water

[sonya123]

there is lots of stuff on here on all sorts of prepping but I haven't seen a thread on just water

this is in my mind right now because our own water supply is in danger of having problems. We have spring water coming off the mountain. It has a pipe going to a large concrete tank that was probably built more than 50 years ago with some rusted pipes going through the botton of it ( 2 pipes) to supply water to 2 areas of the neighborhood. Currently 15 families are on this spring. The pipes coming out of the tank ( from underneath) are rusted out and it's just a matter of time till they fail and non of us have running water. The rest of the system has been replaced with plastic pipe. Plus there are too many people using too much water and some people on the other pipe ( which has a higher cut off elevation than ours) are already running out sometimes.
The weather has been super dry this year, so there is a risk of the spring not providing enough water for even basic stuff ( and the Amish want to water crops with it...)
So we are now starting to add water storage to what we already have ( about 2 days worth for us and the animals, not doing laundry or anything like that)
( we can drive the ATV up to the spring and get buckets from the intake pipe directly but that would be a huge hassle)

The average household uses 400 gallons of water a day ( this is what is used to design water delivery systems)

How much water do you have stored? Where do you plan on getting it if there is no more water coming to your house? Or electricity to pump your well ?
You need to figure at least 1 gallon a day per person just for drinking ( including cooking with water)

 

[Morgan101]

Water is not a issue for us. We probably have at least two weeks worth stored in containers. There is a creek behind the houses across the street from us, which we could access from common ground if we had to fill buckets. There is a lake about 1/2 mile away, but that is on private property, and there is a river about a mile away. To access the river, especially if you were carrying water, you would need some type of vehicle, and a way to carry what you were hauling.

In addition to the natural sources we have two or three catchment systems for rain water, and we have purification methods to treat everything. Our ace in the whole (which we hope we never have to use) is our basement. Supposedly, when they were building our house the builder hit a natural spring when they were digging the basement. We installed a sump pump, and it does run when we get heavy rains. If we had to we could unplug the sump pump, and see what happens. If we ever lost power for a prolonged period of time we may have more water than we could ever imagine.

Sonya, it sounds like everybody who uses your system is going to have to pitch in and do some major repair work. Does somebody own the concrete tank and all the adjacent pipes and plumbing? Is there one owner that is responsible for maintenance and repair, or a city or county government entity responsible?

Good luck. I hope you can find a solution.

 

[sonya123]

Sonya, it sounds like everybody who uses your system is going to have to pitch in and do some major repair work. Does somebody own the concrete tank and all the adjacent pipes and plumbing? Is there one owner that is responsible for maintenance and repair, or a city or county government entity responsible?

Good luck. I hope you can find a solution.

thanks, we have the solution it just needs to get done and paid for...
no county government responsible for this. The tank is on the neighbors property, the spring on ours most likely, but we don't have any exact survey showing the spring. But when we bought the property, we made sure we have legal easement documented that we have rights to the spring and water system, but we cannot use it for large scale crop irrigation or cut off anyone else's water below us ( we could, we have a valve past our house that will cut off flow to anyone below us on our system ( but we don't of course)

The good things is we mostly live in a Amish community that are all willing to work on this and they have some construction equipment, but they tend to not fix things until absolutely necessary. A few years ago the intake at the spring washed out and the water was dirty we all worked on fixing it and it got done. I think the biggest concern is the time this project would take and the possibility of the spring drying up . This is not something you can do in a day or 2 and what is everyone going to do in the meantime for water? Or what if it fails in winter and everything is frozen or snow on the ground? That would be the worst.
I think we are going to talk to them next week or so and see
I am a engineer and could design a good system, but not with the information I have ( no real survey to start) besides I am not a contractor, I can calculate and design things on paper but I don't know how to actually build a new concrete tank ( most of our structures for projects when I worked were precast, I just designed them, this size structure would cost a LOT of money and be super heavy so you would have to unload it with a crane or very large excavator which would not be able to get where it is located) So you would have to build this structure in place, which I don't really know how to do. I am not a structural engineer either. I know you build a form and pour the concrete in, but again, no way a concrete truck could get to it. I have no idea how they originally did this. You can get a medium size excavator up there ( which is what was used to make the intake repair)
Maybe a plastic tank would be better

 

[Cabin Fever]

We have 1000s of gallons of water stored below our yard. It's stored in sand and gravel.

