Hey all, I'm new here and I signed up because I'm looking for some advice/opinions on water storage.
I live in the Portland, OR area and found a guy who sells 'recycled' 55-60 gallon drums for water storage so I picked one up recently. I sanitized it by filling it with several gallons of bleach water and coating the inside over and over for about two days. I then fully rinsed it out, drained it, then filled it with water and a four teaspoons of bleach to keep it clean.
The one thing that concerned me while filling it is that I noticed the Chinese name on the top. I Googled this name 'Xíngfa' and all I could come up with was a company that ships chemicals.
Although the guy who sells these maintains that they are all food grade, safe, and steam cleaned by him, keeping water in something that 'may' have once had an unknown chemical in it kind of worries me.
I'm keeping it filled for now because my water actually did go out for a few days a couple of weeks back and I felt stupid for not having this already filled. For now, it's at least a little peace of mind that I can use this water to cook or clean if need be. I'm worried about it as drinking water, though, and hesitant to use it for cooking also, since I know so little about where it came from.
What do you think? Am I right or wrong to worry about it? Not knowing what was in it, what would you do?
Edit: Here is the website for the company whose logo is on the barrel. http://www.xingfagroup.com/EN/products.asp. Under the Products section, they list the following categories: Phosphates Technical Grade Intermediates Flame Retardant Herbicide Tooth Paste Addititives Phosphates Food Grade Feed Grade Phosphate
I live in the Portland, OR area and found a guy who sells 'recycled' 55-60 gallon drums for water storage so I picked one up recently. I sanitized it by filling it with several gallons of bleach water and coating the inside over and over for about two days. I then fully rinsed it out, drained it, then filled it with water and a four teaspoons of bleach to keep it clean.
The one thing that concerned me while filling it is that I noticed the Chinese name on the top. I Googled this name 'Xíngfa' and all I could come up with was a company that ships chemicals.
Although the guy who sells these maintains that they are all food grade, safe, and steam cleaned by him, keeping water in something that 'may' have once had an unknown chemical in it kind of worries me.
I'm keeping it filled for now because my water actually did go out for a few days a couple of weeks back and I felt stupid for not having this already filled. For now, it's at least a little peace of mind that I can use this water to cook or clean if need be. I'm worried about it as drinking water, though, and hesitant to use it for cooking also, since I know so little about where it came from.
What do you think? Am I right or wrong to worry about it? Not knowing what was in it, what would you do?


Edit: Here is the website for the company whose logo is on the barrel. http://www.xingfagroup.com/EN/products.asp. Under the Products section, they list the following categories: Phosphates Technical Grade Intermediates Flame Retardant Herbicide Tooth Paste Addititives Phosphates Food Grade Feed Grade Phosphate