5 Water Storage Myths

[MoonShadows]

Sounds interesting! Any idea what a system like that costs?

 

[Hinotori]

I think she spent just shy of 20k. They did all the work themselves, and her husband actually designed their system. They did it out of necessity, really. They have 6 wells drilled on the 8 acres. Each time it was deeper and deeper and they still didn't hit a good aquifer. So the wells don't produce very much at all, about enough to water her chicken flocks and the garden. They have water rights, so they can take water from the stream on their property as well.

 

[MoonShadows]

Wow!

 

[sumi]

We lived on a small smallholding in S.A. for more than a year, relying on nothing but rainwater collected from the roof and stored in tanks and one biggish container/dam at the house, which was our provider for household use. We learned to use water sparingly and we managed. Most of our grey water went to water the vegetable garden and we had a pretty big garden.

Sadly our only "crisis" with this method happened after a long-awaited good rainfall filled our reserves one night. One of our household (we were 4 adults and 3 children sharing) checked the water levels in our main tank and found one of the cats fell into the tank and drowned. Effectively spoiling the water for consumption. That was a massive double blow. We kept he tank and "dam" covered, except for one area of maybe 2 sq feet where we checked the water level and somehow the cat managed to fall in there For the time needed to clean out (and use, we couldn't afford to discard all that precious water), we bought gallons of bottled water in town and filled our bottles with water from public bathrooms, when we were able to.

 

[wooddustmaker]

Canning water in a water bath canner has saved me many a broken jar! The violence of the water boiling, with a less full than canner seems to eat jars. I always reuse a used, clean lid. If it doesn't seal, no loss, except for a jar that may have not broke. I have also never had a used lid not seal....

One can also buy the Berkey filters, and make their own water filter. I was lucky, and got mine from a classified ad, with multiple filters for a very good price. Had that not happened, I would have made my own.

 

[lcertuche]

I think I'll just add a jar of beans or leftover soup to the pot to make up a full canner. At least that's the plan.