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Hi. Markerbuoy with you once again, out in the woods on a beautiful
November day. Twenty years ago when we first arrived in this spot, one of
the first questions that most people would ask was "What do you do for
water?" Come along with me, and I'll show you our simple system that has
worked so well all these years.
Before we get started, how about if you subscribe to my channel, either now
or at the end, and leave a few comments.
Now in addition to people asking us what we're going to do for water, they
would often say, "So, are you going to drill?" I'd say, "No, there's no
ferry. There are no roads. We're off the grid. We cannot get equipment in
here."
Fortunately, we're in very hilly terrain, and we get lots of rainfall in
the winter, and we can use both of those things to our advantage.
Just about at the top of the hill now, and what you're about to see is
about 300 square feet of metal roofing that drains into a 2000-gallon
plastic storage tank. This tank is about... it's exactly 2000 US gallons.
It's one of the larger plastic tanks that's easily available.
And one sunny summer day, it took only about six friends and neighbors to
help me roll it up the hill. It's not too heavy. And it's been perfectly
adequate for our family of four and frequent guests and visitors over
during the summer.
And for interest, I just keep a casual record of where things were on any
given date. So, for instance, October 10th, 2003, we had about two-thirds
of a tank. We must have had some heavy rains early in the fall that year.
But come January, this tank will be brim full. And just with this 300 square
feet of collection here, I'm entirely confident that I could fill at least
six of these tanks quite easily just from this one roof.
The water comes out of the gutter and flows downhill in this 1-1/2 inch
plastic pipe into my very fine mesh filtration system here. Now there are
lots of filter systems that will do a similar job. There are tons of them
out there. There aren't as many of them available that will allow you to
view the filter inside the bowl. Most of them are opaque plastic, and when
you're done or if you suspect there's a blockage, you have to disassemble
the whole thing.
Here, I can see through the clear bowl to the filter which is inside, and
if there's no need to clean it, there's no need to disassemble it. But once
it's looking a bit black and scuzzy in there, then I can unscrew the bowl
and clean it off and start over again.
Also, in the bottom of the bowl, I place a puck, a chlorine puck, the type
of thing that you would toss into a swimming pool purification system, and
that shocks the water as it's going into the tank. So my theory, which I
think has been proven correct over the years, is that you might as well
scrub the water clean before it goes into the storage tank, and then it's
much easier. There's less intervention required.
We are very fortunate here to live in a temperate maritime climate, and the
weather's pretty mild most winters. It's very wet but mild. But if the
arctic air blows, we can have unfortunately a sustained period of hard
freezing weather, maybe 10 degrees Celsius below freezing, for a week or so
at a time, in which case, if this bowl was full of water, it would freeze
solid. It'd break the bowl, and there'd go any chance that I may have
subsequent water collection if I'm not here, which is the case sometimes
during the winter.
So my simple solution, it subscribes to the KISS principle, keep it simple,
stupid, is to just drill a little hole right... and see this twig sticking
out of the bottom of the bowl? I drill a little hole in the bowl. And in
months when I know it's not going to freeze, spring, summer, fall, I plug
the hole with a little twig, as you can see here. And that stops any
leakage.
But in the wintertime, my theory is that if it's raining, it's not
freezing. That seems fairly simple. So if it's raining hard during the
winter, which is usually the case, then it will . . . this hole will drain
the bowl before things start to freeze up.
So this is my summer position with the hole plugged. This is my winter
position with the hole unplugged, and it will remain so until there's no
more chance of freezing, at which time, I'll plug it up again.
At the base of the tank, we've got a one-inch pipe exiting. We've got a
shut-off valve. Right angle is closed. [Longitudinal] is open. This
vertical pipe here is a vent so that when the valve is closed, which I will
do for over the wintertime over the freezing period, and I want to drain
the line. This vent makes sure that when I open the valve down below, the
whole pipe is drained of water. There's nothing remaining. There are no
airlocks. No nothing. And that seems to have worked well over the years.
Top of the tank, there's what used to be called a manhole. I guess it's a
person hole now. But very easy access. Some people like to climb inside and
scrub the tank clean before the winter rains start. I've never subscribed
to that theory because, as I've previously mentioned, the water is scrubbed
clean before it goes in.
All I have done for 20 years is remove the lid once in a while, check that
everything's okay inside. We don't have any frogs swimming around in
there... never happened. And I can pour in some chlorine to shock the water
to kill any bacteria that may be in there. And our family has drunk this
water all these years... never, never a problem.
From here, the line is buried just a few inches below ground for mechanical
and thermal protection. When my friendly helpers buried the line, in
hindsight, it would have been a good idea if we had had the presence of
mind to mark the general direction. Over the years, I've felled trees on
the line, punctured it once. And also I lit a fire that only later did I
realize was probably a little bit too close. That would have been self-
extinguishing but not a good idea.
So it's at this point where the line exits from the underground such as it
is, flows across the hard rock surface and then back underneath the cabin
to the simple filtration system that we have set up.
Back under the cabin, I don't like coming under here too often. There's the
incoming line, and the first stop here is a one-inch shutoff valve, which
is currently open, feeding the Rainfresh brand filter unit. It's just a
single bowl with an activated charcoal filter installed.
And the reason for the charcoal filter is that should there be any chlorine
remaining in the water, the charcoal filter will filter out the chlorine.
We wind up with a pretty pure glass of water upstairs. This line here
bypasses the filtration unit and feeds a standpipe that I have.
So down at the standpipe here, which is the lowest point of the systems. A
hundred feet above us is where the tank is located. And if I remember
correctly, if you want to get technical, you're good for about 0.4 of a
pound of pressure per vertical foot.
So, in theory, assuming I'm correct with my hundred feet, we've got about
40 pounds pressure here, which is entirely sufficient to push the water
through the filter, to push it through the demand hot water tank.
I'm just going to show you the flow into a bucket here. There's a hole in
my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. Anyway, lots of water. Good pressure. Nice
and clean.
I installed a demand, just a mini demand hot water heater to supply hot
water to the sink. That way we don't have to boil our water to heat it up,
and it's very nice, very convenient. And the price was right.
So there we have it. Clean, potable hot and cold running water right at the
sink, crystal clear and yummy.
Hey, thanks for watching once again. It's been a pleasure. Don't forget to
subscribe to my channel, and that way you'll get notification next time I
put up a new video. Thanks a lot. See you next time.
[singing 00:10:28 - 00:10:37] There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear
Liza. There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hole.