How to store water in cold climates

[Elynn215]

My husband and I are thinking about full time yurt living off grid and would like to know how do you store your water and how do you keep it from freezing. Also this would not be drinking water it would be collected rain water or stream collected.

[Bob Rowlands]

Dig a hole and place the top of your cistern below the frost level of your area. If you have a sloping lot, you might get that tank below frost level, but ABOVE your yurt, and have gravity feed to a hose bib, or whatever, near where you need the water. Your water won't freeze below frost level. The water line entering our home, from our well, is about nine feet below ground level. Way too deep to ever freeze.

[Elynn215]

Thank you we are new to yurt living. I have lived off grid my whole childhood but we had a cabin and kept the tank in the house.

[Jafo]

Good advice Bob. For my yurt, we have some of the rockiest ground you have ever seen. Picture Apollo moon landing site if you will. No chance of burying it unless I went through a pretty big expense. I thought about doing it as I am going to have some excavating done this year hopefully, but then I thought that maintaining the cistern might be hard (you have to drain and clean them from time to time, especially with rain water).

I talked to some of the guys here:

Missouri Wind and Solar ¦ Wind Turbine and Solar Panel Supplies

About their 12/24/48 volt DC heating elements and how they are used. Many ranchers will hook these into their big 500 gallon water totes and connect them to either solar panels or wind turbines. This, in combination with insulating the Hell out of the tote, keeps the water from freezing.

If you already have a wind turbine, these elements make great dump loads.

I am seriously considering one of these for later this year.

[Bob Rowlands]

Thank you.

[Delores]

We just keep a couple 5 gallon jugs and fill them at work to bring home as we need them. Plumbing is a hassle in a super cold climate so we also shower at work and have a dry yurt. It would be different if you wanted plumbing.

[dennishl]

I sleep with my drinking water under the covers with me, about a gallon at a time in two plastic juice bottles (make sure you keep the cap on tight). I fill the pan I use to heat water for coffee before I go to bed and thaw it out on the stove in the morning. Occasionally I get fancy and keep several gallons of water in 1/2 gallon juice bottles in a cooler. One bottle is filled with hot water (but not so hot it'll melt the bottle), reheated as needed. It'll keep water liquid even when the inside overnight yurt temp drops to -20s F.

[Bob Rowlands]

I figured out the 'hot water in Nalgene bottle in sleeping bag' trick since my wife passed 40. She sleeps cold. Never read it on internet that predated it. It works very well. Now, I also do it, on occasion. We don't camp below freezing anymore though, too old.