Living Simply Can Kill You

haypoint · #61 08/22/12, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cabin Fever

I thought this thread was about "living simply." So far, the suggestions I've heard have been about sand filters, charcoal filters, boiling water, roof washers, etc. None of this sounds very "simple" to me. I'll stick with our simple, off grid, water system, thank you very much.....

Living Simply Can Kill You - Homesteading Questions

In order to live your simple off grid life, a big well equipt well drilling rig had to dig the well. Another truck showed up loaded with 20 foot lengths of 6 inch well pipe. There may have been some threading of pipe or perhaps a pitless adapter installed. That hand pump is hooked to a finely machined brass cylinder and the pump rod has a water proof gasket at the top that not only prevents bird droppings, but allows you to build pressure and move your water anywhere those lengths of plastic hose will allow.

Running water through a jar of sand or boiling it on the wood cookstove sounds simpler.

Forerunner · #62 08/22/12, 08:50 PM

....not all wells are dug by machines.

....and rope and a bucket ain't rocket science, neither.

silverseeds · #63 08/22/12, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forerunner

....not all wells are dug by machines.

They are where I live..

and yeah well buckets are easy to build from scraps for basic amounts of water from a dug well...

Forerunner · #64 08/22/12, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silverseeds

They are where I live..

and yeah well buckets are easy to build from scraps for basic amounts of water from a dug well...

I've seen several designs for a really cool bucket that loads from the bottom, through a rubber flap....... made from plastic PVC pipe.

silverseeds · #65 08/22/12, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forerunner

I've seen several designs for a really cool bucket that loads from the bottom, through a rubber flap....... made from plastic PVC pipe.

yeah, they are neat... they make ready made ones to, but they arent cheap for what they are. (lehmans has them)

Im pretty sure you have to pull the well pump out to use them, Im not totally sure, but Ive got the parts to make a few, and bought a rope long enough to get to my water.

Usingmyrights · #66 08/22/12, 09:34 PM

You defiantly have to look at the water source, but it wont pick up stuff that completely stagnant will.

poorboy · #67 08/22/12, 09:54 PM

I had to switch to roof water, whilst I was setting it up I wouldn't be above filtering water outa the creek and adding the proper amount of Chlorine (bleach)...gotta have water..Or I could pull the electric pump and use the deep well bucket n rope I have stored inna shed...

wogglebug · #68 08/22/12, 10:00 PM

You're ALL gunna die!
If you drink stuff that's pure as rainwater, dropping as the pure rain from heaven, falling from heaven to earth, God's gunna kill you. He doesn't like you you respecting, and using, his gift to you. You guzzle, you turn up your tootsies and DIE! He's gunna say, how dare you guzzle pure rainwater, my millenia-old gift from heaven to earth? You sip my god-given gift to you, like all your forefathers did, it's gunna kill you, right on the instant, just like I've always had it kill your forefathers on the spot, instanter!

So don't dare drink God's pure gift to us. We're all better off if you ignore, despise, spit-on God's gift to us.

Obviously! That's what the ads say, and they're always right. Particularly when they can make money out of having you believe all their sayings. Right?

texican · #69 08/22/12, 11:34 PM

Imho, IF you have lived your entire lifetime in the sterility of the cities, being sheltered from every evil mammajamma germ out there, then, yes, moving to the country and drinking water that hasn't been treated with numerous toxic chemicals, might just make you sick... Might even die! Coulda been the germs, coulda been the body reacting to a withdrawal of all the chlorines, flourines, and other hydrocarbon based chemical treatments. Apparently city folk need those chemicals to survive.

Bearfootfarm · #70 08/22/12, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Thats an average of the entire population. Many more then died as babies or small children as whatever disease of the week made its way through the community. Also many more women died in childbirth than in more modern times.

No it's not

http://demog.berkeley.edu/~andrew/1918/figure2.html

They drank and bathed in the same water

Childbirth has nothing to do with MENS average lifespan

Hairsheep · #71 08/23/12, 02:12 AM

Interesting to note, my Grandpa, Grandma, and their children, all drank water that ran off the roof into a cistern well...My dad is 71 today and still living.
My Uncle, is 78 and my Aunt is 81 and still living.
Amazingly, from drinking water off of a roof.

KrisD · #72 08/23/12, 06:09 AM

Good grief I grew up drinking water from the St Lawrence river right off lake Onterio talk about polluted! It wasn't bird poop we were concerned about it was the floaters from the sewage treatment plant and raw sewage from the old farms that pumped directly back into the River. There was also industrial pollution to worry about. We didn't have a water filter of any kind. A sand filter would have been a blessing.

