filter water using nature?

Ok so I may be completely wrong here. But would this method work for filtering water? Let's say standing water with algae /green water , ort regular lake river water?

So if u made a tripod out of sticks and made 3 levels. With the bottom level being a pan/pot to boil the water. And the middle level being charcoal/black ash from a fire sitting in a cloth , a t-shirt rag or a plastic bag with a hole at the center bottom for water to drain and filter. and the 3rd level being sand in the same way as level 2. (Maybe have 2 and 3 switched I'm not sure) than when you pour the contaminated water over the sand ,the sand filters out all the heavy contaminant than the water drains threw the shirt/rag into layer 2 where the charcoal is than it repeats the prosess draining into the bottom layer , the pot than when the pot is filled with filtered water you boil it to kill anything that wasn't filtered out by the top 2evels will this work? I tried sayin ot as simple as possible. If not any tips/suggestions

[edit on 6-7-2009 by agent0range]

Sounds a bit complicated. Would it work, yeah, probably so. Is it practical?

Why not just skip to stage two and filter out the crud with a cloth, then boil it...

I would think that sand tend to contain lots of icky stuff, like even radioactive particles. I would skip the sand altogether.

The Suppressed Link between Trinity and Lung / Skin Cancer

Yes it will work but you will need to make a new one after a few uses.
They are good for short term use.
Another thing as well,run water through it at least once before you use it.When it starts coming out clear then its ok to use.
The best thing is to try to apply it out in real life b4 you need to do it to survive.

reply to post by KSPigpen


Sand is a great thing to use as a filtering device...thats kinda how wells work in some environments.

I don't see anything wrong with your design; I'd be somewhat concerned that it would be ineffective at filtering bacteria, virus, ghiardia, etc., especially since you mentioned water with algae.

You might be interested in a solar distiller.

Alrighty thanks. Lol. Yeah I'm not trying to use it all the time. Just let's say you were camping got lost with no water. Its a really simple design actually I could have one made in about ten min. Minus the coal and sand. (Unless its readily available which it should be if I have fire and a beach.) I figured what bacteria virus etc. Is Not filtered out can be boiled and killed. And I understand with repeat uses the unwanted bacteria in the water will eventually run threw the filters so it would only be used once or twice than u would need new sand/coal. I wasn't sure if it would work with really funky green smelly water I was just curious if it would. But thanks everyone for the feedback. I might try it next weekend when I go camping.

why not just make a crude still, and build a massive fire. if you have a metalwatering can you can use that.

Originally posted by MR BOB
why not just make a crude still, and build a massive fire. if you have a metalwatering can you can use that.

I have zero knowledge in that department. Can you tell me the basics?

I have always used solar stills in the calif desert.
www.desertusa.com...
en.wikipedia.org...

You can carry enough material to build 10 of these solar stills in a 50 cal ammo can. i always have my solar still kit in my truck just in case.
I also carry 3 in my bob. and have another 10 kits in each of my desert hide sites.

I have also built large solar stills that used plastic covered boxes and a underground condenser made from PVC pipe.
One of these I built at a mine in the Calif desert and it would distill over 50 gals of water a day.
There we had a water source that was very high in lead, sulfur and arsenic. and the only drinkable water source was a 1/2 hour drive away.
This solar still saved a lot of hauling of water.