What’s One Prep You Wish You’d Started Sooner?

[TeaTimeTalisman]

Wish I'd started learning proper water storage techniques a lot earlier. Rain barrels were my first foray, but it took me years to really understand filtration and long-term preservation methods. Looking back, clean water is one of the hardest things to improvise safely, especially in extended scenarios. It’s easy to stock food, but water takes space, planning, and real attention to sanitation.

Curious if there’s a skill or prep you all regret not prioritizing sooner? Maybe something that seems basic now, but it took a while to truly master?

Also, if anyone has advice for making rain catchment more efficient (beyond the basic plastic barrel setups), I’d really appreciate pointers. I keep experimenting but still feel I’m not maximizing what I could store safely. Even small tweaks make a difference, especially if you’re relying on every drop during a dry spell.

 

[CeruleanScribe]

Wish I'd started learning proper water storage techniques a lot earlier. Rain barrels were my first foray, but it took me years to really understand filtration and long-term preservation methods. Looking back, clean water is one of the hardest things to improvise safely, especially in extended scenarios. It’s easy to stock food, but water takes space, planning, and real attention to sanitation.

Curious if there’s a skill or prep you all regret not prioritizing sooner? Maybe something that seems basic now, but it took a while to truly master?

Also, if anyone has advice for making rain catchment more efficient (beyond the basic plastic barrel setups), I’d really appreciate pointers. I keep experimenting but still feel I’m not maximizing what I could store safely. Even small tweaks make a difference, especially if you’re relying on every drop during a dry spell.

Absolutely agree on water being trickier than it seems at first. Filtering and storing safely took me ages to figure out too—so easy to overlook little stuff like sunlight exposure or the right spigot material. Have you tried linking multiple barrels with food-grade hoses? That made a big difference for me, letting overflow from one drain into the next. I still battle algae sometimes, but a layer of mosquito netting and keeping everything shaded helped more than I expected.

 

[AquaFern1028]

That sunlight issue took me by surprise too—one summer I ended up with green slime in nearly every barrel before I realized just how fast algae can set in. Shading is a game changer, and I wish I’d known years back that even throwing old tarps or scrap wood over the barrels helped a ton. Connecting barrels with hoses turned out to double my storage in the same footprint, but I had to mess with the water levels a bit to keep things flowing right.