Water, water, right where you want it.

About a week ago I kinda-sorta promised a series on our own real-world form of "Eco-living." That, by the way, is not a term I've ever heard used out here. We just call it "living." Anyway, I haven't forgotten about it, and this is the first one: Getting Water.

If you're gonna live in the desert, there's a whole bunch of questions you need to answer.  Ain't nobody gonna do it for you.  And probably the most important question is, where's the water coming from?  You need water.  This is not optional.

I actually know some people who get along without a water well.  It can be done, but it pretty much reduces you to marginal living right off the bat.  I don't recommend it.  If you do have a well dug, you still have a problem.  Where we are, the water is roughly 250 feet down.  Once the well is dug, artesian pressure may (also may not) push the water up the pipe somewhat.  But it still isn't a shallow well.  You won't be bringing it up with a hand pump or a windmill.

(There are exceptions to the windmill thing.  Old-fashioned windmills are actually fairly common here, and some are even still in service.  But those are quite shallow wells.  Pockets of shallower water can be found, and I'm not enough of a geologist to be able to say why that is.  But I can tell you the water from those shallow wells is not potable, except maybe in emergency.  They're used for watering livestock.)

Anyway!  Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  How to get the water out of a deep well.  There are two ways, and they both require electricity.


Way One: A conventional AC pump.  All the older wells around here use AC pumps, and they have advantages.  Landlady's property has one, and it will fill the cistern at a rate of about 400 GPM which is pretty damned convenient.  However it also requires one hell of a lot of amperage to run that pump.  Until last summer, her solar power system wasn't capable of running the pump for more than 15 minutes or so at a time.  So the only practical way to fill the cistern was to run the gasoline generator.  Not so convenient.  If the generator failed - and they do - you're screwed.  Since the upgrade, it's a lot better - we can run the pump enough to fill the cistern during the day.  But we still need to wait till late enough in the day for the batteries to have charged, and it's important that the pump not be running after nightfall.  A couple of days ago I forgot I'd left the pump plugged in, and as soon as the sun went down the lights all went out.

Way Two: A DC low-flow pump.  I discussed this pump in greater detail last summer here.  The pump requires no AC power at all, which is great if you're locating it out in the middle of nowhere.  It runs on 12 volts, generated by its very own 200-watt solar panel.  No batteries are required, and in fact the electrical circuit is extremely simple!  If the sun's shining and the float switch in the cistern says "pump water," the pump runs.  The downside of this kind of pump is the flow rate, which is only about 1 GPM.  It takes the better part of two days to fill a 2000-gallon cistern.  I've heard of pumps with a higher flow rate, but not a lot higher.  M paid for all this last summer for his Dome, and I'm plugged into it.

Most wellhouses don't need to be that high, of course; in fact most wells don't even have wellhouses.  But since this one needed a roof big enough to accommodate a solar panel, we went ahead and put a door on it.  And then somebody (I think M's Mom) sent him the subway sign.  8^)

Once you've got water in the cistern, your troubles are not over.  Just sticking a hose on the bottom of the cistern will not give you usable water pressure.  Here at Landlady's property, the water is drawn from the cistern to a pressure pump, which pressurizes a pressure tank, which supplies water pressure to her house.  That provides yet another power drain and maintenance item - not to mention the expense.

M took another approach - altitude.  The cistern is mounted on the ridge overlooking his dome, and he's got about 30' of drop from the cistern to the tap.  That gives him some pressure without additional infrastructure, but I'm still waiting to see if he'll be happy with it.  I'm on the other side of the ridge, down near the wash, substantially lower.  I've got about 50' of drop, and I've got pressure to burn.  Water blasts out of that tap.  ;^)