Drinking Water

[paulsmithson]

I shall be moving to Thailand in the next month and living in Samut Songkram on a small farm.

The local people have tapwater but drink rainwater stored in the usual earthernware containers and use this for drinking water.

I always understood that it was unsafe to drink stored water, and have been spoiled by living in an area of the Uk where it is perfectly safe to drink the tapwater.

I had intended to buy bottled water when in Thailand however my Thai family laugh at this and point out that they do not suffer from drinking the rainwater.

What do you guys do??? Do you have a water purification system ( charcoal filters and UV light etc) to make the stored water safe or do you boil everything?

[londonthai]

first of all - rain water is a soft water, without any minerals. It's good for cooling your car engine or watering your plants but is not healthy for human in a long ran. Close to Bangkok (and samut songkram rather is) or the other large cities the rain will be acidic from the burning coal and dirty with the other air pollutants.

the best water is from the spring or deep well - it suppose to be in the water bottles

[Sheryl]

Actually, chemical air pollutants aside (not a problem in rural areas), rain water is considered a very safe source of clean water and its use is actively encourage by public health folk like myself (and I myself drink it). It is certainly safer than shallow well water.

Any bacterial contamination will have come in not from the original water but from how it is stored and handled. The best way is to have a sealed catchment system which can be set to allow the first rain of each season to run off (washing away debris and dirt that will have collected on the roof) and also that has a screen mesh in place to keep out insects etc. Then a spigot so you can get water out without ladling anything into it.

An alternative is just to collect it in large jars like the Thais do and then filter it before drinking, that's what I do, using a combined water dispenser/filter device that fits on a table top. This will get out any dirt and pathogens that might have found their way in.

Even without that, the bacterial count of stored rainwater will usually be within the safe range for consumption unless people are dipping into the storage container with unclean hands or utensils.

I love the taste of my rain water, nothing like it, and saves the hassle of buying bottled.

Be sure to keep your rainwater jars covered when it's not raining, though, as otherwise mosquitoes will breed in it. I cover mine with mosquito netting so that even when the lid is off the moskies don't lay their eggs.

Rain water jars are a major breeding ground for the mosquitoes that carry dengue fever.

[libya 115]

first of all - rain water is a soft water, without any minerals. It's good for cooling your car engine or watering your plants but is not healthy for human in a long ran. Close to Bangkok (and samut songkram rather is) or the other large cities the rain will be acidic from the burning coal and dirty with the other air pollutants.

the best water is from the spring or deep well - it suppose to be in the water bottles

This is a myth. Drinking distilled water sans minerals is the finest water you can drink. The human body obtains minerals from food, so as long as you don't drink 10 litres of water a day with no food intake, you will not die from hyponatremia.

So: collected rainwater is safe, as long as it is cared for and covered, and doesn't have any dead rats floating (in it).

Edited February 5, 2007 by libya 115

[Nignoy]

I shall be moving to Thailand in the next month and living in Samut Songkram on a small farm.

The local people have tapwater but drink rainwater stored in the usual earthernware containers and use this for drinking water.

I always understood that it was unsafe to drink stored water, and have been spoiled by living in an area of the Uk where it is perfectly safe to drink the tapwater.

I had intended to buy bottled water when in Thailand however my Thai family laugh at this and point out that they do not suffer from drinking the rainwater.

What do you guys do??? Do you have a water purification system ( charcoal filters and UV light etc) to make the stored water safe or do you boil everything?

Rainwater is our main source of drinking water here in Queensland, stored in either steel or plastic tanks, with a small run off filter to collect the debris off the roof, have been drinking rainwater in isaan on and off for over 40 years, even the great grandkids when they visit from germany comment on the taste and quality of Nam Fun apart from that Lao Khao tastes like shit when distilled with Aussie Tapwater Nignoy

[paulsmithson]

Thanks guys and gals you have dispelled my worries.

[billd766]

Up here in the central region my family have been drinking rainwater for a few years.

I have 2 x 3,000 litre stainless steel water tanks connected together at the top from the roof drainage system. Each tank is connected to a single input tap but before that there is another tap going to a drain so that we can make sure that we don't fill the tanks before the first rains have cleared the roof.

Each tank has a separate output and there is a drain tap at the bottom of each tank so that the tank can be drained down and cleaned for the new season.

I have attached a photo if anyone is interested.

My other 26 x 2,000 concrete storage tanks are for general use only as we generally have no government water in the dry season (now) for a couple of months.

At the moment during the harvesting season we have 3 adults and 2 young children in our house, and something like 10 adults, 2 young children and a baby in the other 2 houses and with this amount of people we use a lot of water a day.

Once a week we pump from a stream under the road, accros the front of the neighbours land and up to the water tank farm and also the fish pond. A distance of about 250 metres horizontally and about 8 metres vertically.

[tim armstrong]

I shall be moving to Thailand in the next month and living in Samut Songkram on a small farm.

The local people have tapwater but drink rainwater stored in the usual earthernware containers and use this for drinking water.

I always understood that it was unsafe to drink stored water, and have been spoiled by living in an area of the Uk where it is perfectly safe to drink the tapwater.

I had intended to buy bottled water when in Thailand however my Thai family laugh at this and point out that they do not suffer from drinking the rainwater.

What do you guys do??? Do you have a water purification system ( charcoal filters and UV light etc) to make the stored water safe or do you boil everything?

I've used stored water in many countries most of my life. Generally few problems. the one that hasn't been mentioned isthe nasty little bug -- Giardia - very common in thr tropics and often in water tanks that are not kept full.ie. it breeds in the hot space at the top of the tank. Easily treated but debilitating, so keep the tanks full.

Tim