I haven't been around much as I've been trying hard to get my off grid property in the Philippines up and running. It has been a very slow, tedious task. Things that should be simple take so much longer to get done when you are in the middle of no-where with little in the way of tools. It's amazing how much not having a simple screwdriver can throw off your whole day.
However, for today I have two options for creative Sunday. I could show you how I'm making an off grid meal using simple local ingredients OR I can show you how I'm processing the water I have here to make it potable.
I think I'll go with the water.
Do you trust your water?
Now normally I live in Canada and when I'm there I don't even have to think about water. I just turn on the tap and away I go. Virtually limitless water for a very cheap price. However in the Philippines water isn't something you take for granted. At my brother's house the city water only runs for a few hours every day..hopefully. Plus that water you can't drink. For drinking water there is a public service that will bring drinking water to your house. Provided you give them a refillable container and provided you pay for it of course.
Now I will admit that I have been getting that water and hauling it to the house. The problem is that the water is heavy and its about a half kilometer up a slight hill. I can do it but it is quite the workout for me to get it into the house.
But I have a well
Luckily for me I have a pumpwell. If it has an electric pump and a water filtration system I'd be doing fine here. Unfortunately while I have a pump I haven't been able to get a plumber to install it and as such I'm kind of on my own for water.
But before I even thought of using the water I had to take it in to get tested. Bad water can make you sick. if there are bacteria it will make you sick quickly. If it has heavy metals like lead, arsenic, cadmiuim, nitrates then it will poison you slowly. After testing I was told that my water doesn't have minerals in it (great), doesn't have fecal coliforms (great) but it is turbid and it does have non-fecal coliforms.
Yuck. So it will taste off and possibly give me mild stomach distress. So the question comes how can I treat the water so that I can drink it without getting sick and without paying much money.
Here is what I've come up with.
First Pump the water
Kind of goes without saying: If you don't pump the water and have it available you can't treat it. So, first thing I'll show you is my well.
Manual pump. Take time and effort which can be exhausting in the Philippine heat. However, I did it in small batches and got it done. Horray! Now I could try to strong arm it and just drink the water but ....well.....I think I don't really trust it yet. At the very least I'd like my water to not be cloudy.
In that regard my first step?
A spin down filter
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Now a spindown filter is just a fancy name for a water sieve. The one I have costs about $8HBD and had a 40um screen. Water goes in one side and goes through a filter and comes out the other side without any hard bits. Now it doesn't take out viruses, bacteria or other nasty things but it does make the water much much clear which is important because the next step is ....
Solar water disinfection: SODIS
Now if you have ever stood out in the sun you will immediately know that the sun gives off a lot of energy and some of those rays can burn you if you aren't careful. However, in this case we WANT those harsh sun rays to go through a water bottle and kill bacteria along the way. As long as the water is clear enough to see cleanly through the bottle then you are good to go.
So..... This is what it looks like in action.
Now, six hours in the sun and bacteria die. Between the initial filter and the SOLAR water disinfection the water won't make you sick. It could still poison you if there were heavy minerals like Lead, Cadmium and so on... However I had the water and know those aren't here.
But I wanted another level of protection</center
Of course I'm drink water from the tropics that has only had basic treatment. I thought what a cheap renewable way to make sure the water is safe before drinking?
So I thought what is a great way to make water safe? Boiling
But I'm off grid with very limited electricity so... Here is the setup I wanted to try
I have a low power immersion heater. I have a charged battery and I have water that went through the solar disinfection. So, I tried putting the heater in the water, give it some electricity and see if I can get the water to boil
So I watched it for almost half an hour and at 9 minutes I had bubbles on the heater. A sign that the water was roughly 60C a temperature at which pasteurization starts to occur
The bubbles got faster and faster and the cup got hotter and hotter as time went by until at 27 minutes I was watching to see if it would finally boil.
And indeed the bubbles were coming very quickly and steam had formed which meant the water was 90C or so. And 15 minutes over 60C and closer to 90C? The water would have been heat pasteurized. But did I get to boiling?
Unfortunately no. The cup decided that it wanted to start melting rather so rather than have a horrible very hot mess I cut things early.
Still.... the water did get hot enough to be safe to drink. Instead though I just used it to heat up my shower water and have a hot shower in my off grid setup. Sometimes things don't go as planned so you just have to pivot :)
And that as my creative type science experiment on a lazy off grid Sunday.
And to 
Thanks everyone