Yes, we have had dirt and dust in the run off. We were advised to hose off the roof if we had a reasonable hope of getting rainfall to cut down on the dirt. We had a consultant provided by the state who gave us plans for a filtering system I was able to build for myself. The filter canister is a 55 gallon plastic drum with three screens of graduated sizes. Dust and dirt still gets through but it screens out all the other loose debri. We have not planned on using the water for drinking or cooking. However, water could be run through a Berkeley filter for drinking and it would be just fine to drink.

You might want to start considering how the dirt/silt is filling the bottom of your storage tanks. Eventually that is going to reduce capacity.

You might obtain some useful info or advice at the Backwoods Home Magazine forum. Their publications are gold mines of information on self-reliance.

There are lots of books and websites dedicated to rainwater harvesting and "off-grid" water sources. Google is your friend here.

Bill

Thanks for the magazine recommendation. I have seen one for that title before.

This is just a general question. It assumes that someone has some property that has a well or spring that can be tapped or live next to a creek/river/stream where you can you would prefer not to collect water by walking down there with a bucket several times a day.

Hello Comms

We use a well by necessity not choice. We have no mains water supply to the house which was equipped with an antique well when we moved in. Over the last few years it has dried up in the summer so we were forced to drop a new pipe.

It was a contractor job which took no more than a morning of drilling to drop a pipe 35 meters down to the first available porous layer. Once set we could connect a pump, electrical 1KW, which supplies the whole house on a pressure demand system. We get full domestic pressure.

Currently we are on grid but we're planning to move essentials like the water pump, the thermal solar panels' pump and some lighting over to a photovoltaic solar system so that we have all the basics if the power goes out.

Water storage in this case isn't a pressing need since the well is feeding from a subterranean current - however we could put some storage in high parts of the house and gravity feed our system as a belt and braces backup.

Some friends of ours live higher up in the mountains and use an open well with a winched bucket to supply drinking water. For the rest of their water needs they have laid tubing from a nearby river which is just higher than the house. Flow is not impressive but let's say when you open a tap the water comes out. They have a small hill on the back of the property and we've discussed the logistics of putting a cistern up there and filling it via a low-flow solar pump which would provide much better pressure for their domestic needs.

Thank you so much. That is essentially what I thought but haven't had anyone with hands on experience explain it too me.

So if I get this right, piping goes down to the water level, its attached to a electric pump to draw water, then forced into a conventional water heater that pressurizes the house water for consistent flow similar to that on a urban grid.

Is there a manual back up to this system if your electric goes out now or if your solar system lags?

The water heater does not pressurize the house. We don't have a tank for our water heater.

A pressure tank is what's used to keep the house under pressure. That is unless you have an external tank and it's 40 or 50ft higher than the house, then you could just gravity feed the pressure to your house.

The larger the tank (or more) the more water you have on-hand if power goes out because they remain pressurized.

Available water draw is also dependent upon your pressure on the pressure tank.

Google "Well pressure tank" and "How pressure tanks work", to read the full info on them.

Depending how deep the well is you can add a hand pump (200ft) ours is 400+ft so we can't. If power goes out we have water that is available in the pressure tank and that's it.

If electric is out for along time we CAN hookup a generator to the well and get more water.

We are going to add a 2600g external tank for watering the garden, and fire control, and in the future another 2600g to feed the house. This however requires another pump because then the well will fill the 2600g tank and turn off with a float switch and the pump in the tank will then pressurize the house's pressure tank(s). The large/external tanks outside are not to be pressurized.

Essentially once we add our second tank and pump and plumb it (of coarse check valves too in their needed places) we'll have 5200g available for fire control, watering the garden, and 2600g to the house (or the full 5200 depending how I plumb it). With this setup we'd only need to run the pump in the one tank (not the ground) to re-pressurize the tank for the house. These pumps are normally a lot power hungry which is GREAT!

After we get the external / large storage tanks we`ll add another pressure tank (120g, but not that much available for draw down. There is a chart that comes with the tanks that tell you how much water you have available at what pressures).

The 2600g external tank is $999 local or $799 if I drove 2 hours. The pressure tanks are at Lowes and are $499 I believe for the 120g model but I think with our pressure we only get maybe 50g of water from it. So, cost-wise the external tanks are much more of a deal, but do "less".. or "more" depending how you look at it.

I hope that explains it more.

Great advice. I will run that search down. Keep it coming folks. Lets make this thread a true teaching tool.

I have a small spring fed pond. I found the spring this past weekend.

I am going to try to build a springbox this year.