A house with no water supply

[sandbender]

Mrs Sandbender and I have been looking (for some time) for a new place to live here in Hungary, somewhere away from the traffic, bad hairstyles and the increasing number of 24 hour off licences, underwear shops and casinos that are taking over the shopping areas of Budapest.

We are currently looking at a place about half an hour from the city, a semi rural area where commuters might live but where some folks keep pigs, sheep and cows. Lots of folk growing stuff too, lots of poly tunnels.

This property is a long slash of land up the side of a low plateau(180 - 220m-ish), the land area is about 1 hectare, and about thirty meters wide at its widest.

However there is no water supply!

I'm thinking that if I could dig a pit and line it near the top, it will fill with rain and I can siphon it down the hill to water plants etc.

There is a public water pump further down the hill that I can collect drinking water from.

Early days and no money is going to be changing hands any time soon.

Any thoughts?

 

[TeeDee]

Do you know about Swales on contour?

I'll try and dig out some better links after work but building swales into the terrain would contibute greatly to slowing movement of water off the land and so create a more constant moist environment.

I'm sure if you do a search on Youtube for 'Permaculture Swales' you'll get the idea.


http://www.foodproduction101.com/tag/swales

 

[santaman2000]

How hard would it be (both legally, and technologically) to have a proper well bored and get a real pump?

 

[Toddy]

I was wondering that too. Even an old hand crank pump would be better than no supply. I'm told that solar powered trickle feed ones are excellent things if sited properly, and windmill ones can slowly and reliably fill a cistern...but all still need an aquifer from which to draw the water in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windpump

Maybe it'd be easier to get a feed onto the public water supply and pump it from there ?

Sorry Sandbender, you know the land I live on, I cannot imagine having no water. Draining it off it is a more usual problem here; I don't think I'm being of much help.
How do the locals supply themselves in such a situation ?

cheers,

M

 

[spandit]

I would look at digging a proper deep well, with a pump (both manual and electric) plus some big storage tanks. Having a slope gives you the advantage of gravity, you might even be able to siphon into tanks if the well is high enough up...

 

[Ecoman]

Borehole would be the way to go. Depending on the underlying rock you may not even need to filter it.

We are supplied by a burn and our supply runs through a 5 micron filter and a UV tube to kill off the nasties.

 

[Ecoman]

Borehole would be the way to go. Depending on the underlying rock you may not even need to filter it. You could pump it to a holding tank higher up the slope and gravity feed the taps or you could just pump directly to your house and have a pressure cut off switch and a one way valve to stop it running back.

We are supplied by a burn and our supply runs through a 5 micron filter and a UV tube to kill off the nasties.

 

[sandbender]

Thanks for all those replies. A bore hole may well be the way to go, the cost may be an issue though, most of the wells and public pumps are much further down the hill which might suggest that a bore hole on that land may have to be very deep.

So far I have only looked at the place from outside the property, tomorrow I will view the house and land and will try to speak to some of the neighbouring properties to ask how they source their water.

It will be Mrs. sandbenders mom and dad who will fund the purchase so the final decision won't be mine, I need to get a sound argument/plan in place to convince them.

"...Do you know about Swales on contour?..."

I do not, but I will look in to it.

 

[British Red]

A rain fed pond is not a good option for a number of reasons

1) It is open to pollution from animals, birds etc
2) Its catchment area is too small
3) Its open to evaporation

Some form of roof gather diverted into your water holding would really help - particularly if there is a barn or other large roofed structure to "feed" water in.

Ideally your water containment should be sealed and opaque to prevent algae.

Happy to discuss in more detail as we use rainwater for exactly the purposes you describe.

 

[sandbender]

A rain fed pond is not a good option for a number of reasons

1) It is open to pollution from animals, birds etc
2) Its catchment area is too small
3) Its open to evaporation

Some form of roof gather diverted into your water holding would really help - particularly if there is a barn or other large roofed structure to "feed" water in.

Ideally your water containment should be sealed and opaque to prevent algae.

Happy to discuss in more detail as we use rainwater for exactly the purposes you describe.

I have bookmarked the thread where you show your rainwater harvesting system, the house is quite small and is at the bottom of the hill so even if I could collect enough water for the veg and fruit I'd have to come up with a means to get it up the hill, do-able though.

All good points, a pond is out then.

At the house that is my home address in Scotland we have an underground brick tank with about five cubic meters capacity on a nearby hill, which keeps us and two neigbours in water all year around.

I would hope to put up outbuildings as time goes on so the square footage of available roof space will increase.

