Having a bug-out car is a great idea. It puts you one step ahead of everyone else, ready to disappear when things get critical. But what if you don’t realize your survival vehicle is missing the one thing that could actually save your life? Here’s the one thing missing from 93% of bug-out cars and it could get you killed if you’re on the run: knowing how to purify water.
Pure water is your lifeline in any crisis. Without it, your chances drop fast. Let’s break things down so you can see how to purify water even from inside your bug-out vehicle.
How to Purify Water Inside a Car: Start with what you have
If you’ve got SOME bottled water, great. That buys you time. But it won’t last long. If you don’t have a portable water filter in your car already, stop reading and go get one.
However, relying on portable water filters alone is still risky. Most have a limited lifespan and stop working after a certain number of gallons, leaving you without clean water when you need it most. Many can’t remove viruses, only bacteria and protozoa, which are highly dangerous in crowded or contaminated areas.
Filters can also clog quickly, especially when used with murky water, and a single crack or freeze can destroy their function entirely. Worst of all, some people assume one filter is enough. It’s not. You need solid backups: purification tablets, solar disinfection, and the skills to purify water without any device at all.
The Life-Saving Item That Fits in a Glove Box
These kill bacteria, viruses, and some protozoa. One tab treats 1 liter of water. Wait 30 minutes, shake the bottle, and drink. Keep these in your glove box.
Water purification tablets come with their own risks: while they kill pathogens, they don’t touch gasoline, lead or PFAs. If you still stay in the urban area even when you bug out in your car, you’ll have to be very careful as they don’t work on urban runoff, dirt, debris, or parasites hiding behind particles. In cloudy water, they’re dangerously unreliable. Not only do they lose potency quickly, but they often leave water with a harsh chemical taste. That alone causes many people to drink less, risking dehydration.
Related: Why You Should Add Alum Salt to Your Water
Since we’re talking about sourcing water off the grid, the Amish knew how to harvest, purify, heat and make a fridge out of cold water ever since they came here, hundreds of years ago.
This guy that’s been with them for the first 17 years of his life shows you here exactly how they make the ”Forever Water Trap” that basically draws drinkable water from thin air – even during the dry months. Here’s how you can make it and what you need to add to your car stash if you want to set up camp somewhere for longer periods of time.
Solar Disinfection (SODIS)
This is one of the oldest no-fuel tricks out there. All you need to have in your car is a clear plastic bottle.
Here’s how it works:
- Fill the bottle with clear water.
- Place it on your car dashboard in direct sunlight.
- Leave it there for 6 hours on a sunny day or 2 full days if it’s cloudy.
- UV rays from the sun will kill most bacteria, viruses, and parasites.
Make sure to shake the bottle for 20 seconds before placing it. This adds oxygen and speeds up the disinfection process.
Brita filters, charcoal, and a pot
You can also consider adding a few Brita filters and some activated charcoal to your car emergency stash. These items are compact, lightweight, and can be extremely useful when clean water is hard to find. While they won’t remove all contaminants, they’re great for improving taste and reducing certain chemicals like chlorine.
In addition to commercial options, even a simple, homemade water filter can help. You can make one using basic materials such as cloth, sand, charcoal, and small pebbles. This type of improvised filter won’t eliminate viruses or bacteria, but it will effectively remove dirt, debris, and many chemical residues – making the water visibly clearer and easier to disinfect with other methods.
Boiling is excellent for killing pathogens in clear water so don’t forget to bring a small pot into your car. The filter + boil or treat + boil method is fool proof.
>> Why SO MANY PEOPLE Are Learning The Hack That Helps You Boil Water with Nothing but Plants
Rainwater is your best friend
A portable water filter is critical. But what if you’re parked long-term? What if you’re home but the tap’s gone dry?
The safest option in a crisis is this specific pressurized water system that’s capable of storing 165 gallons of water that would otherwise just go to waste. Because the water is stored vertically, it’s also pressurized by gravity, and you’ll be able to use it without a pump or siphon.
You could use this project for a lifetime. And if you connect it to the water filter I’m about to show you, then you will also have clean water to drink and cook with. Here’s a video on how I made it.
This will be your backup water tank. Way better than hoarding plastic bottles.
Purifying water on the run
When you’re on the run, out of all your gear, you should know how to purify water with nothing on you.
I extracted from the Wilderness Survival Guide several methods that you should know by heart:
First, there’s moss filtration: you just have to wrap moss in cloth and drip water through slowly.
