Transporting water to property viable?

[crwilson]

Hey everyone I am just wondering how viable it would be to transport water to my property for animals I plan to get this spring and a greenhouse I am going to move from its current location. I can get water from a well about a half mile away "parents farm" and would probably get it in those steel caged food grade tanks maybe a couple on a trailer and pull it with my suv. They are 275 us gallons each. So if I had 3 pigs and maybe 100 meat birds, and a 18 by 60 greenhouse what would my daily water requirements be? I just don't have the money for a well with everything I need to get going this spring. Thought of hand drilling are entering my head even though it would be illegal here, I would only use it for the greenhouse and animals.

Thank you for your time.

[copperkid3]

Without knowing what your "greenhouse" is going to be consuming,
it will be impossible to say. What is easier to say, is that hauling H20
gets old VERY quickly. Add to that, if there is a mechanical breakdown
of the transporting system and you better have a back-up plan ready to go!
What happens if there is a major freeze or blizzard; will you STILL be able to
get through and deliver a liquid or a solid? So many variables and none seem
to be thought out or planned for. Save up for the well before putting your critters
at risk.

[Harry Chickpea]

I wouldn't. For one thing, imagine all the wasted time waiting for the tanks to fill, transporting and hooking them up or draining them. Running 500 gal of water into our cistern at average pressure can take four or five hours.

[crwilson]

ok thanks everyone guess I will have to start saving in a hurry for a well. I don't plan on building a house on this property for a couple more years and I am scarred to see what it will cost for electric hookup and a small building just to have a well. however I guess at least I will have a well already once we start to build.

[Yvonne's hubby]

If its down hill all the way to your place from where the water is you could maybe just dig a ditch and let the water gravity feed itself to your farm. Hauling in barrels is going out the world backwards on so many levels. Its very time consuming as well as costly.

[K.B.]

dig a hole near the greenhouse and put in an inexpensive liner if your soil is not clay-based. Direct the water off your greenhouse to the "pond" You can collect many thousands of gallons off a structure that size over the course of a year.

Used Intex brand pools are another option for storage/collection. They can be found on CL sometime for very little $. May need a patch or two, but patching material just costs a few $. A 15' diameter pool with 48" walls holds ~5000 gal.

[Harry Chickpea]

For occasional well use, there is no need to connect to the grid. Just get an appropriately sized generator or use wind or solar power to pump.

[crwilson]

Thanks Harry Chickpea I will check and see if that is a legal option in my area as that would deff be cheaper I think.

[crwilson]

I could easily have a pond dug in one location on this property as it is low lying and kinda swampy. there is a pond about 100 yards away but not on my property but Its basically the same area. However there is not a stream flowing here just we get a lot of rain and the ground slopes all towards the same direction. I thought about using a pond for the greenhouse and animals but I wouldn't trust pond water with animals I don't think. For the greenhouse It would be fine.

Here is a pic of the property between the four thumbtacks you can see an already existing pond in the lower right corner, the area suitable on my property is about two inches to the left and two inches up from the bottom right tac. this is a natural funnel on the property

[Ernie]

We transported water to our farm for about 5 months before we had a pond dug and the rains came to fill. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't the worst of tasks either.

I would not want to do it indefinitely, but it's a solution in the short term. I would not attempt it though if you're not there to monitor water usage. Predicting how much is needed between trips was very difficult and it was only workable for us because I could go get more on a moment's notice.

[mrs whodunit]

My parents had to haul water for the place they bought in AZ. A year later I think it was they had a well put in and a airlift type windmill to pump the water. On windless days when they have used up their reserve of water they can use an air compressor.

[gladetop]

yes it can be done. For the pigs, get a couple of 55 gal drums and some water nipples. and a self waterer for the chickens. Very little water waste this way and mulch in the greenhouse so your water dosnt evaporate as fast. Hauling water here in alaska is the norm!!!

[Jennifer L.]

If this is just temporary, like for the summer, sure, why not? It's not fun hauling water, and as someone else said, the greenhouse need would be variable, but it's a way to get started without big money. I don't see it as a huge problem for the summer.

[crwilson]

Thanks for the replies everyone I think I will go ahead with the animals and get saving for the well asap, hauling water will only be done as long as needed until I have the well drilled.

