View Full Version : Water Weight
I have not been backpacking for over 25 years and I forgot how heavy water is.
I'm trying to find a place on my backpack to hang a platypus water bag as I also have a 10 year old pack.
Feral Bill
05-02-2016, 15:16
If the question is how heavy, water weighs 2 lbs/quart or 1 kg/liter (yes, I know kg is a unit of mass, not weight).
Is their room to hang your Platypus inside your pack? I find hanging weight outside annoying.
Sew a pocket or some straps along the inside of your pack, to support the bag.
nsherry61
05-02-2016, 19:32
My brother-in-law has a modern pack, and his preference for the bladder is just laying on top of his gear inside the pack. Makes it easy to get out and fill, and easier to suck on.
Sarcasm the elf
05-02-2016, 20:23
My brother-in-law has a modern pack, and his preference for the bladder is just laying on top of his gear inside the pack. Makes it easy to get out and fill, and easier to suck on.
I do this as well with my top opening pack. I have long since stopped using the "hydration sleeves" that they put in packs to hold water bladders. The sleeves usually are on the bottom of everything else, make it so you can't see how much water you had left in the bladder, and requires you to take everything else out of your pack to access the bladder. Just laying the bladder on top of everything inside my pack makes it much easier to work with.
Greenlight
05-02-2016, 21:46
Two possible ideas: First, if your pack has an open top pocket for a water bottle placed high enough, you might be able to cut a small port in the bottom of that pocket for the drinking tube and hang it that way. Whip the edge of the hole you make so that it doesn't fray. The top of the Platypus allows you to hang it. If you hang it inside your pack, just sew a loop of velcro near the top center of your pack close to the center of your back and bring the drinking tube out the right or left corner of your pack. Hydration reservoirs are great, and easily adaptable to most packs. Just give it a think - you'll come up with a solution.
Toolumpy
05-04-2016, 13:33
8.34 lbs per gallon
CoolBobby
05-04-2016, 13:48
2.2 lbs per liter...
love my Osprey's external bladder sleeve. No need to open the pack to get the bladder out...
Not to hijack the thread, but I am getting ready to go out for the first time in 10 years. I was planning on bringing two large Smartwater bottles (1.5L). Would it be better to have a bladder and keep the water bottles empty? Last time I went out I was using a pump, I just switched to a Sawyer Mini.
nsherry61
05-05-2016, 08:20
I generally carry two 750ml ish bottles to drink out of and a 2L platapus bottle to carry larger volumes of water, only if needed. I like the smaller smart water bottles with the nipple caps or bicycle water bottles. I don't like the bulk of the larger bottles for regular drinking out of. Why lift a liter bottle every time you want a drink if you can list a smaller one instead. And, I rarely need more than 1.5 liters between water stops, so two 750ml bottle is ample 90% of the time. I refill my smaller bottles from the larger collapsible bottle when my drinking bottles run out.
I have several water bladders which I don't use any more except when mountain biking. I find bladders are hard to estimate the amount of water I have and am using. Bladders are also harder to fill than bottles (yes even when using custom quick disconnects and pumping etc.). Also, if the weather is really hot and/or I want to use additives/sports drinks to my water, I use a water bottle instead of a bladder for that anyway.
Thanks for the advice. I returned the large bottles for 1 liter bottles. I think we will carry bladder empty and fill them if needed. Also I made a gravity filter as there are 4 of us in the group. I can fill the bladders for cooking and cleaning. According to my calculations the longer I go is 5 miles or so. Most water sources are within a few miles of each other so we may only need to fill one bottle at a time.
btw, you can get drinking tubes that work with those 1 or 1.5 liter water bottles. I think it was 4 or 5 bucks on Amazon...
gallons...liters...oh geez. Here's simple: 16oz of water weighs 16oz.
Aquafina bottle 1L (33.8)
1.3
Deer Park bottle 1L (33.8)
0.7
Nalgene bottle white 32oz
3.8
Nestle Pure Life 16oz
0.3
The numbers on the right represent the empty bottle.
Toolumpy
05-05-2016, 20:49
A 16oz bottle says there are 16 liquid oz in the bottle, not what the weight is.
gallons...liters...oh geez. Here's simple: 16oz of water weighs 16oz.
Aquafina bottle 1L (33.8)
1.3
Deer Park bottle 1L (33.8)
0.7
Nalgene bottle white 32oz
3.8
Nestle Pure Life 16oz
0.3
The numbers on the right represent the empty bottle.
A 16oz bottle says there are 16 liquid oz in the bottle, not what the weight is.
Lol. That's funny
...and lemme tell ya that bottle weight sure does add up LOL
so yes, 1oz of water weighs 1oz.
ive been collecting bottle weights to avoid carrying dumb weight.
I also tried the Survivor Filter water bags with the caribiner. They have a claimed weight of 0.4oz with an actual weight of about 1.3oz and the "sports lids" leak out the side. I left a review on their website that was not published.
When I first started purchasing gear I bought two of the classic white Nalgenes as that's what we used back when the pump-style water filter had to attach to it...but now I realized the two bottles with extra sip tops weigh in together at 8.0oz. A whole half a pound of stupid weight. On the flip side the popular thin disposable bottles like deer park or nestle, in he 16oz size, crunch under the elastic pocket in my pack when empty- that won't last long. Bags seem to be the way to go as long as they don't leak. I touched a Platy bag in the store, it was good quality.
16 ounces of water weighs 16.04 ounces. The numbers on a bottle of water refer to the volume taken up. 16oz is one pint, a unit of volume, not weight. 32 ounces of water weighs 2.08 pounds. 64 ounces of water weighs 4.16 pounds.
There is a difference between weight and volume
Now that concludes the "fun with math" lesson for the day.......
Odd Man Out
05-06-2016, 17:09
How long is a piece of string? What you really want to know is the density of water. Plenty of answers given above. Another real easy one is 1 mL = 1 g (or very close, depending on the temerature).