Next, if you can get your hands on some sand charcoal filter, you can use an empty bottle, layer sand and charcoal, and pour water through. However, while this can remove some bacteria, foul odors and taste, and certain chemicals, it won’t get rid of the viruses and most pathogens.
Most Filters Fail. This Tree Trick Doesn’t (Offer Clean Water 24/7 All Year-Round)
Final Thoughts
If you’re determined to get your car ready for SHTF, you a go-bag and jumper cables just won’t cut it. Inside A Navy Seal’s Bug-In Guide, a former SEAL shows you:
- How to Make Your Car Look Empty So Desperate Looters Pass It By
- What FEMA Won’t Tell You About Using Your Car as a Shelter During a Blackout
- How to Build a Car Compartment for Your Emergency Supplies That’s Hidden In Plain Sight (Not Even Carjackers Won’t Find Them)
- Why Your Trunk Could Be the Most Dangerous Place to Store Survival Gear
- The First Place to Reinforce in Your Vehicle If You’re Caught in Civil Unrest
- This DIY Setup Lets You Tap Water from the Air—Straight from Your Car Window
- Why People Are Installing This One Hidden $3 Switch Under Their Car Dashboards
- How to Turn Old Brake Fluid into Emergency Fuel
And so much more!
As good as Joel is at bugging out, he would never head for the wild in a real crisis. As he says, bugging out should be a last resort. It’s what you should do once everything that can go wrong has. So instead of teaching people how to bug out and risk their lives out there, Joel decided to do something nobody had done before. Watch the presentation he has prepared for you here.
Whether you’re stranded on the road, waiting out a grid failure, or trying to help your family through a heatwave when the taps run dry, being able to source clean water at any time becomes more precious than gas, bullets, or even food.
You may also like:
8 Myths About Storing Water That Are Actually True
Drought-Proof Your Home: 40 Gallons of Water from Air! (Video)
How to Install a Rainwater Collection System
Purifying water is as important of subject as can be presented, and doing inside of a car without fire or electricity sure got my interest. She is right your bottled water is just buying you time then you need resupply. A personal water filter seems like the first thing to consider (even though she points out some concerns and limitations), it is still compact, rated for several hundred gallons, and uses no power. This would be my go to if I was on the go whether on foot or in a car. And yes some tablets (chlorine, bromine, or iodine based) are a good second method. I am not going to trust my health and wellbeing to water that has just been run thru some moss, an improvised sand filter, strained with an old tee-shirt. These are just a roughing filter before I put it thru a real proven and certified filter. The idea that sitting a bottle of water in the sun light for a few hours should not even be promoted. It might kill a few bacteria but it’s not reliable enough for me to trust as my primary method. Then the picture of three rain barrels and their discussion crept into this article, I thought this was about inside a car and on the go?
You’re spot on: purifying water is one of the most critical survival priorities, especially when you’re on the move or confined to a space like a vehicle. Your emphasis on personal water filters as a go-to tool is not only practical but lifesaving they’re compact, efficient, and field-proven. Even with some limitations (like freezing temperatures or clogging from silty water), a filter like the Sawyer Mini or LifeStraw is far more trustworthy than any improvised method on its own.
You’re also right to question relying solely on sunlight (SODIS method). While placing clear plastic bottles in direct sunlight for 6+ hours can reduce bacterial contamination significantly (as recommended by WHO in emergency situations), it’s not a catch-all solution. It does not reliably eliminate viruses, parasites, or chemical pollutants. So yes, it’s better than nothing in extreme cases but not enough to rely on as a primary method when your health is on the line.
Regarding chemical purification tablets, they’re an excellent second line of defense. Lightweight and long-lasting, they do a solid job against bacteria and viruses though, as you know, they don’t improve the taste or remove sediments. That’s why using them after a rough pre-filter (yes, even a T-shirt or moss in a pinch) makes sense not to purify, but to prevent clogging a more effective tool down the line.
As for the rain barrel imagery, your confusion is understandable. The shift from a mobile water solution to rainwater harvesting does seem a bit off-topic. Collecting rainwater is a great long-term strategy at a bug-in location but doesn’t help much when you’re locked inside a vehicle in a grid-down scenario.
Bottom line: real prepping means combining methods mechanical filtration, chemical purification, and redundancy. You clearly get that. Improvised filters might help in a dire situation, but they’re not the endgame a proven, compact filter should always ride shotgun with you.
Thanks for bringing such grounded and practical insight to the conversation it’s the kind of thinking that saves lives when SHTF. Stay safe and stay prepared.
