What is a better alternative, energy saving-wise, for well water?
Mandii asked:
I’m doing a project in Science and am wondering if some other form of getting your water will save more energy…or is running on well water the best alternative?
I’m doing a project in Science and am wondering if some other form of getting your water will save more energy…or is running on well water the best alternative?
Thanks in advance!!
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July 25th, 2008 at 10:06 am
What about rain water or recycling water as grey water?
- AustConserv
July 27th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Cisterns (stores rainwater collected off the roof) used to be quite popular, still are in Australia apparently. Definitely soft water, doesn’t require energy to pump up or lower the water table, but adequate supply can be an issue.
Many cities use surface fresh water for their water usage (Chicago, New York), but that can take away from irrigation or natural areas (like Mono Lake, etc for Los Angelos). In the mideast, they desalinate salt water from the ocean, because they live in a desert, but that’s relatively expensive. New ideas are in the works to make this cheaper, which would be good, since salt water is very, very abundant.
July 30th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
in the colorado river watershed, you cannot collect rain water for your use. the rainwater belongs to someone and if you collect it, it is theft.
July 31st, 2008 at 9:08 am
You could do as I do, I have both a stream and a well, the well takes electricity to get, the stream takes a bucket and back to get.
A shared well lets you spread the cost where a single well is all you, but there is the use factor too, the less you use it the less it costs but there again if you have a well and a hand pump.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Let me start off by saying we (Agua-Luna) are a non-profit organization that live, promote teach 100% “off grid” living complete self sufficiency”. To give you an idea of this, we typically don’t leave the Ranch but once or twice a year.
As there are no water lines, no septic lines, no electric lines, no phone lines no roads coming or going to The Ranch, all of the homes water come 100% from rain catchment. It’s absolutely safe, actually better then some bottled water most city tap water.
We storage it in 2000 gallon plastic containers available at www agua-luna com or concrete cisterns built on site, but before we did that we used 55gal food grade plastic containers free from coca cola Walmart (make sure they’re food grade or you’ll be doing a lot of cleaning). freecycle, craigslist, habitat for humanity, a local ranch feed store, etc.
Before we decided to catch drink our rain water I sent in samples of it to UT for testing, the results came back 99 ppm (500 being drinkable by the dept of food drug) 0 toxins, 0 chemicals, 0 pollutants. Since then I purchased a handy little pocket water tester have kept a close eye on it. I also take it with me on projects abroad check the water I’m drinking in other cities. Some of the better cities tap water are SLC at 250ppm, Detroit (surprisingly) 280. I don’t want to say what some of the lesser ones were. Aquafina bottle water was 440.
Anyway, your roof should be completely clean a perfect surface for catching water. Any dust that builds on our roof simply settles to the bottom (the house inlet is about a foot off the bottom) of the tank doesn’t affect the taste or health of the water what so ever (we all ate plenty of dirt as a kid who knows what worse stuff is coming through your tap now). We do use sacrificial diodes (or ad a table spoon of bleach to the tanks per every 500 gallons of water), not for the caught rain water (as it is clean to drink immediately), but because we storage it for long durations of time in tanks (silver works just as good). Without this algae tends to grow (which still isn’t bad for you, just taste weird).
We do not filter our water as it is cleaner then most filtered bottled water.
If you’d like more info I wrote a self help DIY guide that’s available at www agua-luna com
Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at www agua-luna com on the subject. I also offer online on-site workshops, seminars internships to help others help the environment.
Dan Martin
Alterative Energy / Sustainable Consultant, Living 100% on Alternative Author of How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Resource Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World… Instantly Elevating Their Income Lowering Their Debt, While Saving The Environment by Using FREE ENERGY… All With Just One Click of A Mouse…For more info Visit:
www AGUA-LUNA com