 

[viking]

When we first moved onto our property we built a 1,100 gallon cistern at the top of our property, the system that the previous owner had was two 33 gallon galvanized trash cans buried in the ground with plastic trash can liners inside to keep the metallic taste from being a problem, thing is during the rainy season silt would build up on the liners and fall down and come into our feed line to the trailer we were living in at the time, also bring in big green larva that would clog the pressure control valve. It didn't take long to get the cistern built, just a lot of trips up the hill carrying sand and gravel in 5 gallon pickle buckets and then 90 pound sacks of Portland cement on my shoulder, then mixing the cement in a wheelbarrow. It was pretty hard work but it worked out and later as the drought continued I had to dig the spring pickup lower and lower until finally all the surface water disappeared, then I searched for the source of the spring and found it under a fir tree, I reworked the pickup tubes to two pickup points, ever since the rework we've always had water from the spring, sometimes it gets a little slow be even now with all the high temps we've had it's a study flow. I have another 1,100 gallon black poly tank up near the concrete cistern that I want to connect into the original tank to double the storage, especially since our son and his girlfriend are now using our spring system, they have a 1,100 gallon black poly tank that the overflow from the cistern keeps full and the overflow from that goes into the chicken yard to an old iron bathtub which supplies the chicken with water. almost every drop of water is used out of our system in some way or another.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Sounds like you might have to develop your own water source sonya. You may have to drill a well or tap in to another spring.

We have deep well here, 650 feet deep with a 5hp pump. The well is a quarter mile from the house and over a hill. I've got over a half mile of buried water lines 5 feet deep. To power our well pump I put in a 12kw propane generator with auto start and timers to control when the generator starts, when the pump starts and shuts off. The generator is plumbed to a 500 gallon propane tank. It's also plumbed to a thermostatically controlled heater inside the pump house. This tank could last possibly 2 years.
If everything fails we have a spring fed pond also about a quarter mile from the house.
I've been considering drilling a new closer to the house, hopefully it won't be as deep.

 

[sonya123]

When we first moved onto our property we built a 1,100 gallon cistern at the top of our property, the system that the previous owner had was two 33 gallon galvanized trash cans buried in the ground with plastic trash can liners inside to keep the metallic taste from being a problem, thing is during the rainy season silt would build up on the liners and fall down and come into our feed line to the trailer we were living in at the time, also bring in big green larva that would clog the pressure control valve. It didn't take long to get the cistern built, just a lot of trips up the hill carrying sand and gravel in 5 gallon pickle buckets and then 90 pound sacks of Portland cement on my shoulder, then mixing the cement in a wheelbarrow. It was pretty hard work but it worked out and later as the drought continued I had to dig the spring pickup lower and lower until finally all the surface water disappeared, then I searched for the source of the spring and found it under a fir tree, I reworked the pickup tubes to two pickup points, ever since the rework we've always had water from the spring, sometimes it gets a little slow be even now with all the high temps we've had it's a study flow. I have another 1,100 gallon black poly tank up near the concrete cistern that I want to connect into the original tank to double the storage, especially since our son and his girlfriend are now using our spring system, they have a 1,100 gallon black poly tank that the overflow from the cistern keeps full and the overflow from that goes into the chicken yard to an old iron bathtub which supplies the chicken with water. almost every drop of water is used out of our system in some way or another.

want to come help us LOL?

Our spring in the past has around 15000 gallons of flow approx per day. I measured it but it is more dry now than when I meassured so not sure. I need to find my paperwork to see how big the tank is now , definitely more than 1000 gallons lol
I think maybe 30000 gallons or so, need to check forgot

 

[sonya123]

Sounds like you might have to develop your own water source sonya. You may have to drill a well or tap in to another spring.

not possible, we talked to a well contractor before we bought it, and all the springs are already in use
we took a chance of the spring not drying up when we bought it, since it has been here for almost 100 years

 

[Mountain trapper]

not possible, we talked to a well contractor before we bought it, and all the springs are already in use
we took a chance of the spring not drying up when we bought it, since it has been here for almost 100 years

Did that well contractor give you a bid on a new well? Recently I talked to a well driller about drilling us a new well. He's planning on coming out with a ground penatrating radar to map the area for a potential well site.
Not every water source is visible from the surface. We owned a property one time that didn't have any visible water on the surface. One day I had a friend dig a hole for me with his excavator. He went down a few feet and hit water, it filled the hole and flowed to the surface. It ran about 1,000 gpm. On that property I drove a pipe in the ground by hand and put a hand pump on it. My father did the same on his place about 20 miles away too.
Every property is different. I've seen dry holes dug in one area and good water not too far away.

