Rad Anthony

Meredith Cox wrote:Another Irrigation question:
Does anyone pump water from irrigation ditch into 300 gallon tanks positioned high enough to feed a drip irrigation system?
Does it work if the drop from tank to drip line creates enough pressure? How high would the tanks have to be?

Thanks...

There's a way you could do it without placing the tank  too high. You reverse the orientation of the drip emitters. Flip it. And you will be able to get the water to drip down without much pressure. Although it won't be much flow at all, it's steady and you won't need barely any head pressure. It works.

I planted Egyptian walking onions along with garlic in the autumn and they're thriving now in winter. I think all the 'soup' veggies all like the cooler weather. They seem to taste better. I know leeks like the same.

You should be fine. Your plumbing and pump will need cleaned and maintained though. I'd try get into rain barrels if possible. Filtration is also possible but you will need to maintain it.

Ok so your spring is 5 ft deep. The house is about 5 foot higher and 200 ft away. You will need to put it a 200 ft water line from the spring to your house. Dig the trench find out your frost depth so your pipes don't freeze. Pour in 6in gravel. Lay your line. Check for leaks and pressure test. Pour more gravel. Compact. Then add the backfill back in, in 12in increments. Compact accordingly.

Then you will need a room or closet, or build an insulated shed for your pressure tank and pressure switch. Google the parts and fittings needed.

Fairly straight forward watch some videos and take notes. Not too bad. You will need a well submersible pump. If you use a pump that isn't submerged ie. Lot more involved but still possible.

I think the best water is thunderstorm rain water and spring water. I use to collect water during thunderstorms man that was the best water I ever had. So pure and electric ⚡

What you will need is called a vfd( variable frequency drive) and a basic form of PLc(programmable logic controller). The PLC you may not need tho if you want to keep it simple using relays.

With the vfd, you're able to control the hz(speed) of the pump, and start and stop. Research abb vfd.They have safety for if the pump runs dry with sensors. Wire it to your float switch or transducer. Transducer are fairly affordable nowadays. Measure and place it on the depths you want.

There's different ways to wire it. All depends on how you want to do it.

The trick here is you have a on or off for the pump based on two float switches. One for your cistern and one for the well. Start with the well. If there's enough water in the well, then pump turns on. Then you have the float switch on the cistern, if the switch turns on then the pumps turns on to fill up the cistern. So you need two yes or two on for that pump to kick on if that makes sense. Now just wire it accordingly.

You will have to do a flow test and see how much and how hard you can pump before the spring runs dry. Then keep in mind your water usage and how often the cistern will need filled. Then you can just donate rough estimate on how often the pump will need to turn on and how long.

But really you can do it many different ways. You can have the float a lot higher and just run the pump more often but for a shorter length. Or a longer time with a slower pump speed...

The main thing to worry about in water is total coliform, fecal coliform. Then you have nitrates, lead/copper if you have such pipes, pfos if you have said factories in the area. For farms the main one is nitrates and the coliforms.

Local labs will test them for about 30-50 per test. Or you can buy the test strips to give you an idea of what's going on.

A basic filtration would be a 30 micron filter, followed by a 5 micron filter, then an activated carbon filter. Activated carbon also pulls out pfos and taste and odors like low levels of sulfur. Any iron or manganese will need a special type of filter unit. Same with hard ess. That's usually in well water.

You can get a uv light if you have the voltage for it or sit it out in sunlight.

If you want to stick to that municipal water quality I suggest get a basic filtration going for your shower and grey/black water, then get you a simple reverse osmosis system for your drinking water. You can plumb the reverse osmosis(RO)filters under the sink and also plumb it to your ice maker on your fridge.

They have cheap basic water test kits. Gives you an idea of what's going on with your water. I seen folks build filtration ponds where each ponds contains filtration media that trickles into another pond. They add combinations of fish and plants to clean up the water.

Phytoremediation is a big key to pulling out or storing toxic chemicals from soil and waters. There so many common and so call invasive plants that pull out heavy metals and toxins in the soil. They utilize this is constructed wetlands and wetland restoration. And Superfund sites.

Swales more or less slow the water down. They will buy you time. If you have 16 acres, you should go with passive storage via catchment and drainage ponds. Drainage systems to flow into a big pond....series and Cascades of ponds. The trees can be in neat rows or guilds and will start holding the water in the soil more and establish water table for the future.

Go with ponds for drought and by the time the trees come up you could pump water lines drip irrigation type from those ponds to the trees.

Think of swales like capillaries in your circulatory system. Cover the soil via mulch, leaves, straw etc that will keep the soil moist always for your plants. You could even do bowls ie zuni bowls for the trees instead of swales also. Probably less work for you too. Place them clay vessels in the ground for water if you want.

You could also do giant cheap sturdy roofs and collect rainwater. Or short and wide solid tarps to catch the water or funnel it into storage.

You local forest conservation ie dcnr could give you advice too. Sometimes they have incentive to come out and provide trees seeds and labor for your property. Need to do research on this.

Some ideas hope that helps

Place your water in a glass jar out in sunlight for 24 hours. It will sterilize any bacteria and dissolve any minerals.

If you don't believe it, get yourself a cheap tds/pH meter online for cheap and do a before and after. You will see the dissolve solids drop down the sunlight will dissolve the stuff in the water. Keep storage for rainy days etc.

And or add baking soda to alkalize it to kill any pathogens, and or lemon juice to help with digestion if anything gets through. Also these two help preserve water in bottles for long time.

Filtration all depends on your raw water whether rain barrels or well.
You have to know what to treat. When it comes to water you have to pay the piper there's no free lunch. Unfortunately those days of clear springs are getting far gone. The purest water today has some sort of infiltration or starting to. It's sad.