Fill your water jugs to the shoulder, not the cap, before first freeze
Why the garage shelf is the wrong place for your filter this month.
Issue #040 Friday, September 18, 2026 Emergency Skills
Water expands when it freezes, and a jug filled to the cap splits at the seam. So does the pipe behind your outdoor spigot.
Today’s Skill
Leave the air, keep the backup
Fill food grade jugs to the shoulder so ice has room to push. Set them on wood or cardboard, never bare concrete, which pulls heat and cracks plastic. Run two treatment methods, always. A 0.1 micron filter handles daily use. Unscented bleach or tablets cover you when the element clogs. Keep the filter indoors. A frozen cartridge splits inside and passes dirty water without showing it.
On The Radar
Hose bibs and the first hard freeze
Late September drops the northern tier and the high country below freezing overnight. Water trapped in an outdoor spigot or a coiled hose expands and splits the pipe inside the wall. You find out in spring when the wall gets wet. Unscrew every hose today, drain it, and store it inside. Shut the interior valve feeding each outdoor line, then open the spigot so it drains empty.
The Drill
Time the filter, taste the backup
Tonight, run one full gallon through your filter and time it. More than a few minutes means the element is loading up, so backflush it or replace it now. Then treat a second gallon with eight drops of unscented bleach, wait thirty minutes, and drink a cup. Knowing that taste tonight keeps you from refusing a safe glass later.
Ready beats lucky.
- Survival Rise
P.S. Tomorrow: the three things in your pantry that will not survive the first cold snap.