Rural Water

[richhodg66]

Been living in a rural setting about seven years now, most of those years have been real wet, this year, not so much, in fact, the state is in a real bad drought.

To make matters worse, a guy bought the ten acre lot adjacent to us, has been living in a 5th wheel on it about a year while he cleared land, earth moved, etc. and is now building a house.

About two weeks ago, turned on the water, nothing. Went for a couple of days which we were out a lot, turned the pump back on and water is back. OK. This weekend, it did the same thing. I have someone coming out to check to make sure all is well with the pump, but I suspect the water table just isn't there.

If that is the case, I suppose the first option is to drill a deeper well?

Nearly everywhere I've lived was on a municipal water source of some type, but I see where Kansas has a rural water association, anuyone know how that works? Seems like you can pay to put in the piping to the nearest main and then have steady water like on a city system, is that right?

I really like living way out from people, hate the idea of moving, but I kind of wonder how to deal with no water if this drought goes on, not wanting to get into climate change, but it sure looks like it's going to be drier for the foreseeable future.

 

[popper]

Thought your area was very wet this yr? From storm maps, you got hit pretty hard. But past yrs were pretty dry too. Yup, water is pretty deep now. N texas has same problem. Expecting a dry yr again.

 

[JonB]

I know nothing about Kansas and their water situation, except that they have had draughts before.
.
Water, you can't live without it.
.Before you make a big decision about digging deeper or connecting to a water association, I'd get as much information as possible about your area and underground water. Talk to neighbors, talk to the County. In MN we have Watershed districts, if Kansas has same, talk to them too.
Cuz, much like a City and being connected to City water, with a water association, you'll have little control what you pay for it. There are modern day prognosticators that are saying that, in the near future, water will be the new oil.

 

[richhodg66]

For about three years in a row, we had like four inches of rain every day, not much of an exageration. Had standing water in a low area on the back part of the property pretty much all the time. Two dry years in a row, Kansas is looking at the worst wheat harvest since 1917 they're saying. Kansas Drought

It kinda sucks that the nearby town is a couple miles away, I'm sure pumps their water out of the Smoky Hill river which runs right next to it. A couple of years ago, they built a sewage lagoon about a half mile north of me and ran the line out to it right along the road in to my place. I had gone to their city council meeting and raised hell at the mayor when I found out (really piss poor communication on their part). What I should have done was leveraged the impact on me tyo get them to run city water out to me.

 

[Ian]

Since your state doesn't regulate rainwater harvesting, I would do that. We faced similar problems here in Texas with overdevelopment and falling water tables, switched to rainwater and never looked back. Drought years force us to conserve a little but only because we don't have enough storage capacity.

 

[richhodg66]

I've been considering doing that, we got a toad strangler rain a few days ago, about all that does is have everything run off without doing much, but the amout of water than came off the roof of my Morton building could have filled a couple of 55 gallon barrels I'm sure.

 

[Rick H]

I talked with a guy who built his dream home in Northern New Mexico. The place had zero water, he said he could drill 5 miles deep and still not hit water. He had to maintain a cistern of a certain capacity for fire fighting purposes. A second tank for drinking water/personal use water. He captured rainwater when he could and drove into Colorado (nearest town) with a 200+ gallon tank in the back of his PU for drinking water. Every trip to town included a stop at the public well head to fill up with water. He paid to have the water trucked in and tanks filled the first time and periodically when he couldn't keep up with the water tank in his PU. It seems pretty strange to this Michigan guy who has the opposite problem of trying to keep water out of our basements.

This guy loved the high desert and moved from Michigan. He thought the aggravation was worth it.

 

[Ian]

I have 12,000 gallons of storage capacity and collect about 1,000 gallons per inch. We use about 1500 gallons per month but there are only a couple of time a year we get rain and it's a bunch all at once (got an inch yesterday afternoon in about 15 minutes) so it's more about storage than roof area for us. You can add carports or a metal roof over your storage tanks themselves to add harvesting capacity. Bonus is no minerals in the water, can wash a crystal glass with a bar of Ivory soap and it rinses clean.

