In emergencies where water supply is significantly reduced or even totally cut off, one of the factors you’ll have to deal with is the purification of water. This is because you’ll likely soon run out of the supply of pure water and may be left with water sources containing contaminants.

The human body cannot survive beyond three days without water. Therefore, there’s a limit to how long you can hold up because you do not have pure water supply. You’ll have to adopt a readily available option to purify the water supply you can get. Many times, boiling is the most readily available option. This guide aims to enlighten you on the pros and cons of treating water through boiling so you can make informed choices during emergencies.

Pros

1. Boiling helps to kill or inactivate most pathogenic organisms that may be present in water. Most microorganisms can’t survive up to the boiling point of water. Many of them would have died off before reaching 100°C. You can remove a large number of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microparasites from water through boiling.
2. Boiling also helps to remove some toxic chemicals from water. Toxic chemicals that cannot maintain their stability at boiling point will evaporate as you boil, purifying your water.
3. Boiling is an easy and cheap process. You only need a system of supplying heat to the water and clean containers for holding the water. You also do not need any special skills to use this purification method.
4. Boiled water also has some medical benefits. It helps to increase your blood circulation. Drinking water at warm temperatures helps the body fight off toxic substances and pathogenic organisms, as most body functions work best at regulated temperatures.

Cons

1. Boiling can be time-consuming. In urgent situations, boiling might take too long for you to have your desired treated water. You’ll have to wait for the water to boil and then wait after boiling for it to cool. You can save more time with reverse osmosis by simply passing the water through the osmosis film using pressure.
2. Boiling is only cheap when dealing with small water quantities or when you only have to boil water a few times a week. In most emergencies, you might not have access to the needed amount of gas or electricity to power the process. To conserve cost and energy, you might want to consider better alternatives.
3. Boiling is not a good option if you have a water supply containing heavy metals and chemicals like nitrates, pesticides, solvents, asbestos, lead, and mercury. Boiling this kind of water will not help deal with these metals and chemicals as most of them melt and evaporate at temperatures higher than the boiling point of water.
4. Boiled water does not retain a pleasing taste most time. Remember that tastelessness is one of the indicators of pure water. Heat-treated water most times tastes bland, which is not encouraged as it defeats the criteria for pure water. To improve the taste, you might have to mix the water with flavorings such as Manuka honey.

Boiling is indeed an effective way to purify your water in emergencies; however, it’s not a perfect method. It will only be helpful in most cases where the available water supply only contains minimal contaminations.