What about collecting water that falls on a poly tunnel? Could I run some screwfix guttering at ground level to collect that?

 

[British Red]

You could indeed . Underground tanks are perfect - cool, dark, strong.

Our above ground system is 10,000 litres (10 cubic metres). We find in insufficient for garden irrigation. It gives us 20 hours of sprinkler use. When you think that it can be weeks between rainfall in the Summer, thats not much.

A lot depends on how the rain works where you are, but its worth considering that what WE need is more storage, not more catchment.

 

[sandbender]

"...A lot depends on how the rain works where you are, but its worth considering that what WE need is more storage, not more catchment.."

Indeed, lots of rain here at certain times of the the year but with some very dry summers (with the occasional very heavy downpour). Lots of storage will be the way to go.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

My relatives lived above the Lake Of Menteith and they had a small burn feeding a tank, they soon realised that this was not enough storage. Just for non drinking water use. So they built another storage tank(well I did when I was a student). Still not enough in the summer months. They realised, as others have said, it's the storage of water rather than the amount of rain that falls. I wouldn't underestimate the amount of living water you will need.

 

[sandbender]

After all that, it has a well.

A few other problems though, a bit more research and some endless waiting on the phone with the local council ahead.

Thanks all.

 

[Parbajtor]

Mrs Sandbender and I have been looking (for some time) for a new place to live here in Hungary, somewhere away from the traffic, bad hairstyles and the increasing number of 24 hour off licences, underwear shops and casinos that are taking over the shopping areas of Budapest.

We are currently looking at a place about half an hour from the city, a semi rural area where commuters might live but where some folks keep pigs, sheep and cows. Lots of folk growing stuff too, lots of poly tunnels.

This property is a long slash of land up the side of a low plateau(180 - 220m-ish), the land area is about 1 hectare, and about thirty meters wide at its widest.

However there is no water supply!

I'm thinking that if I could dig a pit and line it near the top, it will fill with rain and I can siphon it down the hill to water plants etc.

There is a public water pump further down the hill that I can collect drinking water from.

Early days and no money is going to be changing hands any time soon.

Any thoughts?

water table is very high pretty much all over Hungary, it's why the traditional wells you see over there are a weighted pole and a bucket. Your problem isn't access to water, but purification. You don't have to dig too deep before you find your hole fills with water anyway.

 

[Parbajtor]

After all that, it has a well.

A few other problems though, a bit more research and some endless waiting on the phone with the local council ahead.

Thanks all.

Submersible pump should do the job

 

[British Red]

After all that, it has a well.

A few other problems though, a bit more research and some endless waiting on the phone with the local council ahead.

Thanks all.

A well is not the "be all and end all" - worth checking

1) Water depth (weighted line how much of it is wet)
2) Flow (bail it dry, how long does it take to re-fill to previous depth) - calculate volume of cylinder / time to get litres per minute
3)Seasonality (does it ever run dry)
4) Purity (get it tested - it may need filtration - easily achieved and I can tell you how)

All that said, a well is a huge asset!

 

[sandbender]

water table is very high pretty much all over Hungary, it's why the traditional wells you see over there are a weighted pole and a bucket. Your problem isn't access to water, but purification. You don't have to dig too deep before you find your hole fills with water anyway.

Indeed, although this is in the hilly north west of Hungary rather than on the plain so if a bore hole had been needed I had wondered how deep it might have to be. People are drinking the water from their wells in nearby plots, in others they do not. In this property the single elderly owner had her water brought in.

Maybe she didn't want to go to the expense of a filtration/purification system, maybe there is arsenic in the groundwater, we'll look into it.

 

[sandbender]

A well is not the "be all and end all" - worth checking

1) Water depth (weighted line how much of it is wet)
2) Flow (bail it dry, how long does it take to re-fill to previous depth) - calculate volume of cylinder / time to get litres per minute
3)Seasonality (does it ever run dry)
4) Purity (get it tested - it may need filtration - easily achieved and I can tell you how)

All that said, a well is a huge asset!

No it has never run dry, nor have the wells on nearby properties.

Flow and purity are things we will look at, I am a bit suspicious as to why she has been shipping in her water.

"...(get it tested - it may need filtration - easily achieved and I can tell you how)..."!

Thanks for that.

 

[tiger stacker]

Once you are sorted out, could plant some carnations please. natural water source all year round depends on the local geology. We are lucky with Loch Katrine, and other lochs feeding Glasgow. When my uncle lived in Ballentrae, his cottage depended the local river to fill his tanks.
Good luck