 

[Ian]

You can also put in a storage tank and pressure pump system and a timer on the well that only pumps a few gallons at a time throughout the day with a long rest period. We do this a lot where wells are weak or slow to recharge. Another good addition is a Pump Tek shutoff that will keep your pump from burning up when it starts sucking air.

 

[Glaciers]

Rick H and Ian hit on exactly what I was going to say, storage an pressure pump system. But the capability to haul it yourself as well.
I’ll add to that, water conservation in anyway you can. Our showers have handheld shower heads with shut off buttons. We live in our class A motorhome sometimes for 3 to 4 months and not in RV parks. We have solar so power isn’t a problem, haven’t used the generator since 2015. There’s 70 gallons of fresh water which will last for a 7 day week with 2 showers each washing dishes and bathroom needs.
Learn to be conservative. Ian has a lot of storage but in his country it’s practical. We were looking at moving to Arizona and building a house, I was planning on putting a cistern under the house. Have to do that on the sly as Arizona does have a run off rain regulation. But like Texas Arizona gets rain in buckets from time to time.
But you having a part time well if you install a holding tank system and be able to haul water yourself. Well independents speaks for itself.
Here in Alaska holding tank systems are common. There are probably 4 business that water delivery is there sole product.
The cabin I’m building right now has 210 gallons of storage but built around the same mindset as motorhome living.

This is right at one end of our small bathroom.
This isn’t quite complete in this picture, but at this time is it is fully functional. 210 gallons of storage, 12 gallons of hot water. My nephew is going to rent from us for a year or two while we get our act together to downsize. He has a Subaru wagon and I have a 35 gallon tank that he will use as needed. When Karyn and I finally move here and our use hits 150 a week we will be in pigs heaven.
Yes that’s one end of the water spectrum, but we live on a well now and still don’t leave the tap running.
In our future after we move in we will probably have a 1500 gallon tank buried next to the cabin. That should last us two and a half months.
We’ve lived in cabins where your water supply was a 5 gallon jug, to having a well and real running water. We have also not only lived for extended times in a land yachts but also in vessels on salt water for extended periods of time.
It’s a different mind set but very comfortable if done right. The independence is priceless.

 

[Gary]

I live in SE Kansas and am a board member on our Rural Water District. If you have a Rural Water District in your area Rich, ask about joining. Here it's a $1500 meter setting and then so much per 1000 gallons. Biggest cost would be to attach to the system, i.e. pipe and trenching. Our water comes from a lake 15 miles to our north.

 

[richhodg66]

You can also put in a storage tank and pressure pump system and a timer on the well that only pumps a few gallons at a time throughout the day with a long rest period. We do this a lot where wells are weak or slow to recharge. Another good addition is a Pump Tek shutoff that will keep your pump from burning up when it starts sucking air.

Just had the plumber come out, looks like the pump quit. Not that old, maybe four years. A thought is that it wore out prematurely due to the low water table. We'll know more when he comes to replace it.

As to conservation, it's just us two. I take a shower that lasts about two minutes, but God bless her, she's a woman and I have never known one that wasn't consumptive and wasteful.

Between the shop and the house, I have enough roof space that this rain water harvesting sounds like a good idea. I'm sure there's a lot to learn. You must have to treat it with something to make it potable, although, I've drunk water straight out of streams a lot in my life before, so maybe not.

Gonna look into the rural water district thing. Gonna go talk to the construction business a quarter mile away and see if they are on a well or rural water. A few thousand bucks is cheap at the price to not have to go through this every few years. Gonna pay a call on the new neighbors and ask some questions too. I should have bought that lot when it came up for sale but it was priced about four times what land is worth like that and I'm at a point where I don't want more debt. I've met them, haven't socialized much, but they seem to be good folks. Maybe the two of us could team up on this rural water thing.

