When you begin a homestead, you are going to need a water system. In today’s post, I will share how we got our water from the creek and a spring. You can watch the video and then I will have more detail here in the blog and pictures not included in the video.
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No-Buy and No-Sell Water System
When beginning a homestead, You need to consider the source of water that will be developed into the water system. Also, consider what you will do for water in a time when you aren’t allowed to buy or sell unless you take a vaccine or the mark of the beast. Actually, water sources come from the city, wells, creeks, or springs. Of course, you will need to figure out how you will get your water if you can’t buy anything.
Water System From a Creek
In our case, we had a creek that flowed all year. To get water from our creek, we used a water pump. Unfortunately, that required gasoline and would not be a good permanent source due to the need for fuel to run the pump. I don’t have any pictures of the water pump, but I show where it was located in the video. The water was collected by a long pipe that ran from the pump and into the creek. Also, a screen was placed at the end to keep out debris. Then, we used a long hose to direct the water to where it was needed.
Water System From a Spring
I. Find and Develop a Spring
My husband, at the time, Gary, had to search way up on the mountain for a spring. Unfortunately, he didn’t find one above our house. It ended up being way down the road. This would be an added expense for pipes and much more work in trenches.
Gary found the spring seen in the featured image and began developing it with the help of our friend, Denny Judson. The pipe shown was placed to drain the water and keep it out of the way while they were working on it.
They dug this little cave into the mountainside, and they dug a hole in front of it. Next, a tank was placed in the hole, and all were filled in with shale found along the mountainside. This was very hard work. It took me over an hour to climb up there, but I later found that I made it take longer by not doing enough switchbacks. Now, I use ropes and go straight up the mountain. It is so much faster.
The above picture shows the hole where the tank was placed and the drainage pipe coming out above it. I didn’t go up again while it was being developed, so I was unable to get any more pictures.
II. Buy the Water Storage Tank
Before you can proceed with your project, you have to decide on the size of your water storage tank. My husband went to the tank store and chose a plastic one that could hold 2825 gallons. It weighed about 360 lbs. He brought it home in the back of our truck and put it near the road. Of course, the tank diameter is needed before proceeding with the next step.
III. Prepare the Pad for the Tank
A site for the water tank needs to be chosen. The easiest site would be at the base of the mountain, but there would be no water pressure. Gary and Denny chose a site up the mountain that would give us 100 lbs of pressure. The digging would require pickaxes and shovels. As you can see, Denny is hard at work with a pickax in the above picture.
The diameter of the water tank has to be measured, and then the pad can be measured to have about a foot wider diameter to support all the weight of the full tank.
This mountainside has a 65-degree angle. I was standing above them to take the above picture and it was very slippery and precarious because the leaves and shale are very unstable.
Use a Level
Obviously, a water tank will need to be on level ground. A downward slant would make the tank unstable. In the above picture, the guys are checking to see if the ground is level. It is impossible to tell with just eyeballing it. It is very deceptive. The ground looked slanted even when the level tool showed the pad to be level.
Stabilize the Pad
Now, above we can see that Denny is collecting some shale. I don’t have pictures of the finished project, but I will describe what they did. They bought rebar and chicken wire fencing and put it around the edges of the pad. The spaces between the pad and the chicken wire were filled in with the shale. As a result, the pad was stabilized to hold the weight of the tank when full of water. You will get to see the finished product in my next video and post.
Pipe from the Spring to the Staging Area
Naturally, the point of developing a spring is to have water. Gary couldn’t wait for the pad to be finished or for the tank to be moved up the mountain and into place. The water was piped all the way to the base of the mountain, which he called the staging area. He filled up a five-gallon water jug with delicious-tasting mountain spring water.
You can see the trickle coming out in the above picture compared to the water coming out with 100 pounds of pressure from the faucet in the video. The water from the faucet was coming from the water tank. The picture below shows the pipe coming down the mountain. After all the work, this was all very exciting.
IV. Move the Water Tank up the Mountain
If you have a mountain spring up a nice little slope, you might be able to drive it up with a 4-wheeler or tractor. In our situation, we have a sixty-five-degree slope and two guys needed to get a 360 lb tank up the mountain and into place on the pad. How did they do it? Well, they used rigging of ropes and vinyl-covered cables and pulleys.
The two pictures that I took of the tank were taken on the second day. The first day was spent setting up the rigging and they got it started up the mountainside. I took these pictures real fast as I had to get my daughter to school and myself to work. I am sorry to say that I didn’t get to see how they got it up there. On the third day, Denny’s tall, strong son, Ben, came to help.
Conclusion
In conclusion, water system beginnings can start out fairly easy with a water pump, but to move to mountain spring water is going to take a lot more work. In the end, the delicious water is well worth the effort. I didn’t show you the water system pipes at the tank. You will see that in an upcoming blog post and video. This beginning journey took place in October of 2013.
