Best option for getting water from well to cabin

Hi,

We've just acquired some land in Galicia, northern Spain. We are putting up a cabin while we build something more permanent. We have two wells. One is above the cabin site, about 100m away and the other is closer, about 25m away. The furthest one doesn't need much pumping, but needs more piping and we don't ant to use PVC. The other needs a bigger pump and less piping (still no PVC). Anyone have any ideas on what might be the most ecological and cost effective solution?

many thanks,
Yolanda

Howdy Yolanda, welcome to permies! What type of piping is connected to the pumps? I am not sure of alternatives but might be that you will have to use some sort of pipe?

Hi there - thanks for responding!

The wells haven't been used by people for 40 years and we are waiting for water tests. If it's no good we'll have to sink another well, so the same issue applies. There are no pipes connecting to the house at present. We will have to put in pipes, so are looking for the best options. I'm really trying to avoid plastic, but I can't find an alternative. Any ideas?

You have a huge advantage with the higher well...you can pump into a tank or cistern up there and then let water come to the cabin, and anywhere else lower down, by gravity in pipes or hose or whatever. You can have a solar-direct pump, without batteries, pressure tank, etc. --just have a float valve in the tank to shut the pump off if the tank fills up. If you don't use the water very fast, you might want to tote jugs up there and fill them manually while the pump is on for drinking.....tank water should be adequate for most other purposes. Cheap polyethylene hose, popular for irrigation systems, is the easy way for moving the water around.....

someone just posted last week that Portugal uses stainless steel and compression fittings.

you may want to try pricing it out there, and make the drive.

PEX is pretty stable of the plastics, but is spendy.