Getting Water For The Property
There is no running water on the property, not even a trickle of rain runoff between June and October. I have been using throw away plastic water bottles. That is expensive and hard on the environment so have bought some 5 gallon jugs. Refilling at the grocer store vending machine is still expensive but at least not a burden on the landfill.
I am reviewing 3 solutions to this problem:
Rain Collection
I randomly heard of some free available rain barrels on Seattle’s Next Door App. Not knowing what to look for I loaded them up and picked up 4 well used barrels and connecting tubes.
The barrels were made specifically for rain collection with all the plumbing holes pre-molded into the plastic. They also use thick plastic liner bags. The liner bags were moldy and full of holes so they needed to be replaced. They are specifically fitted to the barrels and the plumbing holes so I had to contact the company to get replacement. It took some close inspection to find the logo molded into the one of the barrel panels. I did some internet searching and came up with the website for Scepter out of Canada. There was no sales catalogue on-line so I sent an email to customer service. A quick but friendly response informed me that the barrels hadn’t been made for at least 15 years and the liners were no longer available. I thanked them and went off to come up with another solution. A couple of hours later there was another friendly email from Scepter Customer service (Scepter is a Canadian company hence them being so nice). Since the initial bad news email was sent, the rep dug through the warehouse shelves and found the last four liners on earth and offered to send them to me for free. I gladly accepted and had them a few days later.
While I was waiting for the liners to arrive, I scrubbed at least 15 years of dirt and algae off the barrels, relocated a few slugs and tried to figure out how all the pieces fit back together.
When the liners showed up, I packed up my car with all the parts and all of the off-grid supplies I was going to need and headed to the property.
There were no instructions with the barrels, It took a while to figure out how to put them back together. I reverse engineered all the tubing, connectors and barrel holes to figure out how to set them up again. The original tubes moldy and brittle, not reusable. A few trips to the local Ace Hardware and a few to the lumber yard and I finally had enough parts to put everything together again.
Rain Barrel Set up on the cold side
The roof gutters were an afterthought buy the previous owner. They weren’t even positioned to catch water coming off the roof. I had to buy some flashing to cover a gap between the roof and the gutter. I also had to build a base out of pressure treated 4×4 and 2x4s to make sure the barrels stayed on the same plane. After getting everything up and running and waiting for the first rain, I realized that the barrels were on the shady side of the trailer and collected water would be more likely to freeze hard and crack the barrels.
I picked everything up and moved it to the sunny side. There was no gutter on that side and the rafters extended well past the roof edge. I used the Sawzall and cut the rafters shorter and added a gutter. I couldn’t find a down spout that would fit both the gutter and the barrels so I improvised with a 5 gallon bucket and a piece of PVC pipe. That seems to work .
 Rain Barrel Platform |
 Rain Barrels on Platform |
 Rafters cut shorter |
 Saggy Gutter |
I got everything set up just before I had to leave for the winter so I wasn’t able to test and adjust. It was what it was.
When I returned in the spring, I was disappointed to see that only the first barrel had water. After a few more rainy days and barrel swapping, I realized the the plastic liners were leaking around the connector pipe openings. I tried some caulk and tightened the connectors some more but the barrels refused to fill up.
so far, I think the free rain barrels are a bust. I think there is a design flaw with the plastic liners leaking at seams and spigot holes. As much as I tried to seal them with plumber’s putty and caulking, I cant get a tight enough seal around the spigots and any water I get is just leaking out. So this was an unreliable solution. I am considering trying leak sealant tape but it would probably be cheaper to just get some barrels off of Craig’s list.
Drilling A Well
There is a whole process to get a well dug here in Kittitas County.
It starts with applying for a Permit to dig the well. This costs about $4600 and may or may not be approved. The process takes from 3 months to a year.
If approved, a well drilling company is than contracted to come up and poke a hole. It is an expensive hole too. From $50 to $70 per foot, regardless as to whether they hit water or not. Typical wells hit water from 350 to 500 feet up here on the mountain. So it is a pricey effort and water isn’t guaranteed in the end. There seems to be a waiting list of 6 months to a year to get the drilling truck on site too.