 

[Ian]

Many ways to catch, store, and sanitize your rainwater. First thing is a roof washer, "first flush"n or diversion system that lets the first bit of rain go elsewhere along with the dust, pollen, birdshit, and whatever else has been accumulating on the roof between rains. Next thing is a sediment filter for the pressure system, then an ultraviolet light sanitizing system. The UV system can be large for the whole house or just do what I did and put in a small system and a drinking water tap by the main faucet in the kitchen. I test my cistern water about once a year and it's always tested safe so we brush our teeth with it and don't worry about showering with an open cut or insect bite.

I'd suggest getting a black poly storage tank of at least 2500 gallons and hooking up a pressure pump to it and plumb the well to fill the storage tank. You can run your gutters to it too, or fill from a portable tank, hire water hauled, whatever. Once that's working and you have three sources to fill the tank, you can add more storage.

 

[Ian]

Oh, insist on a pump tek or similar safety control for your new submersible pump, particularly if the hole is known to go dry periodically.

 

[Farmerjim]

My well is 190 feet deep. It gives me 14 gallons a minute forever. My neighbors well is 450 feet deep and gives him 35 gallons a minute forever. A city well is 3/4 of a mile to my west. It is 1,700 feet deep and produces more water than the locals need.

 

[Bret4207]

I was thinking it was likely the pump. Glad to hear it was that and not a dry well!

 

[Petrol & Powder]

I can’t speak much to the ground water of Kansas but I’m up to speed on wells in general.

If you think of the bore of the well as a reservoir, there are two major factors that determine how much water that well can produce over a given period of time.

The first is how fast water enters the well bore. This varies greatly based on factors such as the makeup of the rock the well is drilled into, the amount of the aquifer the well intersects, the amount of water in the aquifer above the bottom of the bore, etc. 2 gallons per minute is about the minimum in my neck of the woods.

The second factor is the amount of water ABOVE the pump. If the bore of the well is 6” in diameter, every foot of water is roughly 1.47 gallons of storage capacity. (the pump and pipe will displace some of that, so the actual amount is slightly less).

If you have a 6” diameter well bore with an average of 30’ of water above the level of the pump, that works out to about 44 gallons of water above the pump. As you pump that water out of the well, ground water will seep back into the well bore and slowly replace it. The gallons per minute that the well recovers determine how fast that reserve will be re-filled. This is an oversimplification but those are the basics. Geology and environmental conditions have a LOT to do with the details.

Going deeper doesn’t always make the well more productive unless the bore intersects more ground water. However, a deeper shaft may (in some rock conditions) allow a greater reserve of water above the pump.

Capturing rainwater and holding that in some type of cistern can allow you to conserve limited amounts of well water for the critical needs (drinking, cooking, bathing) and use the rainwater for washing clothes, flushing toilets, etc.

A front loader washing machine uses WAY less water per load than a top loader. Taking “Navy” showers (not allowing the shower to run continuously) will also save a considerable amount of water.

Glaciers RV experience is good guide on water conservation.

 

[Ian]

Pump might have quit because it ran dry. It only takes a minute or two for them to overheat and fry when starved for cooling water. By the time it's pulled, the water level will have recovered, but a good pump man can determine quickly if running dry killed it. It also might be a good time to have the depth sounded and add pipe as necessary to put the pump down about six feet from the bottom.

 

[fiver]

you could always Perf and Frack the well too.
i've gone out and done water wells more than once, that extends your gathering ability out horizontally.

i was just watching a deal on 'this old house' where they was putting in a cistern system on a place in Maine.
it consisted of 2 2500 gallon storage tanks and an engineered piping system.
the actual tanks were a lot bigger than 2500 gallons though, so the water had a 'settling' side and a feed the house side of each tank.

 

[Ian]

Yep, several 55-gallon drums of hydrochloric acid down the hole can help rejuvinate a well if the pores of the limestone are choked with lime deposits. I'll leave the underground splody stuff to the experts...