50 Handy Tricks

Step 47 Kenya Drinking Water

In Kenya people boil their water and then filter it before drinking it.
The ones who can afford to and care about their health do, anyway.

The details of method vary widely.
Some boil it on the stove and then pour it into a big stainless decanter thing with ceramic filter elements.
Or have their servants do it for them.

Others do it in a simpler, more energy efficient way with an electric teakettle with an immersed heating element that turns itself off after boiling.
Then after waiting for the water to cool they pour it into a Brita-type filter pitcher as seen here.

The sequence is represented by the vessels arranged right to left:
boil
cool
filter
bottle

Comments

[Estwald]

There are some nasties that merely bring the water to a boil is not enough to kill them. It is recommended to bring water to a b oil and maintain it for 5 minutes. For this reason "auto off" water boiling pots are not recommended for making water biological safe. Quite apparently they were fortunate enough that they didn't have these nasties in their area.

[nakigara]

Actually, this is a bit of misinformation. In most cases, simply bringing the water to boiling temperature will pretty much render it safe to drink. This link has some good info on it, along with explanations and a few other useful links: http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/how-long-do-you-need-to-boil-water/

for an overview, the author states that both cooking foods and pasteurization of milk (and other liquids) happens at temperatures far below 212F

I think one of the main reasons there is so much different info about boiling times out there (bring to a boil, boil for 1/3/5/10/20 minutes, etc.) is because people want to 'make sure' so they just lengthen the given time, but this consumes a lot of fuel (and, if it's not widely available, water).

[wsni]

One consideration to that would be your altitude since water "boils' at different temperatures relative to your altitude.

[Chainslaw]

Actually, the altitude doesn't matter. As long as the water comes to a boil, any microorganisms will be killed. Milk and water are pasteurized at a temperature of 71°C (160°F), which is far, far below the boiling temp. of water at high altitudes.
The link Nakigara posted goes into more detail on this.

[JamesRPatrick]

Better to be safe...

[Chainslaw]

(You're safe when you boil it.)

[TexSon]

If you want to make sure, you can add a couple of drops of Clorax to a gallon of water.  We did that to the water in Turkey and Thailand.   Chlorine is used to purifiy water in most places, so the taste is not as noticable as iodine.

[NormMonkey]

At our cottage the lake water is potable. Nonetheless, I use a pressure cooker to heat the water up to boiling for 5 min. Once it cools enough, I run it through a coffee filter to eliminate any little floaties.

[Craigeroo]

I think your filtering would be greatly improved with the addition of activated carbon to your coffee filter. Search "water filters" on Instructables for some great filtering suggestions.