Because MG asked...

[Inor]

Sorry guys this is way off topic but -

Inor - what is your water situation? Do you have a well, how deep is it and do you have a backup 'hand-pump' ready?

Congrats on the turkeys, btw

I thought I should make a new thread out of this before I post an answer...

We do have a well. It is currently 540 feet deep. So far it is working fine and the water table actually went up a bit in the last year, but I do have long range plans to deepen the well at least 200 feet. But for now, that is a lower priority.

Obviously, at that depth, a hand pump is not a viable solution. I do not know anybody strong enough to lift a 500 foot column of water. Plus, the amount of water we use in the early summer, a hand pump would not be practical even if our water table were shallower. (In May and June, we typically go through about 1500-2000 gallons per week.)

In our situation, the most practical solution as a backup is a windmill. Many small cattle ranches here still use windmills on the land they lease from the feds and/or state. So there is plenty of expertise for them locally. I have thought about putting one up now to be ready, just in case... But it would get in the way when we need to repair the electric well we currently have. (Something on the damn well seems to break about every 1-2 years. So being able to easily repair what we currently use is a major consideration.)

So yeah... Water and the well is probably our weakest link. But on the upside, there are plenty of options available to us in a bad situation.

[MountainGirl]

I thought I should make a new thread out of this before I post an answer...

We do have a well. It is currently 540 feet deep. So far it is working fine and the water table actually went up a bit in the last year, but I do have long range plans to deepen the well at least 200 feet. But for now, that is a lower priority.

Obviously, at that depth, a hand pump is not a viable solution. I do not know anybody strong enough to lift a 500 foot column of water. Plus, the amount of water we use in the early summer, a hand pump would not be practical even if our water table were shallower. (In May and June, we typically go through about 1500-2000 gallons per week.)

In our situation, the most practical solution as a backup is a windmill. Many small cattle ranches here still use windmills on the land they lease from the feds and/or state. So there is plenty of expertise for them locally. I have thought about putting one up now to be ready, just in case... But it would get in the way when we need to repair the electric well we currently have. (Something on the damn well seems to break about every 1-2 years. So being able to easily repair what we currently use is a major consideration.)

So yeah... Water and the well is probably our weakest link. But on the upside, there are plenty of options available to us in a bad situation.

I'm glad you have options.

For the 8 years before me, Tom hauled lake water for general use up the mountain in barrels; and drinking water in 6gal jugs from wherever he could get it; and it stayed that way for us my first year up there. Then came the well. When the first water spouted out of the yard spigot I put my face in it and cried like a little girl.

I always wanted to find a way to store water up there in big tanks...but could never figure out how because of the freezing and terrain. Here, PO & I are probably okay for water, 2 wells (one on wired pump, one hand drawn) but I'd really still like to have some water storage... more than the several tubs and jugs filled & stacked in the 2nd bathroom LOL.

Can you put in some big tanks?
Maybe instead of deepening your existing well, a second one with a windmill could keep tanks topped up, & used for livestock & irrigation?

Hell, I'm sure you've thought of all that and got things figured out.

Water is so critical to me; almost an obsession. Dont know why, just is.

Thanks for replying.

[Slippy]

We envy MG/PO and The Inor's setup. One of the biggest disappointments of Slippy Lodge was our ability to drill a potable water well. In Alabama, water is plentiful. Around us, my research discovered multiple drilled wells. This info is available in most areas.

Our problem was that Slippy Lodge sits on a very narrow (+/- 3 mile wide) and diagonal (5 miles maybe) stretch of deep Shale Rock! Limestone is good for water wells, Shale is not. Limestone all around us and yet we are on mostly Shale!

We dug twice, one 600 feet, ZERO potable water. The second, 400 feet, less than 1 gallon per minute of potable water. So we have County Supplied Water and a back up well. 1000 gallons of rainwater storage is nice for emergencies or watering the gardens but not really a back up source due to the work involved. But better than nothing.

[Prepared One]

Like MG said, we are in good shape for water. Two wells, one electric pump and the other hand pumped. Both are shallow well. The river isn't far from us, a quick ride in the general would get us there, and we do have a creek running through the back of our property. The creek water would obviously need to be filtered and decontaminated. Still, We have been considering a couple of black poly tanks for extra storage, maybe a couple of 500 gallon tanks topped off by the rain gutter system.

