Living Simply Can Kill You

haypoint · #81 08/23/12, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cabin Fever

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 druing the dead of winter *ahem*), and provides cool pure water all year long with no energy inputs.

How wonderful for you that you have pure, potable water that is less than 5 feet below the surface. You have a beautiful place. With the gravel drive and picnic table, it almost looks like a County Picnic Area or State Park.
Am I correct in assuming that the 5 feet of 6 inch pipe is to accommodate the brass cylinder that sits under the water? Great for you that the freezing temperatures never get down to the top of the cylinder.
Very few are lucky to be able to drive into sand and have water so close. Many areas must go hundreds of feet for water. In my area, there is 40 feet of red clay and then hundreds of feed of fractured sandstone. Great water, but not something you are going to hand dig/drive.

Forerunner · #82 08/23/12, 08:59 AM

I guess, being in the demolition industry and having been called upon to fill in dozens of wells on abandoned farmsteads, I've seen enough odd configurations to have long since given up on assuming what lies beneath by what's visible up top.

......and I've been around discussion forums long enough to know a long-winded and wordy sidestep when I see one.

silverseeds · #83 08/23/12, 09:01 AM

It also didnt need to be said. Cabin fever explained how they did it. which Id definitely do that if I had the choice, heck Id probably have 2-3 of them, without machines I wouldnt have had a well dug here unfortunately.

Of course that said, Ive tried coming up with a low tech way to collect lots of rain runoff. and without using my machine built metal roof (or building a big cement slab or something) Im not sure what Id do beyond finding a place water collects anyway.

**Cabin Fever** · #84 08/23/12, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haypoint

How wonderful for you that you have pure, potable water that is less than 5 feet below the surface. You have a beautiful place. With the gravel drive and picnic table, it almost looks like a County Picnic Area or State Park.
Am I correct in assuming that the 5 feet of 6 inch pipe is to accommodate the brass cylinder that sits under the water? Great for you that the freezing temperatures never get down to the top of the cylinder.
Very few are lucky to be able to drive into sand and have water so close. Many areas must go hundreds of feet for water. In my area, there is 40 feet of red clay and then hundreds of feed of fractured sandstone. Great water, but not something you are going to hand dig/drive.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that our watertable is only five feet deep. The well uses a two-inch steel casing and 3-foot well point that were pounded to a depth of 25 feet-plus. The pump cylinder is more than 20 feet below ground level. I used the five-foot long, 6-inch diameter steel pipe to provide a stable base for the well pump.

elkhound · #85 08/23/12, 09:10 AM

so thats a driven well...did you use water to jet it in to remove dirt.

chickenista · #86 08/23/12, 09:14 AM

'Living simply can kill you".. oh hon.. all living kills you.

elkhound · #87 08/23/12, 09:17 AM

around here you either lived by a spring or you had a cistern .our old barn had a huge one for taking care of livestock.

elkhound · #88 08/23/12, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chickenista

'Living simply can kill you".. oh hon.. all living kills you.

yep...being born= death....we are organic matter for sure.

**Cabin Fever** · #89 08/23/12, 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haypoint

....You have a beautiful place. With the gravel drive and picnic table, it almost looks like a County Picnic Area or State Park....

Thank you, that's the look we were going for.

If you want to see the pump in action at -20ºF, click the photo below and watch the video of a "Survivor Minnesota" contestant.

Living Simply Can Kill You - Homesteading Questions

**Cabin Fever** · #90 08/23/12, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elkhound

so thats a driven well...did you use water to jet it in to remove dirt.

No jetting. The 2" steel well screen was pointed. As it is pounded down, it pushes the soil to the side. Just kept pounding and adding sections of 2" galvanized pipe, until the well screen was submersed below the watertable.

SteveD(TX) · #91 08/23/12, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hairsheep

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.

My grandpa also smoked most of his life and lived to 101. Not everyone gets sick and dies from smoking. That doesn't mean I'm tempted to take up smoking.

Forerunner · #92 08/23/12, 09:36 AM

My great grandma on the paternal side really enjoyed her salted pork cracklin's come each rendering day.
I guess they warned her all her life (she was born in 1873) about the ills of too much cholesterol and a high sodium diet.......

Her indiscretions finally caught up with her at age 99.....

To this day, I eat my pork cracklin's with a tinge of guilt and a trembling hand.

haypoint · #93 08/23/12, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cabin Fever

I'm not sure where you got the idea that our watertable is only five feet deep. The well uses a two-inch steel casing and 3-foot well point that were pounded to a depth of 25 feet-plus. The pump cylinder is more than 20 feet below ground level. I used the five-foot long, 6-inch diameter steel pipe to provide a stable base for the well pump.

All the cylinders I've seen were larger than what could fit down a 2 inch pipe. I guess your cylinder is a small diameter one. If you had a larger cylinder, the kind I've worked with, it wouldn't fit beyond the 5 foot section of 6 inch pipe. Therefore, you'd need the water to be that high to cover the cylinder.

All the driven wells I've seen are 1 1/4 pipe and 1 1/4 points. Pounding a 2 inch point and casings would be harder. what did you use? I've seen setup using a rope on a tractor rim and a tripod with a pulley to drive a small well.

Paquebot · #94 08/23/12, 10:11 AM

My stepfather's family had a cottage beside Lake Wisconsin. Water table was at whatever depth of sandy soil was above lake level. Hand pump brought the water up. All of those cottages' wells were sand points and were just one 20' section of pipe. Water was palatable but nowhere close to good spring water.