If I remember correctly, drinking water from a water bottle that has been frozen or heated up and in this case from reading this information the heating up of the water bottle in the car has its concerns. If correct, or if science or certain plastics have changed, the warning is when a plastic water bottle has been frozen or heated up, it can release chemicals called dioxins. If this still holds true, then this method would not be safe. Any follow up info is welcomed. God Bless
Howdy from high in the desert swamp,
I bought an alexapure filter. I made my own filter buckets from fire engine red ones with the hardware store logo all over them. I put them in the kitchen on the counter. Ugly. But worked and worked very obvious. I am ordering replacement cartridges once a month and stocking them. This morning I was reminded again about water because the county blocked off water again to replace other hydrants only this time they did not tell anybody. I have extra people in my house. 5 gallons in blue can storage is gone in one hour. This also led to my thoughts on sanitation. I have a couple ideas of what I can stock in the event I need an outhouse. back to the water filter. The bright red buckets were unacceptable to uhh a certain someone ahem! and I found where an alexapure had the stainless water containers buy one and get a filter free. I bought that. Works like a charm. Water filtering isn’t an issue for me at the moment. getting water would be a a chore but can be done with buckets and a wheelbarrow. I’m a person who likes buckets and tarps and after this morning‘s reminder even more so. I can use the buckets to go get water from the river about 300 yards from me. I can also run paracord around a couple tree and hang tarps to make an outhouse if necessary. Another couple treesntarps for a wash facility.. None of this will be fun, but I have thought it out. I have walked it out. I no longer do plastic gallons or 2 1/2 gallon waters. I use my tapwater and run it through the filter. They said change the filter out when it’s noticeably slower. I haven’t put muddy or dirty or debris water in and it was plugging up. When I pulled it out to change it, it had algae like stuff on the filter. Alexapure told me through customer service take stainless steel wool and run it under hot water and scrub it off. That is normal for tapwater or city treated water. I did and it’s still filtering well but I do clean it once a week. It says 2 to 300 gallons before changing out but I have about 500 through this one and it’s still doing well. That will probably change if I ever have to use the river water but for now it’s how I got rid of plastic water bottles and jugs. Well worth the money. I don’t like the plastic I used going in a landfill and I wanted something I can easily transport. Stainless and the replacement filters come in sealed foil.
I really don’t want anything to happen where I have to do this but I am well into be able to do so. I’m 64 and been in the trenches, swamps and mountain warfare bit. Also extensive in urban counter insurgency. I don’t want to repeat any of these. I love my ac, water, crapper being inside.. I don’t think anyone wants to cross me if I have to make do doing my business in the yard. But, if I do I have a plan and will get a couple inexpensive things to make it somewhat easier. HARUMPH!
Remember the Alamo
Remember North Carolina
Remember to have your soul prepared.
Hey Chap, the youtube channel “Goneagain” has an episode for a countertop water filter, he used inexpensive (?) stainless steel stock pots from wally world in lieu of plastic buckets. looked pretty good when he got them DIY’d using the same steps one would take for plastic buckets. Affirmative on indoor plumbing, but an outhouse is a notch above a one cheek sneak off of an e-tool handle! LOL! ( former 11B2P).
i’m also 64 yrs old and grew up in the 60’s in scouting.
water filters were unknown of then, we drank from anything that was wet. creeks,streams, rivers, and from every garden hose in a 5 mile area in our neighborhood and i don’t remember anyone ever getting sick from it.
i think that we had developed a natural immunity to it. the native americans had no sawyer minis or berkeys on hand and they did just fine,
Dioxins are toxic compounds typically produced through industrial processes like waste incineration. They are not present in the plastics used for water bottles. Experts from institutions such as Johns Hopkins University and the Canadian Cancer Society have confirmed that plastic bottles do not contain dioxins, and heating or freezing them does not cause dioxin release.
Chap Dan, good as always !
Just a thought, if you ever need the river water, wood , plastic, Stainless (premium) filled with charcoal – which you can make if you need ( trench fire, starves it for oxy , when full of coals – put it out) and to go first class, drops of bleach per gallon, Sunshine, feed this water into alexa pure, last forever and I bet better than most Municiple water in all 50 states.
AND, go close to that river, say 50 feet from it, drive a well point in the ground and down below the river level at summer low, drop a hand pump on it and start with that water, which should be survival clean.