 

[Tirediron]

If you put a dip tube into the tank that is supplying the water from a higher elevation, once the water is flowing it will act the same as the base drain pipe, due to siphon, this will have to be insulated so it cant freeze unless the flow is constant enough to keep it from freezing, but it does eliminate the need to excavate for at least a while

 

[Sourdough]

 

[sonya123]

Did that well contractor give you a bid on a new well? Recently I talked to a well driller about drilling us a new well. He's planning on coming out with a ground penatrating radar to map the area for a potential well site.

I used to do well projects in Florida ( drainage wells) , ground penetrating radar does not go as deep as a well , not sure what sort of weird stuff that contractor told you. Especially not in the area we are in now ( mountains with rocks)
This is how we did wells in Florida: contractor would do a 2 inch test well, to see if there were any cavities under the ground ( usually about 400-800 feet deep) then if he found one, he would put casing in , then inner casing , then grout, then pump to see if it worked
Not all wells worked , sometimes it looked like a good one but ended up not working. These were reverse wells, but I would imagine water wells work the same way. They were anywhere from 12 '' to 36 '' and cost up to half a million

We are at about 3000 feet. The contractor told me exactly what I assumed, you can drill 1000 feet and never get water, unless you get lucky. It would cost over $10000 to drill 1 - 500 ft well, way more for a deeper one and this one didn't do them
DId not seem like good odds to me, and we don't have 10k to waste, and this was probably way more than you ever wanted to know about wells LOL
Plus there is this: the deeper the well, the better the pump has to be. Another expense and thing to go wrong , never mind if SHTF and you have no power, and eventually run out of fuel to run your generator

 

[Mountain trapper]

I used to do well projects in Florida ( drainage wells) , ground penetrating radar does not go as deep as a well , not sure what sort of weird stuff that contractor told you. Especially not in the area we are in now ( mountains with rocks)
This is how we did wells in Florida: contractor would do a 2 inch test well, to see if there were any cavities under the ground ( usually about 400-800 feet deep) then if he found one, he would put casing in , then inner casing , then grout, then pump to see if it worked
Not all wells worked , sometimes it looked like a good one but ended up not working. These were reverse wells, but I would imagine water wells work the same way. They were anywhere from 12 '' to 36 '' and cost up to half a million

We are at about 3000 feet. The contractor told me exactly what I assumed, you can drill 1000 feet and never get water, unless you get lucky. It would cost over $10000 to drill 1 - 500 ft well, way more for a deeper one and this one didn't do them
DId not seem like good odds to me, and we don't have 10k to waste, and this was probably way more than you ever wanted to know about wells LOL
Plus there is this: the deeper the well, the better the pump has to be. Another expense and thing to go wrong , never mind if SHTF and you have no power, and eventually run out of fuel to run your generator

Nothing that complicated here. Usually you just point to a spot on the ground and the driller pokes a hole. Ground pentetrating rader is used a lot in the mining industry too. For the well up by our house I was hoping to only go down 350 feet or less. Our wells are only a 6" bore. No need for anything bigger unless I was going to irrigate with it. Wells can be very expensive. I just don't think that I would be able to share a well or spring with another family.

 

[sonya123]

Nothing that complicated here. Usually you just point to a spot on the ground and the driller pokes a hole. Ground pentetrating rader is used a lot in the mining industry too. For the well up by our house I was hoping to only go down 350 feet or less. Our wells are only a 6" bore. No need for anything bigger unless I was going to irrigate with it. Wells can be very expensive. I just don't think that I would be able to share a well or spring with another family.

we've been sharing the spring for over 8 years now, and while occasionally there are problems ( big one now) so far they have always been resolved . Most of the other families on there are Amish ( there are only 3 including us that are not) and they work together pretty well ( no pun intended LOL)
And think about the money we have saved on not paying for city water ( and sewer) , was around $100 a month in Florida , so that would have added up to a lot of money over the years.