Martin

KMA1 · #95 08/23/12, 10:24 AM

Actually, Cabin Fever, I don't buy the cool fresh water with no energy inputs. Since its not artesian, I'll bet you have to used kinetic energy on that handle. Just kidding.

Fact is, there are lots of potential sources for bacteria, other microbiotics, and chemical sources that can make you sick. You can go for years and never get sick, or you can get sick the first time. Your chances of being sick are statistically a lot higher if you don't know how to build a sand filter and do it. Your chances are probably better with bacteria and other microbiotics if your system has built some immunities or resistance over time. With chemical contamination, on low level exposures, the outcome is based on level of exposure, length of exposure, age and genetics. If you are drinking surface or rainwater, you will be exposed. Like the grandmother who smoked 2 packs a day and lived into her 80's, it might be a very long time or never, but a certain percentage of the population will be affected. A lot of people don't worry about this exposure, some do. It is a fact for instance that there are elevated levels of lead in most of our rivers and fish across the nation, as well as in the ocean, much of it from coal fired power plants. I still eat fish. But I would not feed a very young child a steady diet of fish.

The lifestyle we persue may be simple, but it actually requires use to have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things. To be a homesteader, you have to be a generalist. As opposed to being a specialist in doing one thing, and depending on other specialists doing their job making your drinking water safe, disposing of your sewage, safely growing and processing your food and dairy products, ect. In my mind, homesteading boils down not to being simple, but to being responsible for your family and yourself.

silverseeds · #96 08/23/12, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KMA1

Actually, Cabin Fever, I don't buy the cool fresh water with no energy inputs. Since its not artesian, I'll bet you have to used kinetic energy on that handle. Just kidding.

Fact is, there are lots of potential sources for bacteria, other microbiotics, and chemical sources that can make you sick. You can go for years and never get sick, or you can get sick the first time. Your chances of being sick are statistically a lot higher if you don't know how to build a sand filter and do it. Your chances are probably better with bacteria and other microbiotics if your system has built some immunities or resistance over time. With chemical contamination, on low level exposures, the outcome is based on level of exposure, length of exposure, age and genetics. If you are drinking surface or rainwater, you will be exposed. Like the grandmother who smoked 2 packs a day and lived into her 80's, it might be a very long time or never, but a certain percentage of the population will be affected. A lot of people don't worry about this exposure, some do. It is a fact for instance that there are elevated levels of lead in most of our rivers and fish across the nation, as well as in the ocean, much of it from coal fired power plants. I still eat fish. But I would not feed a very young child a steady diet of fish.

The lifestyle we persue may be simple, but it actually requires use to have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things. To be a homesteader, you have to be a generalist. As opposed to being a specialist in doing one thing, and depending on other specialists doing their job making your drinking water safe, disposing of your sewage, safely growing and processing your food and dairy products, ect. In my mind, homesteading boils down not to being simple, but to being responsible for your family and yourself.

great post, except Id point out even a simple charcoal filter should handle any chemical contamination from a roof system. Wells can be contaminated by such as well. In our age chemical filtration is probably as needed as biological always was.

**Cabin Fever** · #97 08/23/12, 10:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haypoint

All the cylinders I've seen were larger than what could fit down a 2 inch pipe. I guess your cylinder is a small diameter one. If you had a larger cylinder, the kind I've worked with, it wouldn't fit beyond the 5 foot section of 6 inch pipe. Therefore, you'd need the water to be that high to cover the cylinder.

All the driven wells I've seen are 1 1/4 pipe and 1 1/4 points. Pounding a 2 inch point and casings would be harder. what did you use? I've seen setup using a rope on a tractor rim and a tripod with a pulley to drive a small well.

I used was a #442 Maass Midwest all brass cylinder. It has a 1-13/16" OD and is 18" in length. It easily fit inside the 2" well Schedule 40 galvanized steel pipe that I used for my well casing.

We drove the pipe into the ground with a large homemade post driver that weighed about 50 pounds. Since we drove the pipe into the soil while standing on the ground surface, we used five foot sections of pipe.
Once we were finished pounding in the 2" well casing and well point, we placed the 6" pipe over the 2" pipe. There is no connection between the two pipes. The 6" pipe was bedded in concrete to provide support for the well pump.

The 1-1/4" pipe and 1-1/4" points that you've seen were probably for a pitcher pump set up.

KMA1 · #98 08/23/12, 01:59 PM

Silverseeds,

You are correct. The Restoration guys that work down the hall all swear they would never conisder drinking groundwater. But again understanding the source of your groundwater and knowing what is going within the recharge area makes a big difference. And test every so often.

**Terri** · #99 08/23/12, 02:35 PM

My husbands uncle drank rainwater from his own cistern, and it never made him sick.

He caught the rainwater from his roof, and when the rain began he would let that water go, in order to rinse off the roof. After 10 minutes or so, he would throw a lever and water would then be able to enter the cistern.

He also never allowed branches to grow over his roof, as branches allowed birds to sit on them and where birds roosed birds would poop.

A little common sense goes a very long way!!!!!!!

Usingmyrights · #**100** 08/23/12, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silverseeds

great post, except Id point out even a simple charcoal filter should handle any chemical contamination from a roof system. Wells can be contaminated by such as well. In our age chemical filtration is probably as needed as biological always was.

So a basic brita filter would work?