This is a thought-provoking article. My takeaways/thoughts:
1- You should be able to do multiple things to purify water. Treating water with several methods will increase the chances that it is pure – and will greatly reduce the chances that it will make you or someone else sick – or worse.
2- Exposure to solar radiation will reduce bacteria and viruses (because it contains ultraviolet radiation), however I do prefer glass containers over plastic.
3- Prefilter your water through coffee filters or similar media, if available. The particles that are stopped by prefiltering then won’t be clogging up your expensive filters that may be in short supply anyways.
4- Chemical treatment – I prefer bleach or iodine. Both are effective. Look up amounts to treat water with and give the chemicals time to work before using the water. Women who may be pregnant should avoid water treated with iodine – there are side effects and extra fetal risk associated with iodine.
5- Boiling – boil at least 1 minute at sea level, 3 minutes at higher altitudes.
6- Distillation – distillation is very effective, but often you will need to add a few minerals after the fact because most of those get left behind. Re-mineralization drops, electrolyte powder, even a pinch of Himalayan pink salt can work.
7- Filtration – Remember that bacteria are 0.2-10 microns in size, viruses 0.02 to 0.3 microns in size – when you are choosing a filter. Alexapure claims their filters will filter down to 0.3 microns.
Reverse osmosis filters for backpacking filter out things down to roughly 0.0001 micron. They are a derivative of the filters used in kidney dialysis. As a general rule, whatever is caught by a prefilter doesn’t get caught by the final filter – and fine filters will plug up very fast.
The instructions that came with my First Need backpacking water filter in the late 80s said that stagnant water was a better choice to draw from than running water, as solids were usually separated.
Activated charcoal will also help reduce toxic contaminants and can be made at home.
8- Flocculants – these cause particles in the water to clump together and sink, however, much of these contain aluminum sulfate. I want to avoid ingesting aluminum ions as much as possible due to aluminum’s link with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Multiple Sclerosis.
Applying my other comment to a car –
1- If the car front or rear is south-facing (North America I’m thinking of here), that side will get the most solar exposure and that is where I’d want to place jars and bottles of water for any solar treatment.
2- An inoperable car with a dark interior and sun exposure could possibly make part of a solar still, if some of that car’s interior air could be piped or ducted to a fixed condenser chamber. Basically, you’d put vegetation, urine, or untreated water in the dark car and direct air from that car upward to a (hopefully shaded) box or tent or whatever with a low point in the top. The water vapor will condense in the clean chamber and drip off of the point. Research the basic idea of the solar still and come up with your own ideas to implement it. Solar stills are low-yield, passive means.
3- Cars can usually store whatever you would need to purify water, and the end product when purified – and are lockable.
4- I talked to a jailer about a primitive alcohol still that inmates made from a garbage bag and a 110-volt AC immersion heater. There are 12v immersion heaters usable for short periods of time that could do as much – but that requires a reliable and renewable source of 12 vdc.
It’s interesting, though – thinking about being mobile and needing water either on-the-go or at some point when I am stranded.
I’ve carried a clear plastic half gallon bottle to heat up in the sunshine to wash my hair half way into my camping trips.Usually enough water to get all the soap off..Very refreshing to get you through the week.Bottle of wine….
“Leave water in a plastic water bottle in the sunshine for six hours…”
Please tell me you’re joking! Really!?
You’ve just caused one of the greatest potentials for plastic contamination in your body, if you consume that stuff.
Many have warned never to consume water in plastic bottles, if they’ve been left in sunshine. I can literally taste the plastic in water, when stored in sunshine for over 30 minutes!
You’re right to be cautious about plastic leaching, especially when it comes to modern life and long-term health, but in a survival situation, we have to weigh risks differently. The method described in the article is called SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection), and it’s been studied and recommended by organizations like the WHO and Red Cross for emergency situations in areas with limited resources.
SODIS uses clear PET plastic bottles because they allow UV-A rays and heat to penetrate, which together deactivate bacteria, viruses, and parasites in contaminated water. It’s not ideal, and you might taste a bit of plastic if the bottle is old or low-quality, but in a scenario where your other option is drinking water that could give you dysentery, this method can literally save your life.
The potential for plastic contamination exists, but the dose matters. In emergencies, drinking water that’s had a little chemical leaching from plastic is still far safer than drinking untreated water loaded with pathogens. Once things stabilize, you can move to better purification methods—but when you’re trying to stay alive, getting clean water takes priority over long-term exposure concerns.
That said, using newer bottles, keeping them clean, and swapping them out when possible does help minimize any leaching. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a proven one when things go south.