The Walden Effect: Homesteading Year 4. Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Gravity water system

Cleaning out the tank.I jumped in the thousand gallon tank yesterday morning to give it a good scrubbing, the only maintenance it has received in months.

We get our drinking water from a well, but we use the creek for most of our other water needs.  Most folks who don't connect to city water install a pressure tank, but we've found that a gravity system is simpler and requires very little electricity.

When the tank gets low every month or two, we turn on the pump for a few hours and top the water off.  After that, gravity pushes the water to the house to fill our sink, bathtub, washing machine, and chicken waterers.

We started out with a little 50 gallon tank on a tower by the house, but we used up the water awfully quickly and were disappointed by the pressure.  A thousand gallon tank slightly uphill gives us much better water pressure, approximately equal to what you'd get from city water.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed.




Homemade chicken waterer

Stuck in a cubicle?  Fund your journey back to the land



profile counter myspace