So do you have alternative energy to pump your water?

 

[Mountain trapper]

we've been sharing the spring for over 8 years now, and while occasionally there are problems ( big one now) so far they have always been resolved . Most of the other families on there are Amish ( there are only 3 including us that are not) and they work together pretty well ( no pun intended LOL)
And think about the money we have saved on not paying for city water ( and sewer) , was around $100 a month in Florida , so that would have added up to a lot of money over the years.

So do you have alternative energy to pump your water?

Sounds like you have a good relationship with your neighbors. I had a friend once that was on a shared well and it worked out great for him too.
We live 100% off grid. Grid electricity wasn't an option for us. We produce plenty of power using solar, with a diesel backup generator. Since our well is over a quarter mile from the house it was cost prohibited to run a cable from the house to the well pump (5 hp). So I bought a 12kw Winco propane generator with auto start. Then I added timers for the generator start based based on water pressure, then pump start and stop, and finally the generator stop.
If someone came up here that didn’t know better, they would never guess that we're off-grid. I use a couple electric gate openers powered by solar, solar powered lights in the chicken coop, etc.

 

[EastenerWesterner]

Personally this is what I think based on my situation.

I have a deep well, depth unknown. 5000g tank, fills at 20g a minute off my deep well. I have ponies that drink 25g a day during the summer X4. Pressure pump to power the house from that tank.
We can last 2 weeks without that deep well pump on line without conserving
I do have 275g IBC tanks feeding 100g troughs, so ponies have a weeks worth at most times I have 275g IBC tanks collecting water off the barn roof, I have 6 55 g wine barrels collecting off the house, all for the purpose of plants.

So everyone can last for 3-4 weeks without conserving?

I have a plan to hook a spare generator up to the deep well to fill my 5k tank.

Adapt this to you- a tank for storage on your property gives you a buffer. How much a buffer for you need? IDK.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Personally this is what I think based on my situation.

I have a deep well, depth unknown. 5000g tank, fills at 20g a minute off my deep well. I have ponies that drink 25g a day during the summer X4. Pressure pump to power the house from that tank.
We can last 2 weeks without that deep well pump on line without conserving
I do have 275g IBC tanks feeding 100g troughs, so ponies have a weeks worth at most times I have 275g IBC tanks collecting water off the barn roof, I have 6 55 g wine barrels collecting off the house, all for the purpose of plants.

So everyone can last for 3-4 weeks without conserving?

I have a plan to hook a spare generator up to the deep well to fill my 5k tank.

Adapt this to you- a tank for storage on your property gives you a buffer. How much a buffer for you need? IDK.

I'd like to have a few hundred gallons stored too. My dilemma is, how to keep it from freezing? And to fill it? I'd have to bury it at least 5 feet deep, then I'd have to pump wanter in to fill it, pump it out when needed.
I've got several 375 gallon stock tanks scattered around the area, plus the pond. The level of the pond has dropped about 6 feet, and it's still around 6 feet deep. We get virtually no rain from May to October in order to collect rain water. Usually by late October all we get is snow.
I've got a couple dry creek beds that run in to the pond when the snow starts melting, usually they flow until June most years. I'm going to get an excavator out here to put in a couple dams to hold back as much water as possible. One area could create about a 5 to 10 acre lake with a 30 foot high dam. Before I do that I'll have to check on water rights. I filed water rights on our current pond so I'm safe there.

 

[EastenerWesterner]

I'd like to have a few hundred gallons stored too. My dilemma is, how to keep it from freezing? And to fill it? I'd have to bury it at least 5 feet deep, then I'd have to pump wanter in to fill it, pump it out when needed.
I've got several 375 gallon stock tanks scattered around the area, plus the pond. The level of the pond has dropped about 6 feet, and it's still around 6 feet deep. We get virtually no rain from May to October in order to collect rain water. Usually by late October all we get is snow.
I've got a couple dry creek beds that run in to the pond when the snow starts melting, usually they flow until June most years. I'm going to get an excavator out here to put in a couple dams to hold back as much water as possible. One area could create about a 5 to 10 acre lake with a 30 foot high dam. Before I do that I'll have to check on water rights. I filed water rights on our current pond so I'm safe there.

