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| Our local Walmart has these on sale |
The ubiquitous, 5-gallon buckets have been deemed a hazard to toddlers.
Quicksilver is a toddler.
It was pretty easy to buy a water jug to pre-mix fertilizer and water for the lettuce project.
The unit is very sturdy. The only issue is that it comes with a spigot (!) but it is shipped screwed into the INSIDE of the cap to reduce the risk of it being damaged.
Some other shopper took the liberty of removing the spigot from the one I selected. So if you opt for this jug, double check inside the big cap to ensure the spigot is there.
7 gallons of water weighs 56 pounds and not everybody can lift that much. However, you can always partially fill it before moving it or top-it-off when you have it in position. Then it can be lowered so the big-cap and spigot are at the low point and you can dispense at-will.
I put mine in an opaque plastic bag because it is outside and I want to minimize the UV damage.
Consider half gallon apple juice jugs. Because our well water is very hard, thus making bed tasting tea, I bring home soft city water from work and find I can keep eight or nine gallons stored in a plastic milk crate from a camping supply store.
ReplyDeleteApple juice is acidic so the plastic is formulated to be not only food grade(of course) but tough as all get out. My bottles easily last seven or more year and are unfazed by the occasional drop to the tile floor.
And the price is right ... FREE.
5 gallon buckets can store water, food, ammo, etc and be made into a improvised toilet by using plastic trash bags. I keep at least 10 around the house.
ReplyDeleteA few weeks ago we had our water turned off for several hours while the local water company did some repairs. I pulled out a Scepter 20-liter jug which I bought maybe 20 years ago, set it sideways on the hearth, tap in the exterior position, and dispensed out water as needed. The proper way to dispense water from these jugs is to crouch in front of the tap, hold your container for refilling under the tap, and press down with the thumb on the red button at the top of the tap while supporting the tap with fingers below little protrusions from each side of the tap.
ReplyDeleteOn the third or fourth dispensing, rather than using that posture, I reached down and pressed on the red button without supporting the tap. The plastic disk holding the tap inside the screw cap had grown brittle in the last 20-some years, and cracked open, spilling water from the jug onto the floor.
Scepter has not responded to a question whether they have replacement tap assemblies.
There probably is a tap assembly on the market that will fit as-is under the screw cap, or can be trimmed to fit under the screw cap. This is mainly a warning that these things DO get brittle with age, and need to be handled accordingly.