Water filtering, Biomass

If the water stopped, and you needed more water than you have, would you know how to filter the water that you need. You have a rain barrel, but is that water good enough to or bathe with.

What I believe that every prepper should learn how to make a simple biomass water filter. Yes SIMPLE as in Keep It Simple Stanley. A small one is built the same way as a large one.
Materials: a container, 5 gallon pail or barrel (food grade best). Granular charcoal, bought or home made. (plain charcoal crushed to 1/8” or 3mm size). Sand, from the beach, or the bag don’t matter, just not sterile (a good reason, later). Gravel, pea size or what ever you can get (washed). Nylon screen, coffee filters. And a 591ml Plastic pop bottle (highest amount of crushing resistance).

Step 1) Make a dozen or more 1/8” or 3mm holes along the flat sides of bottle. Wrap one layer of screen around bottle, a layer of coffee filter and one more layer of screen (or nylon sock/hose). Bind with string or quick tie.
2) Put 1/2” or 1cm of gravel on bottom, put bottle in to figure where to make a hole for the neck of the bottle to protrude. Drill out hole, no larger than the pop bottle neck. Insert pop bottle from inside out, and put cap back on the bottle neck that is sticking out.
3) Cover bottle loosely with 1-2”/2.5-5cm of cleaned gravel. Cover all with screen. (water collection area)
4) Cover screen with coffer filters, and then 2-3” of charcoal, make level. Add screen again.
5) with sand, fill container to 2-3” or the length of your finger from the top .
6) drill hole in pop bottle cap to let the Filtered water out.
7) just add water, run two buckets through just to get the fine charcoal out of the system.

Your water should come out clean, the sand has bacteria on it that will Kill most biological’s going through it. When in doubt, boil or sanitize. If you find that the bottle caves in, you can tightly fill bottle with clean (boiled) pea gravel or Glass marbles.
When the water starts coming through cloudy, change your charcoal, OR, use a multi bucket system, one just for the Charcoal.
The same method can be used with a water barrel and perforated plastic water pipes in the bottom for greater water flow. Use you imagination. For more info Google it.