials and smart filtration methods, you can transform even the foulest water into a lifeline.
Stay quenched out there, friends. And remember: where there’s a will, there’s a way!
FAQ:
Q: What’s the best single material to filter water in an emergency?
A: Activated charcoal is the best all-around single material. It adsorbs the broadest range of toxins and contaminants including heavy metals, bacteria, viruses, and organic chemicals. Charcoal effectively eliminates most waterborne pathogens except cryptosporidium. It’s lightweight and easy to acquire by burning wood. Activated charcoal is the #1 choice for a single-ingredient filter.
Q: Should I filter or disinfect water first when purifying it?
A: Always filter water first to remove solids, debris, toxins, bacteria, viruses, and parasites. This clears the water so disinfection methods like boiling, chlorine, or iodine can work most effectively to kill any remaining pathogens. Disinfecting dirty or murky water doesn’t work well since the contaminants can shield viruses and bacteria. Pre-filter first, then disinfect!
Q: How long can I safely store filtered water?
A: Properly filtered and disinfected water can be safely stored for 1-2 weeks. The filtered water itself won’t go bad in that time. But storage introduces the risk of recontamination from dirty containers or lids, animals, insect eggs, etc. To play it safe, try to drink filtered water within a week. And store in sealed, cleaned containers away from light and heat. Replace stored water every 1-2 weeks to be sure it stays clean and potable.