Emergency boiling water tip

alanmcqueen

I was given this tip by a mate (who'd heard it but never tried it).

Fill plastic bottle with water and throw onto fire and it will boil; handy if you have no container and you're stuck, especially as there are so many littered about.

Does it work? yes it does. I tried it and TBH was waiting for immediate meltdown of plastic. But no it happily heats away, which meant I had to loosen the top - trick is not to have it too tight when you put it on fire. You may face bursting as it reaches boiling pt. I took it out when the water was certainly next to boiling point. Handy for an emergency hot brew.

To boil I would envisage leaving top off with bottle standing. Bottle will disfigure as water bubbles out of top but will maintain integrity.

Water is probably full of carcinogens from plastic but in survival situation that will not bother you too much.

I was paranoid as it heated up and it's something you would need to continually observe IMO but I could be wrong.

I didn't believe it 'til I tried it.

William Powell

The water acts as a heat sink so the plastic incontact with the water shouldn't get hotter than the boiling point of water. Provided you don't over do the heat it works fine if you use a really hot fire then the pastic will melt before the water can absorb the heat. You can even contrive a way of boiling water in a box made of paper, the trick is only to heat the bottom of the container where all the paper is in direct contact with the water.

Sticky_Fingers

alanmcqueen wrote: »

Water is probably full of carcinogens from plastic but in survival situation that will not bother you too much.

This tbh, I think I'd take my chances with the unboiled water instead of ingesting all the chemicals released from the bottle during heating, you may get poisoned from the untreated water but you sure as hell will be in trouble using this method to treat drinking water.

A far safer method to treat water using plastic bottles is the solar water disinfection.

Tabnabs

You'd want to be desperate all right! What about glass bottles? A discarded beer bottle for example, anyone know if it would work?

Grizzly 45

IF you kept drinking it for months on end from the same bottle that you keep reheating.Then you might have a problem.As a once off proably not too much trouble.
Glass bottles will work but you have to sheild it from direct heat.Put it in a can with some dry sand around it.Handy too,if the bottle shatters from pressure,the shards will be contained.

Sticky_Fingers

I have to disagree with you Grizzly, back in my student days I had to use a plastic drinking bottle as hot water bottle at night (now thats poor ), the first time you'd fill it the smell of plastic was awful but after a few refills it gradually went away. From my wholly unscientific experiment I'd say that all the crap is released at the start and it diminishes over time.

alanmcqueen

Sticky_Fingers wrote: »

This tbh, I think I'd take my chances with the unboiled water instead of ingesting all the chemicals released from the bottle during heating, you may get poisoned from the untreated water but you sure as hell will be in trouble using this method to treat drinking water.

A far safer method to treat water using plastic bottles is the solar water disinfection.

Hard to know Sticky; I see this as useful where you really need a warm brew or have nothing else to disinfect with. Most people are absorbing various carcinogens on a daily basis including those from plastic bottles so it's possibly a long term hazard by using this method.

But this is just a once off thing really, nice to know and really an emergency procedure. I would not do it unless I had to, but nice to know it can be done:D

meathstevie

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

IF you kept drinking it for months on end from the same bottle that you keep reheating.Then you might have a problem.As a once off proably not too much trouble.
Glass bottles will work but you have to sheild it from direct heat.Put it in a can with some dry sand around it.Handy too,if the bottle shatters from pressure,the shards will be contained.

And Grizzly has reinvented the thermos flask

eth0

Things would want to be fairly desperate before I'd try boiling water in a plastic bottle

ShadowFox

A youtube video of it being done their are loads more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp0uk644PjM

slowburner

William Powell wrote: »

The water acts as a heat sink so the plastic incontact with the water shouldn't get hotter than the boiling point of water. Provided you don't over do the heat it works fine if you use a really hot fire then the pastic will melt before the water can absorb the heat. You can even contrive a way of boiling water in a box made of paper, the trick is only to heat the bottom of the container where all the paper is in direct contact with the water.

WP, I had an accidental 'bush fire' out the back recently , and dragged the garden hose through a section of the very hot fire (slight panic) to control it.
I thought the fact that the hose was full of water would prevent it from burning, but I was soon left holding a dry nozzle and a very short length of burnt hose.
Why did it burn through, do you think?

Mr Benevolent

slowburner wrote: »

WP, I had an accidental 'bush fire' out the back recently , and dragged the garden hose through a section of the very hot fire (slight panic) to control it.
I thought the fact that the hose was full of water would prevent it from burning, but I was soon left holding a dry nozzle and a very short length of burnt hose.
Why did it burn through, do you think?

The hose material was too thick to allow the heat to be absorbed by the water, i.e, it acted as an heat insulator rather than a conductor.