Desalinating device---
Mary Mathews
Is anyone familiar with a family size desalinating device, similar to
the family size generator for emergencies? Thanks. Mary
John Weiss
>
> Is anyone familiar with a family size desalinating device, similar to
> the family size generator for emergencies? Thanks. Mary
Look at marine watermakers, designed for yachts. You can find 12, 24, and, 120,
and 240V models.
Logan Shaw
> Is anyone familiar with a family size desalinating device, similar to
> the family size generator for emergencies? Thanks. Mary
As far as I know, desalination takes a lot of energy. If you're talking
about planning for an emergency, you'd have to store fuel to use in the
desalination process. Why not just store an equivalent amount of fresh
water?
If you are planning for an emergency where you have plenty of energy
available (maybe the emergency won't interrupt power from a utility, or
maybe you have solar or wind power), you could use a home distiller.
Their output is typically measured in hours per gallon, but if you just
need water for drinking and cooking in an emergency, maybe that is OK.
There might be better options, but a distiller is the most obvious thing
I could think of. As a bonus, you'd be able to use it to make really
pure water for drinking and for cooking even when it's not an emergency.
- Logan
Anthony Matonak
> Is anyone familiar with a family size desalinating device, similar to
> the family size generator for emergencies? Thanks. Mary
A water still (or distiller) isn't in any way similar to a generator.
That said, I did find these using google.
Waterwise 1600 non-electric Portable water distiller
http://www.h2ofilters.com/wanopowadi.html
Rainmaker™ 550 Solar Water Distiller
http://www.solaqua.com/solstils1.html
EPSEA solar water still plans
http://www.epsea.org/stills.html
You can try it yourself...
http://www.google.com/products?q=water+distiller&btnG=Search&hl=en&show=dd
Anthony
John Weiss
> As far as I know, desalination takes a lot of energy. If you're talking
> about planning for an emergency, you'd have to store fuel to use in the
> desalination process. Why not just store an equivalent amount of fresh
> water?
New-tech reverse osmosis desalinators use a LOT less energy than stills. In
fact, you can get models that you can operate by hand (though they're not
"family sized" as requested by the OP). OTOH, one of those for each family
member will help keep them fit and teach them the value of water in an
emergency! :-)
Jeff
> "Logan Shaw" <lshaw-...@austin.rr.com> wrote...
>
>
>>As far as I know, desalination takes a lot of energy. If you're talking
>>about planning for an emergency, you'd have to store fuel to use in the
>>desalination process. Why not just store an equivalent amount of fresh
>>water?
>
>
> New-tech reverse osmosis desalinators use a LOT less energy than stills. In
> fact, you can get models that you can operate by hand (though they're not
> "family sized" as requested by the OP).
I don't much about this, but did some reading a while back.
There's plusses and minuses to reverse osmosis versus distillation.
Oddly a lot of it depends on ambient temperature as reverse osmosis has
durability problems at higher temps.
At any rate, the correct solution depends on the circumstances.
Jeff
Mary Mathews
Thank all of you for your wonderful information. This is a most
resourceful group. Because of you at least I can converse intelligently
about this topic. We just might need this info in the future so I will
save it. Mary