OP is in Florida. That’s where my advice as going.

I get freezing temps here occasionally gotta break some ice on troughs I do know I have seen water tanks between a city with an airport and the city with a grocery store with a gun shop near you.
You will have check with Locals. I think it will take a long time for a 5k tank to freeze.
Honestly, I would look into pumping to a tank above your house rather than another well. You already have lines 5 ft deep below the frost line. Tank freezing? , I have seen these tanks in northern NY, which is just as cold as you

I have suggested IBCs to water your garden in the past. Full ones are too heavy for most loaders on the tractor, so you might have to transport 175g

 

[Caribou]

I suggest that you get a personal tank for your home. We have four residences on our property. The main house has a 5,000 gallon concrete cistern, a 5,000 gallon wood, and a 3,500 stainless steel tank. Two residences each have a 5,000 black plastic tank. the last house has a 5,000 gallon plastic tank and a 1,500 gallon wooden tank as backup. All are filled by rain catchment. I use submersible pumps as a regular pump is likely to freeze.

A 5,000 tank will freeze. They start freezing from the sides to the middle and from the top down. If the tank is partially buried that provides some freezing protection. Do not bur it too far, especially the plastic tanks as they will collapse from the soil pressure. Once the water is frozen across the top and sides the ice starts building pressure as it expands. You need to relieve this pressure by maintaining an opening through the ice for water to be pushed on top of the ice. Something as simple as a heat tape dropped down the centre of the tank works. We’ve tried floating an incandescent bulb in the tank. That is a bit trickyas you must turn on the bulb after it is already floating as a hot bulb will explode. the next trick is keeping the bulb in place. If the bulb falls over the socket will get wet and short out the circuit, all in all not a good plan. We have made a hula hoop and wrapped it with heat tape. That works well for the short term but if it freezes for any length of time the hula hoop hangs up on the ice and as the water is used the tank seals over. The best was the time I took a zone off my boiler and ran a length of Pex into my water tank. It was set up with that zone valve always open so that whenever another zone called for heat both that zone and the water tank circuits got heat. That survived a week or two each year of -40º no problem.

I had a 3,500 gallon unused tank that the city came by and filled up without my knowledge. At -40º it froze solid and I needed to wait till spring for it to thaw. It did not rupture, much to my surprise.

 

[Weedygarden]

I've got a couple dry creek beds that run in to the pond when the snow starts melting, usually they flow until June most years. I'm going to get an excavator out here to put in a couple dams to hold back as much water as possible. One area could create about a 5 to 10 acre lake with a 30 foot high dam. Before I do that I'll have to check on water rights. I filed water rights on our current pond so I'm safe there.

A cousin and his daughter's family bought around 1,000 acres in South Dakota. It had a dry creek through it. They were developing the land with a large metal hunting lodge, shelter belts, etc. They would find large rock all over the property and kept gathering them and dropping them at the lower end of the dry creek, fairly close to their lodge. This made the land safer for driving their quads around on the property as well. After they had done this for a while, they contacted the state to see if they could make a dam. I believe the state helped them build the dam. In that county, there is not a lot of water, so water resources are desirable. It turned into a nice pond that they then stocked with various species of fish. They have birds that visit that pond, such as cranes, egrets, etc.

 

[joel]

https://www.homesteadingforum.org/t...-sources-for-potable-water.20936/#post-968456
https://www.homesteadingforum.org/threads/who-owns-your-water.35870/page-2#post-972744
https://www.homesteadingforum.org/threads/clean-water.18985/
https://www.homesteadingforum.org/t...55-gallon-containers.19990/page-2#post-615749
https://www.homesteadingforum.org/threads/what-are-you-drinking.12931/page-18#post-629564

 

[sonya123]

OP is in Florida. That’s where my advice as going.

I get freezing temps here occasionally gotta break some ice on troughs I do know I have seen water tanks between a city with an airport and the city with a grocery store with a gun shop near you.


