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Guides/Water and food

Water: treating,
storing, rationing

You can go three days without water and feel terrible after one. The bag carries the first day and the means to make fifty more litres safe; your home should hold the rest. Here is how much, where to keep it, and how to make bad water drinkable.

7 min readChecked against gov.uk Prepare and Drinking Water Inspectorate guidanceUpdated November 2026Print this guide
How muchto store

Three days, per person, plus the extras

  1. For drinking alone, an adult needs about 2.5 to 3 litres a day; the government's guidance calls 10 litres a day per person 'most comfortable' once cooking and washing are included. Three days for a family of four is 30 litres to drink, and far more to be comfortable.
  2. Store bottled water somewhere cool and dark, and rotate it: write the date on the bottles, and use the oldest for the garden when the year is up.
  3. Add water for pets, and for a baby's formula if you use powder. Ready-to-feed formula needs none, which is why it's in the Cub.
  4. The bag's 500 ml pouches are five-year, foil-sealed water for the first day on the move. They are not the store; they are the walk to it.
Whenthe taps stop

Fill what you can, then treat what you must

  1. The moment you hear of a problem, fill the kettle, every bottle and the bath. Bath water is for flushing and washing; the kettle and bottles are for drinking.
  2. Boiling is the surest method: bring water to a rolling boil for one minute, let it cool, and keep it covered. It kills bacteria, viruses and parasites. It does not remove chemicals.
  3. Tablets: one chlorine tablet per litre, wait the time on the packet (usually 30 minutes), longer if the water is cold. Filter cloudy water through a clean cloth first, or the tablet cannot do its job.
  4. The Unit's squeeze filter removes bacteria and parasites down to 0.1 micron from stream, pond or rain water. Add a tablet afterwards for viruses, or boil. Never drink flood water, however it has been treated: it carries fuel and sewage.

Never

Never use pool chemicals, neat bleach or petrol-station screenwash to treat drinking water. Use the tablets, the filter or the kettle, in that order of convenience, and boiling if in doubt.

Rationingif it comes to it

Drink, don't sip, and cut the work

  1. Drink a proper glass when you are thirsty rather than sips all day; sipping doesn't save water, it makes you miserable. Eat the ration bar with water, not without.
  2. Cut the things that use water: no washing up (use the wipes), no cooking that needs water, cool rooms not hot ones. Children and older people dehydrate fastest; they get water first.
  3. Signs of dehydration: dark urine, headache, dizziness, confusion. Confusion in an older person in hot weather is a 111 call, or 999 if they cannot keep fluids down.
  4. Rain is clean until it touches the roof. A tarp and the foldable container from the Unit will catch litres in a British hour. Treat it anyway.

Sources, checked November 2026