Forerunner · #73 08/23/12, 06:30 AM

Oooo....Kris.....just don't tell your close friends.

haypoint · #74 08/23/12, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forerunner

....not all wells are dug by machines.

....and rope and a bucket ain't rocket science, neither.

The picture attached is of a drilled well and a closed system hand pump. Yes, a rope and pail is a symple system. Where I live you need two ropes, one tied to the pail and one tied to an anvil. You have to break the ice first.

Forerunner · #75 08/23/12, 06:50 AM

I don't know if the pic represents a drilled well or no. There are many configurations for topping a dug well..... let's ask the post contributor.....

CF....dug or drilled ?

Jim-mi · #76 08/23/12, 08:10 AM

For those that think that rain water is purer than pure. . . . you best think twice.........

Falling rain drops will pick up minute particles of what ever is in the atmosphere . . be it dust or more likely particulate from industrial 'smoke stacks'..............
Some of it is down right nasty.........
And this stuff travels very large distances...

Our fore fathers didn't have this to worry about ..........

Remember that China shut down the local industry around Bejing (sp) a few weeks before the Olympic Games . . so as to let the smog clear up some what . . . .
Could you imagine drinking roof gathered rain water in China today, what with all their reported pollution . . .??

Back many many moons ago I drove a well point for my dad. We had good water at 28'.
But in time the health dept. decided that the orchards up hill from us were more than likely fouling the water table from all the chemical tree spraying.
These were the days before DDT was banned.
Dads required new well was a very expensive 228'

I'm also surprised that there has not been more mention of the Ultra Violet method of cleansing water

YES . .MAN has polluted his nest....

Currently I am very happy with my 60 foot sand filter.
(surface to water table)
I am happy to let Ma Nature do the filtering........

This thread should help increase Big Berkey sales........

**Cabin Fever** · #77 08/23/12, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haypoint

In order to live your simple off grid life, a big well equipt well drilling rig had to dig the well. Another truck showed up loaded with 20 foot lengths of 6 inch well pipe. There may have been some threading of pipe or perhaps a pitless adapter installed. That hand pump is hooked to a finely machined brass cylinder and the pump rod has a water proof gasket at the top that not only prevents bird droppings, but allows you to build pressure and move your water anywhere those lengths of plastic hose will allow.

Running water through a jar of sand or boiling it on the wood cookstove sounds simpler.

That well took me and my two brothers about five hours to install. We pounded in a 2-inch casing and well screen. The six inch pipe the pump is attached to is only 5-feet long. This set up is very simple, dependable (even during the dead of winter *ahem*), and provides cool pure water all year long with no energy inputs.

haypoint · #78 08/23/12, 08:48 AM

This thread points out how different the earth and those that inhabit it today are from a hundred years ago. We have more complex pollution and we are less able, as a population, to fight off bacterial contamination.
This web site is Homesteadingtoday, not “ Re-enactment of Subsistence farming a hundred years ago”.
We have vast amounts of knowledge not available in the last century. We have the widest array of products at our finger tips. We have a great deal of freedom. We can talk about a rain barrel or a pail in a hand dug well and post it on our smart phone, blackberry, I Pad or lap top, send it through towers, satellites and everyone can read it in an instant.
With those wide range of choices, some pretend to be self-sufficient, while others pretend to be the idealized version of a 1940s farmer. We are a diverse group and we all share a diverse world.
I commend those that have pursued their dream for independence far enough to at least realize that the “Simple Life” is complex. Each of the many segments of homesteading is complex. Raising chickens is simple. But doing it as an exercise in self-sufficiency reveals the complexities of growing the feed, developing compost to renew the grain crop's soil, developing a “green” and renewable fencing system, perfecting a predator eradication plan. Incubating and raising chicks without electricity or outside fuels is more difficult that it seems at first blush.

Forerunner · #79 08/23/12, 08:50 AM

All that and you still can't admit that you stand corrected in re your bold assumption that CF's well was professionally and expensively drilled ?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

**Cabin Fever** · #80 08/23/12, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forerunner

All that and you still can't admit that you stand corrected in re your bold assumption that CF's well was professionally and expensively drilled ?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

Actually, I can understand where one would think that. It looks like the pump is sitting on a drilled 6-inch casing. I probably would have made the same assumption if I didn't know.