finding good usable water on her
homestead wasn't easy but it started by
hiring a well Witcher after he came out
he found two good locations one was a
hundred and twenty eight feet deep and
one was 12 feet deep literally as soon
as he left I started digging
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with my postal lager I got down 14 feet
deep and obviously there was no water
I rented a mini excavator and again was
able to get down about 14 feet the soil
was getting damp but no water
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there was one particular spot that I was
fairly certain had water
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after digging down just a few feet the
hole began to fill up with water the
next morning when I showed up with the
property this is how full it had gotten
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I knew we'd solve our water problem but
the next question is how to best capture
this water pump it nearly 500 feet up
the hill store it properly where it's
not going to freeze then filter it in a
way where it's going to be usable around
the property my backhoe would dig around
18 feet deep so my goal was to dig a 12
foot by 12 foot by 18 foot deep hole
thinking that would be enough water for
what we would need
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the well seems to be flowing about 15
gallons per minute we're in the middle
of a drought as well so I knew this was
good
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now that I have the water established I
have to figure out how best to capture
this I decided to use 48 inch concrete
culverts as a well sister placing them
on top of each other ended up giving me
about an 18 foot deep cistern I was able
to give these at the scratch and dent
price of about $600 I then got about 30
tons of gravel and started filling up
the hole around the concrete cistern
I then put a landscaping fabric down
first to try and keep any silt or
sediment out of the cistern
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punching through the side of the cistern
I put my one-inch pipe in place sealed
it then covered it with six mil plastic
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now to run the water line on top of
running the water line I also placed
what's called a 16-2 landscaping
lighting wire I will use this wire as
the on/off switch when my water tank is
full
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I'm only running 1 1 inch water line
from the well all the way up to my 2500
gallon water tank which ends up being
about a hundred and thirty vertical feet
above my house and almost 900 linear
feet
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along the way we installed six different
Woodford yard hydrants I did not
pressure test the water lines before
backfilling but using pecks that was
more than confident that we wouldn't
have any leaks
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the backhoe would only go so far up the
hill so I had to get the excavator to
finish the job
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it was a spot on our hill that was a
perfect spot for the water tank
initially I thought it was about 90 feet
high but I later found out it was about
a hundred and forty
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this inevitably affected the water
pressure in a good way
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I had to backfill as I went because this
was the road that I was going to use to
transport the water tank up the hill
I spent a good four hours making sure
that the pad was perfectly level and
there were no rocks that could
potentially rub a hole in the water tank
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two layers of carpet underneath that
ensures that I won't damage the bottom
of this tank
I also made room for a second water tank
that we may install sometime next year
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the take itself only weighs about 400
pounds but it's big and bulky I strapped
her to my old truck and I was able to
get it up the hill without the issues
carefully using the excavator I got it
in place
I now tie in the pecs waterlines and I'm
ready for the solar panels and the well
pump I ended up going with a company
called RPS solar or rural Power Systems
because they had a complete kit
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after emailing with them they talked me
through the process and it was very cut
and dried very straightforward
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I initially installed the solar panels
and it went up without any problems
this is the well pump that sits about
two feet off the bottom of the tank
their system also has what's called a
dry switch if we ever pump out too much
water it shuts the pump off instead of
letting it continue to run following
their instructions I wired it up as they
specified and voila we've got water
initially I thought I would have around
45 to 50 psi but we ended up with 85 psi
all right now
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but after a two and a half year struggle
getting the water done is an absolute
GameChanger
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