Pennsylvania Zombie Response Team

No lie that it gets below 32F here in the winter. Also, anyone who has had a bottle of water left in their trunk knows what happens to water left in a car in the winter. So, how can we prevent this, and keep water readily available on the vehicle? Ideally, it will be drinkable, and I'd like to have at least 3 gallons on board.

Some ideas I had;
-Wire in a small, low draw heating element of some sort, just enough to keep the water above freezing, but not run the battery dead overnight. Maybe PWM through a flasher unit, or one that runs hot, and just wire it to run during key-on.

-Insulate the container well enough to keep it above 32F during the night, in hopes of days being warmer.

-Add bulkhead fittings to the container, and run silicone lines into the vehicle's cooling system to circulate hot coolant through closed coils inside the container.

Of course, for those of you with larger vehicles, these could be enlarged for 5 or 10 gallon containers, which would let us have emergency drinking or sanitary water.

Anyone have solutions?

Well, as long as water is circulating, it will take much longer to freeze. Therefore, heating may not be required as long as there is a way to keep the water moving.

How about adding salt to the water?

i dont think salt would be a good idea, then you would have to distil it

(11-18-2009, 12:07 AM)mcmcallister Wrote: [ -> ]i dont think salt would be a good idea, then you would have to distil it

Why would you have to distill it? Unless you're thinking rock salt. I was thinking sea salt or table salt.

Easy solution that I used at a very hot job. I used to take in 2 1 liter bottles of water everyday. I'd fill them about 3/4, turn the lid on most of the way, and toss them in the freezer. The water froze, expanded, but the lid being slightly loose allowed air to expand out the top so they didn't explode.

4 Gallon jugs filled 3/4 with the lid just loose enough that air can escape and you have 3 gallons of water that won't burst the bottle if it freezes. The heater in the car will slowly melt them so you'll have ice cold, drinkable water.

Good ideas. Unfortunately, salting the water enough to lower the freezing point would make it less than ideal for drinking. Also, I'm not too keen on the idea of having a lit candle in the car while driving, though it would work well to access the water if stranded. Moving water freezes at the same temperature as standing water, the only reason water in streams and lakes freezes at the shoreline first is because the ground is colder and sucks heat out.

Had another thought on the concept; solar heating. While I'd prefer to keep water in the trunk, I could keep it in a cardboard box, just a bit larger than the jug(s). Cover the jugs in black (duct tape or paint), and line the inside of the cardboard box with Mylar. Light could reach it in the back seat, heat the black plastic, and the Mylar might be enough added light to keep it from freezing, at least during the mornings/evenings.

Once it starts getting colder, I think I might have some experimenting to do. Low salt content water vs. 'solar box' water vs. regular water.

What about using the solar box in conjunction with a slight salt content. Not enough to taste, but enough to give those extra couple of degrees in freezing point? Even if neither the solar box or salt works ideally by themselves, mixing the two should do the trick.