The ExhaustNotes website consumes a lot of content. Berk writes most of it and he’s always up to something interesting. I feel bad that he has to carry the load, but I just don’t have that much to write about. Here in the wilds of New Mexico we spend a lot of time and energy just surviving. Take water, for instance.
Our place has a combination of well water and rainwater. The well supplies the tiny shack we live in and the cistern for rainwater catches ½ of the shed roof runoff. It all worked ok until the well ran dry. Our well is only 85 feet deep and since our land sits at 6000 feet elevation you’ve got to figure the water in the well comes from a trapped source. Maybe there’s a layer of impervious stone or clay at 90 feet. The well was already dug when we bought the place, but the pump was dead.
Colleen and I installed a new pump using the existing piping and we had a reliable supply of water. The well inspector said it was good for 1.5 gallons a minute, which isn’t a lot unless you count the minutes in a day. We have a 40-gallon pressure tank with a pressure switch to turn the pump on and off.
The system worked fine until a month ago when the water stopped flowing. The well was flat out of water. The well guy told me this happens all the time. Maybe someone below me used a lot of water, maybe the well is silted up or maybe wells just go dry after 27 years. To get back in the swim I ran two, 150-foot-long garden hoses to a bib outside of the shack and fed the house from the shed water supply.
We let the well rest for about a week and then tried it. We had water again. Everything was fine until a few days ago when the water ran out again. Obviously, we are going to need a better water supply.
We decided to go with a hybrid, part well water, part rainwater, part purchased water set up. We’re getting a 3000-gallon storage tank that will sit next to the well house. Of course, the new tank will require a concrete slab. During monsoon season I can dump excess water from the shed tank into the lower, 3000-gallon tank. Probably 4 or 5 months of the year we can get by on rain water unless there is a drought.
We’re hoping this will take much of the load off the well and give it a chance to recharge from wherever its water comes from. If we need to we can purchase water. Many homes around here buy water and store it in tanks; they have no well because well drilling is expensive and you pay for the work whether the driller hits water or not. A typical well a few hundred feet deep will run around $30,000. If they hit water the first time.
The new system will require a bit of re-plumbing. Instead of directly feeding the shack the well output will dump into the 3000-gallon storage tank and from there the water will go to a jet type pump to provide pressure to the house. I’m hoping the tank will be a sort of battery to store the well water as I can adjust the well output to a trickle to not outrun the well’s capacity per minute. If we are lucky the slower draw will buy a few more years from our well, if not we may drill another, deeper well.
Using rainwater is way nicer than the mineral-rich stuff we get from the well. Soap makes better suds, sinks and faucets stay cleaner and you don’t get those stalactites of gypsum hanging off the aerators. Bought water comes from a city supply and so has all manner of junk floating around.
Future water infrastructure plans include a second, 2500-gallon tank up at the shed. I lost thousands of gallons this monsoon season due to the single tank being full. It drives me crazy seeing that water spilling onto the ground. Installing another rainwater tank to handle runoff from the Carriage House roof should be good for 3 or 4 thousand gallons during monsoon. One day I will get around to guttering the other half of the shed roof and that should double production from the upper level. If we get enough storage I think we can operate the ranch using just rainwater, giving the old well a much-deserved rest. My job will be to move water from all the different tanks to the main 3000-gallon unit.
And this is why I don’t have much fun stuff to write about lately. Things are falling apart faster than I can fix them. Men were given dominion over the Earth but it’s not an easy task to rule nature. I’m starting to think this ranch living is no country for old men. Maybe one day when we get really old we’ll get a suburban house. I’ll have my own garage door opener or a breakfast nook.
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I’ve been following intently the drought in the southwest so his blog has prompted me to investigate where NM gets it’s water from. According to a PDF I found, the western part gets some from the Colorado basin, which ain’t doing well at all, but 87% of NM water comes from ground water, which seemingly isn’t doing well either (no puns intended). I always wonder about capturing rain water from a roof. Do you let the initial rain wash off sand and debris before letting it into storage or do you capture as much as possible then filter it later?
Marcus,
There is a catch tank and float that captures the first bit of water (maybe 4-gallons) and the rest is diverted to the tank. The tank has a filter screen before the rain goes in.
After that the water goes through a coarse screen, a 10 micron filter and a 5 micron filter.
It’s very clean And won’t kill you but I suggest boiling it if you are going to drink it.
One good thing
About New England is we have plenty of water. When one grows up with that there is no way to imagine having your issue. Unfortunately we pay for “city “ water . I grew up with wells and free running springs. Urban sprawl around my area has taken its toll on that.
We actually had drought conditions , so it was claimed, this past summer , but it didn’t effect me anymore than burning out my lawn .
We have had a lot of rain this fall. Drinking rain water around here I suppose wouldn’t be fatal but it’s not a great idea.
Good luck with your water , joe.
Hmmm…. I was pricing well in Florida and was quoted $5,000 with water included or FREE. I guess digging thru sand is easier that frilling in solid rock. There were talking about maybe up to 150 feet down for artisan well….
In Florida you just hammer a pipe into the ground and you’ll hit water.
Well, is almost a four letter word…
On the Taos Mesa our well is 650 to good water, which interestingly the Rio Grand gorge that is less than a mile from my house is also 650 deep. We share with a neighbor and luck for us we only pay for electricity. The going price to drill a well here is 100k…..yikes!
We too capture rain water at three guttered down spouts, but they are only 85 gallons each. When I bought them I thought they would adequate but they fill up in a good rain in minutes, my Floridaaa perspective was inadequate.
Joe you are genius in creating solutions to problems, you and Colleen should shower together to save water and you never know when good clean fun will come with that……
In the mountains, there are no water tables. Water runs downhill (including surface water percolating down through the soil) until it finds a place that it can pool/fill. This means cracks or fissures in the rock or an occasional subterranean cavern. Once that storage fills up, then the water continues it’s downward journey to the next place it can stop and fill. Eventually the downward journey ends in an aquifer at lower altitudes, a spring that feeds a stream, etc. Drilling in the mountains is purely a guessing game. Or so our highly paid hydrogeologist explained to us after we drilled 5 wells with no results. And, like the well drillers, he still gets paid whether you hit water or not. A couple of them got down to 900′ and nothing. By the 4th attempt, I got desperate enough to hire a well known “Water Witcher”, or Dowser, in our area. He was also unsuccessful. The highly paid hydrogeologist gave me the business for hiring a Dowser, but I commented that the guy with the degree and wearing the tie didn’t do any better and cost a whole heck of a lot more.
Anyway, that was at the last place we were at. Where we are now has a 450′ well that produces 1/3rd gallon per minute. We practice reasonable water conservation and get by without having to have it hauled in. It’s difficult to comprehend when one moves from a wet area (Florida, in our case) where auguring a fence post hole produces a water filled hole.
My wife and I watch/follow quite a few homesteaders/imaginative DUI builders, a few in NM/AZ. Some rely on Monsoon rainfall, but I don’t know if you get any/much of that. Rain catchment from numerous structures seems to be a common go-to. You might consider building (additional?) sheds and carport(s) where you can. Wishing you good luck in these crazy times.
Dav,
We usually get a good monsoon season. This year it has lasted a long time. I calculated and average yearly rainfall X the square footage of the shed roof and came up with 16,000 gallons a year. I better finish guttering the shed and buy a few more tanks.
It seems to me that the greatest return on investment would be to put the gutter on the other side of the shed, and all of the house, and provide storage capacity for that water collection. That will give the well an opportunity to rest and rejuvenate so it will be useful in case of drought.
Dan,
That’s the plan. Just need $$$!