Water off
The water stops
The one thing you genuinely cannot improvise. Which is why it is the first thing on our list.
Less common than a power cut, more disruptive. Burst mains, freezes, floods and treatment faults all do it, and it usually arrives with no warning at all.
The first ten minutes
- Fill the bath, the sink, saucepans and every clean bottle you own. There is often pressure left in the pipes for a few minutes.
- Bath water is for flushing the toilet. Bottled and pan water is for drinking. Decide that now, out loud, so nobody uses the good water on the loo.
- Stop using the washing machine and dishwasher.
How much you actually need
For drinking, 1 gallon per person per day. For everything else, cooking, washing, a cup of tea, a nappy change, roughly three times that again.
Nobody stores that much. You do not need to. You need enough drinking water for three days and a way of catching the rest.
Flushing without mains water
A toilet will flush if you pour about one and a half to two gallons of any water straight into the bowl, quickly. It does not need to be clean and it does not go in the tank.
This is the single most useful thing on this page and almost nobody knows it.
Do not
- Do not drink from a radiator, a water bed, a swimming pool or a hot water cylinder that has not been maintained.
- Do not boil water to make it safe if the problem is chemical contamination. Boiling fixes bacteria, it concentrates chemicals. Wait for the official advice.
- Do not buy water purification tablets and assume you are covered. They are for microbes, not for a mains fault.
Boil water notices are issued by your local water system, not by FEMA. Sign up for your utility alerts, and know that 211 can direct you to distribution points.
If life is at risk, call 911 first. Everything on this page comes second.