I have suggested IBCs to water your garden in the past. Full ones are too heavy for most loaders on the tractor, so you might have to transport 175g

sorry if my post was confusing, we USED to live in Florida, we are in SW Virginia now and it does most certainly freeze here
Our son's water freezes every winter ( he is across the street from us in a little guest house )

we do have some of those IBC tanks, those are the ones we need to clean out , we also have a few 55 gallon clean drums with lids, last winter only the top of them froze, that is a concern. We could move them inside I suppose. I also have a bunch of empty gallon water containers filled for cooking and stuff
the big concern is the animals , we need about 100 gallons a day for them if its hot out or in winter when they eat hay, they drink more. At least 50 gallons
unless the spring dries up we are not going to be totally out of water. Worst case we can drive the ATV up to the spring with buckets and containers and fill up from the spring intake directly but it would be huge amount of work and hassle
Plus we would have to disconnect our water heater from the stove since it needs running water to work
actually no we wouldn't , there are valves to shut it off
I am also thinking we could buy one of those relatively inexpensive above ground pools and fill it. People leave them up in winter here and they don't seem to freeze completely. It's cheaper than buying new tanks which are all very expensive, or they cost a fortune in shipping.
our hydrants outside all freeze when we get below 25 degrees for more than a day ( happens at least once every winter, occasionally a week or more) , then we have to heat water on the stove for the animals and drive it to them in buckets.

I can see it coming, we really are going to live like a third world country were people stand in line somewhere to fill up buckets of semi dirty water.....

 

[sonya123]

I'd like to have a few hundred gallons stored too.

if you just want to store a few hundred gallons just get some of those 55 gallon drums and put them in the house somewhere. It's not as cold here as where you are but I think I will do just that with ours. We have some plastic garbage cans filled with water at the barn for the animals and so far they have not frozen , maybe a layer of ice on top but that's it. They are in the barn but it's not heated

thank you all for posting btw, you have given me some more stuff to think about, like putting our emergency water inside a building instead of out and cleaning those old tanks out....I wonder if you could cut the top off the dirty one to better clean it and then just cover it with a piece of plywood or something

 

[Mountain trapper]

if you just want to store a few hundred gallons just get some of those 55 gallon drums and put them in the house somewhere. It's not as cold here as where you are but I think I will do just that with ours. We have some plastic garbage cans filled with water at the barn for the animals and so far they have not frozen , maybe a layer of ice on top but that's it. They are in the barn but it's not heated

thank you all for posting btw, you have given me some more stuff to think about, like putting our emergency water inside a building instead of out and cleaning those old tanks out....I wonder if you could cut the top off the dirty one to better clean it and then just cover it with a piece of plywood or something

You know the 55 gallon drums just might fit under our house. Our crawl space is about 5-1/2 feet high. I'll see if one will fit through the trap door. It they won't fit I could get a bunch of the 35 gallon size. It's never froze under the house yet. I keep remote thermometer under the house, so far it hasn't gotten below 33 degs.
I keep our supply of distilled water in the shop, so far they stay mostly unfrozen.
My stock tanks are 375 gallons. If I don't break the ice at least once a day they will freeze solid within 2 days. Years ago I had a propane stock tank heater and it worked pretty good. I'll have to order another one soon.

 

[viking]

I forgot to say that our spring is an extremely low flow, during the summer months it's below a gallon per minute, but it's amazing that even after a day of cooking, washing dishes, bathing, toilet flushing and watering a small amount of vegetables, the next morning the cistern is overflowing, we've used our spring for 44 years and the only time we had to get water from someone else was a really cold, -5 degree winter in 1990's when an exposed 3/4" black poly water line from the spring froze, that line is now over 500' of 1" pvc schedule 40 that hand dug and buried, I might add that it was the only time I've ever been bothered by poison oak, walking in the ditches the poison oak roots rubbed on my legs, vinegar works wonders and I healed quickly. I just thought about another thing concerning water flow and seeing how the flow of the water changes through out the months, I have come to the conclusion that not only does the moon effect the sea tides, it effects the spring out flow.

 

[sonya123]

I don't really think our spring will dry up completely. It would have to be a major climate catastrophy for that to happen. One good hurricane in the gulf would fix the problem most likely. They usually come our way. What happened to ALL the hurricanes the weather pinheads told us were going to happen this year? So far only one little tropical storm we got barely half an inch of rain from