[cfuhrer]

Originally Posted by gladetop

yes it can be done. For the pigs, get a couple of 55 gal drums and some water nipples. and a self waterer for the chickens. Very little water waste this way and mulch in the greenhouse so your water dosnt evaporate as fast. Hauling water here in alaska is the norm!!!

I would add to make sure that your hog waterers are NOT free standing, get them anchored and well!

My hogs always figure out how to get water tipped over to play in, even when we switched to raising them in the winter instead of summer. And it is heartbreaking to watch a freshly filled waterer get tipped over so they can play in it... Even when all you have to do unroll the hose you just finished rolling.

[Nimrod]

What is the ground like on your property? If it is not rocky and is porous enough, you could pound in a sandpoint well. The water table has to be fairly high. The well pump can not lift water more than 25 feet.

http://dnr.wi.gov/files/PDF/pubs/DG/DG0022.pdf

I have this pump on my sandpoint well.

http://www.menards.com/main/plumbing...187-c-8673.htm

I tested running it off the 3000 watt generator and it worked fine.

I think the parts to put down a sandpoint would run you about $600. I would put it far enough from where you are going to have the critters so that their waste products don't pollute the well. You could put one in a root cellar/tornado shelter if freezing might be a problem.

If you elect to haul in water you can pick up a tank that is used to haul chemicals to clean out the milking machines. They are about 300 gallon plastic tanks surrounded by a steel cage. I got some for $50 each. Water weighs about 8 pounds a gallon so one tank is about 2400 pounds. Be sure your truck or trailer is up to it. I was also warned on here about what happens when the water starts sloshing around.

[KIT.S]

In Alaska, we carried our water. Fortunately a lot of folk did, and it was available free from several businesses. One of the most common containers was a twin waterbed mattress. It fits in a longbed pickup box and doesn't slosh like an under-filled 275 gallon container. I have no idea how much it holds, but folks would have two: one for filling in the truck bed, or the trailer-made-from-a-truck-bed, and one at the destination. They emptied the one in the truck bed with a hose into the holding one in the house (such as under the bunkbed) where it wouldn't freeze.
Kit

[Harry Chickpea]

The idea of a frozen waterbed is mind boggling. "Honey, let's go in the back of the truck and make out on the waterbed!"

[ErinP]

We've hauled water for three years. It's a PIA but workable.

We have a flatbed trailer with a 1000 gallon tank mounted on it. We fill it at the local standpipe (used to fill firetrucks for example). It has a 3" discharge pipe and fills 1000 gallons in about 5 or 10 minutes. $6 for 1000 gallons, which will last us anywhere from 1.5 weeks to a month, depending on season and the horses' water needs.

Because we have a large tank (and live at the 40th latitude), the water itself won't freeze beyond a skin on top, but the valve will. Consequently, we keep that wrapped in heat tape, then insulated with a blanket, and capped with a bucket to keep all that heat trapped.

[DEKE01]

worst case for a pig is a lactating sow that needs up to 7 gallons a day. But figure spillage and call it 10 gal for easy math. 20 gal for 100 meat birds, but call it 30 for waste. Greenhouse use is highly variable depending on time of year and crop and if using drip vs spray. So 3 pigs and 100 chix can easily be done using 60 gal/day or almost 5 days per tote.

I water new transplants using a tote from the back up my truck. I've got an F-450 and wouldn't want to put 2000 lbs in a much lighter truck. It takes 30 - 40 minutes to fill with a 3/4" hose connected to a house bib. Depending on your SUV, 2 totes and a trailer might be more than you can haul even a short distance. If it is a small car based frame, even one full tote might be too much. If the trailer works for you, you have an advantage over me because when I have a tote of water on the truck, I'm pretty much stuck with having to empty it before I can move on to any other jobs needing the truck. And warning, it will require much patience to unload the water thru a garden hose. The pressure from the tote is only a couple of PSI so the water is not going to move fast. That's nice if you can just leave the tote watering plants for several hours, but a real pain if you are in a hurry.

I like the suggestions above about getting large water drums with nipples for the pigs. That will give you a couple more days of reserves if your SUV ever breaks down.

If you can't afford to dig a well, a solar well is way out of the question. I've been pricing them lately and it adds at least a couple of grand to the cost. I'm trying to decide if a second well and using solar is a better option than running 2500 ft of pipe from my existing well.