[Slippy]

Check out Norwesco Tanks. Mine are going on 12 years.
https://www.norwesco.com/products/above-ground-tanks

Like MG said, we are in good shape for water. Two wells, one electric pump and the other hand pumped. Both are shallow well. The river isn't far from us, a quick ride in the general would get us there, and we do have a creek running through the back of our property. The creek water would obviously need to be filtered and decontaminated. Still, We have been considering a couple of black poly tanks for extra storage, maybe a couple of 500 gallon tanks topped off by the rain gutter system.

[MountainGirl]

Check out Norwesco Tanks. Mine are going on 12 years.
https://www.norwesco.com/products/above-ground-tanks

What size are yours? 1000? 2@500 ?
Any pros or cons with one big vs 2 small?

Excellent site, btw - thanks!

[Slippy]

We have the 500 gallon tanks. I've cleaned the insides of the tank twice in 12 years and while they are not heavy when empty, they are cumbersome to work with. I couldn't imagine cleaning the 1000 gallon tanks without major help

[Box of frogs]

I’d love a well. We are in city water and the meter is at the road 1/4 mile from the house. So that’s a long run of pipe to the house that’s susceptible to freeze and damage.

We use 250 gallon IBC or tote tanks in a cage for emergency water.
They are stackable so 500 gallons can fit in the foot print of one tank.
I would not suggest triple stacking due to weight
The HDPE tank is UV resistant so algae has never been an issue on long term storage.
I still aerate the tank once a year with the compressor and add a few ounces of bleach
BoF

[Dwight55]

When I was a kid . . . we had two cisterns for our old farm house . . . and I had to clean one of them out one time. It had to be 8 or 10 feet across . . . and 10 or 12 feet high . . . two of em side by side.

Water came off the house roof and filled the nearest one . . . it was the one that also had the electric pump.

The second one was filled when the first one filled up to the overflow pipe . . . then it dumped into the second one.

We also had a well with a hand pump.

Water out of that well was really good . . . an old hand dug well about 20 or 30 ft in the ground . . . with stones laid up all around it.

Glad I wasn't a well digger back then.

May God bless,
Dwight

[Inor]

I always wanted to find a way to store water up there in big tanks...but could never figure out how because of the freezing and terrain. Here, PO & I are probably okay for water, 2 wells (one on wired pump, one hand drawn) but I'd really still like to have some water storage... more than the several tubs and jugs filled & stacked in the 2nd bathroom LOL.

Can you put in some big tanks?
Maybe instead of deepening your existing well, a second one with a windmill could keep tanks topped up, & used for livestock & irrigation?

Hell, I'm sure you've thought of all that and got things figured out.

Water is so critical to me; almost an obsession. Dont know why, just is.

Thanks for replying.

We have a 1500 gallon tank above ground. I have been kicking myself for not getting a 3000 gallon tank ever since I bought the 1500 gallon tank. The well guy that installed our initial setup talked me out of a 3000 gallon tank saying the water would go stagnant. (That well guy was a complete douchebag.) We did not know any better at the time and took his word for it. Had we known then what we know now, a 3000 gallon would be the absolute bare minimum I would go with and it would not take much convincing to get me to go with a 5000 gallon.

The whole point of having a big above ground tank is to prevent the well pump from having to start and stop a bunch of times. The well pump fills the tank when the tank gets below about 1000 gallons. A separate pressure tank and pressure pump actually pumps the water out of the tank and into our water lines for use.

Putting in a second 1500 gallon tank is an option, but that obviously consumes twice as much space. Since the tank is fairly close to the house, that is something I would rather not do. I have resolved myself to just sticking with what we have until the well pump needs to be replaced. But when we replace the well pump, I will replace the tank at that time also. (Larger above ground tanks do not take any more land; they are just taller than our current tank.)

I would LOVE to put in a second "backup well" but that is just not in the cards right now... First off, drilling a well is ridiculously expensive. The going rate around here for a residential well is $40-$50 per foot, just for the hole in the ground, without a casing, pump, electricity, etc. A well setup like the one I currently have would easily go for north of $50K. The other problem is permitting. Arizona will not let you just drill a well; you have to get a permit. Permits are pretty difficult to get. And they are almost impossible to get if your land already has a well on it.

Hell, I even considered buying a drilling rig, drilling another well myself (without a permit) and then selling the rig when I was done. But when I studied up on the penalties I could get for drilling an unlicensed well I found that I would face less prison time and fines for a career in armed robbery!

I did pick up a parcel of land across the road from M.T. Acres last winter. Because I bought it at a tax sale, the paperwork to get it retitled is going to take a couple years. But once that is done, I might have an easier time getting a well permit for that land than for the land M.T. Acres sits on or the adjacent land I bought a few years back. But in short, all of the options for getting a second "backup" well really suck!