Water harvesting question

[WILD MAN]

The other day I started on a rainwater/spring capping project when complete will give us 4150gal of water storage, 2500 rain runoff from the barn, 1100 from the house, and 550 from a spring I'm capping on our property. I've already picked up the tanks and designed a first flush system to divert the first few gallons of dirty rain water from the roofs, I'm using the smallest tank to store the spring water witch will be our main water source of water. The rain collection is pretty simple water flows down hill, but I've never capped a spring. Has anybody done this before? I could use a few tips on how it's done and what not too.

 

[old_anorak]

Ours isn't capped, but we do have a spring house built over the head to keep critters out and to put things to chill in the summer. Our main water is well, but we can get it from the spring, just have to tote it.

 

[hightechredneck]

We put spring into production by digging a trench above the seep to intercept the spring as it is coming up thru the veins and hopefully open it up a bit as well as developing others in the area. 6-8 inches crick gravel then a perforated drain pipe followed by more gravel. the drain pipe is changed to solid and routed to the spring box where the collector is. the drain to the collector in our case continues down hill and into a very large tire with the top sidewall cut off. an overflow pipe drains this from the top of the tire over the hill. Ours is primarily for livestock (they drink from the large tire ) but there is a steady flow and a fairly good reserve in the spring box that could be easily accessible if needed.

This may be on a larger scale than you are looking for but the principle is the same. I developed this one with my skidsteer but it could be done on a smaller scale by hand

 

[WILD MAN]

We put spring into production by digging a trench above the seep to intercept the spring as it is coming up thru the veins and hopefully open it up a bit as well as developing others in the area. 6-8 inches crick gravel then a perforated drain pipe followed by more gravel. the drain pipe is changed to solid and routed to the spring box where the collector is. the drain to the collector in our case continues down hill and into a very large tire with the top sidewall cut off. an overflow pipe drains this from the top of the tire over the hill. Ours is primarily for livestock (they drink from the large tire ) but there is a steady flow and a fairly good reserve in the spring box that could be easily accessible if needed.

This may be on a larger scale than you are looking for but the principle is the same. I developed this one with my skidsteer but it could be done on a smaller scale by hand

Thanks HTR, I see what your saying I just put my tank where you have your big tire and that should work.