The expense is high as is the risk of not hitting water. However the value of the property will increase considerably if the well hits.
I selected Tumwater Drilling and Pump out of Leavenworth, Wa. to actually dig the well due to their experience in my area and recommendation from my Real Estate agent. I have seen their trucks around neighboring properties all summer. They didn’t do a site visit before bidding out the work. I thought that was odd especially given my off grid and tenuous access road. They have since sent out one of their drillers who reported that they wouldn’t have a problem getting to the property if the weather stays dry for a few weeks to firm up the dirt road.
The Tumwater folks also recommended that I have a water dowser named Joe Wood walk the property to increase my chances of a hit. They gave me the same name that my Real Estate Agent gave me. Even though I am skeptical, professionals from two different professions made me think it couldn’t hurt except for the $300 lightening of my wallet. This Blog Post shows him in action.
After an hour walking around the property that he knew the trucks could get to with little preparation on my part, he marked out a couple places where he was getting indications of water. I marked them and prepared to leave for the winter. Additional Well preparations would have to wait until the Spring.
Winter came and went, I rolled back up to the property in April. The neighbors said it wasn’t a snowy winter, just a lot of rain. The result was that my dirt access road being heavily rutted out and brutally bumpy with pools of water in the lower spots. I was concerned that the well drillers wouldn’t want to drive their trucks over it. More pressing was the getting the trailer towed over it. Probably more fragile then the Well trucks.
I spent a week with a pick and shovel trying to smooth it out as best as I could by hand. It is over a mile long and not a
sustainable solution. I ended up buying an LS Tractor from a local dealer. It is from South Korea has the better price point for features and power compared to the Mahindras I was also looking at. It also came with free delivery which saved me at least $100. We’ll see how it holds up.
The tractor was immediately put to work clearing the drilling truck pad. It had to be 40 feet wide by 80 feet long. It was load after load of dirt. I hit 100 hours on the tractor moving the digging and moving it to the pit full of junk. It is a much bigger hole than I thought. By the time I cleared the pad I had only barely filled it enough to build a dirt bridge across it.
The pad was big enough that the well trucks could park side by side to do their thing. Now I just had to wait for their schedule to open up. They rolled around in mid July and went to work. it was a loud muddy affair and a bit anxiety rich as I waited for them to hit water. Each new drill rod they added was probably $1000 added to the bill. Rod after rod when down the hole and no water to report. Until after the 3rd day when they were closing in on 500 feet, they hit some water. It wasn’t a gusher by any stretch, maybe a gallon a minute by their indicators. The county caps my usage at 250 gallons a day so I have plenty. The drillers said the water level topped out at 178 feet down but their fancy level checker wasn’t working very well.
I called it a success and will work on the pump and storage next summer.
Water Hauling
A solution I am looking into is Hauling water. This would require getting or building out a trailer with a high flow water pump and a 250 gallon tank. a gallon of water weighs about 8 pounds so 250 gallons would be the most manageable size to tow the full container up the mountain and over the dirt access road. Beyond putting the water trailer together ( they cost about $6000 prebuilt), the biggest challenge will be finding available water. I haven’t been able to find out if taking water out of the local water is legal. There may be a public water faucet in town that is metered but I haven’t gotten around to finding it yet. Compared to a well it is a much cheaper solution. Just the hassle factor of hauling the water.
Filter and Purification
I have been getting my water from a faucet in the city park one gallon at a time. It is very inconvenient and a hassle. A couple of times the cheap water jugs reused from the grocery store water jugs cracked and leaked all over the car. It is the only solution until I can get the well dug since the rain collection system didn’t work well. I could upgrade the rain water collection but summer rains is negligible and would have to continue hauling it as the barrels dried up. My hope is that the well water is clean and clear. Otherwise I will still need a filter system. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.