Douglas Alpenstock

Wow, all that brickwork is pretty cool. Old mortar in the well casing bricks makes me nervous though -- a possible leaky sieve.

I would ask the typical depth of good wells in the area.

Based on the lay of the land, am I collecting good groundwater or runoff water?

Can a casing / sand point be put down to exclude runoff water?

And if there is a very shallow groundwater or runoff water, I would carefully consider where that might be coming from in the mile surrounding it.

Phil Stevens wrote:Unless they changed the formulation, which is not out of the question. The ambiguity of the whole thing is what gets me. They should be clear about it and keep their documentation up to date, since people can and do use rainwater for domestic needs.

True, though if they had a new formula that was rain-collection friendly, they would trumpet that in their marketing.

Once retailers start hosting documentation on their own sites instead of pointing to the manufacturer's site, it's impossible for the manufacturing company to control versions. That's hard enough to do within a single company with a single command structure (ask me how I know).

My understanding is that rabbit poop can go directly into the garden, so it's not excessively "hot" nitrogen-wise. If you are using wood shavings as the litter, that ought to provide the brown matter needed to offset the urine.

You really could do this in an oversize garbage bin, layer by layer. Put a good layer of dry stuff (shavings, char) at the bottom so it doesn't go anaerobic. Layer in your poop/urine/shavings, then a skiff of garden soil (for the microbes) and a bit of fine char.

I did this years ago, directly in cat litter boxes. They loved it.

John C Daley wrote:I may stand corrected, but I have not seen those issues.
Here is a further link https://pdf.lowes.com/productdocuments/121aa11b-b343-4f91-80aa-0b580cc43b30/47616957.pdf

that specifically states
"...Do not use in drinking water or food systems. "

Thanks for the link, John C. It looks like the manufacturer  removed this statement in newer versions of their documentation (Technical Data Sheet and SDS). Or maybe it's still on the pail label. Regardless, if it was true in 2022 it is still true today.

John C Daley wrote:A google search found this
"No, APOC 243 is not safe for drinking water collection.
The official manufacturer product safety documents explicitly state: "Do not use in drinking water or food systems".

I am as sceptical as you. However, the documents I can find from the manufacturer at apoc.com do not appear to contain this statement.  It's a mystery -- I am not sure where this comes from?

Hi Patrik. What a wonderful challenge!

I am not in possession of the case studies you are looking for. Perhaps others can chime in.

What I can give you is a few unofficial, unscientific observations from controlled burns in Jasper National Park, Canada. It does not seem the trees that remain upright are standing charcoal. Rather, they have some unfinished charcoal on the outside and a lot of torrified wood. They remain standing for a remarkably long time, suggesting to me that they resist fungal and insect decomposers.

The massively destructive 2024 wildfire in Jasper offers new options for observation. I'm hoping to look more closely at this in the fall.

Jackson Bradley wrote:I gave an apple to the other category. ...  I think the grain finished picture most people have are the giant cafo grain finishing feedlots.  ...I had black and white thinking with this until we discovered this storefront and local ranch. I had no idea you could grain finish on pasture.

Like Jackson, I voted "other." The beef I get from a family member is a mix of both methods on site.

When I buy the stuff from supermarkets, the mass feedlot stuff, I can literally smell the difference.

That's completely bonkers. What the hell kind of sense does that make?

I wonder what the practical limit of a hypothetical medieval village might be? A day's walk? A day's round-trip drive with a horse and wagon?

Also, I'm curious if anyone else has looked at their local "village of skills."

Cameron Miller wrote: Would you drink filtered water with a roof with such a coating or am I overthinking this? Ive still been using unfiltered roof water collected to do dishes / wash, etc but not drink.

The Safety Data Sheet lists the reflective components in detail, and I think those could be filtered out. (Titanium Dioxide, limestone, silica crystalline - quartz, kaolin - a bentonite clay)

But as far as I can tell it doesn't talk about the elastomeric (rubberizing) components, and personally I think that's the wild card. My guess is this is a sort of flexible plastic glue that holds it on the roof surface. As a rule the more flexible a plastic is, the less healthy it is. So I would be cautious.

Personally, in an emergency/short term situation I would let the rain wash off the roof and then collect the water for filtering/boiling. For long term use, I would set up a separate collection system with a different roofing material. My 2c.