Using stream water for household use

[Lonicera]

My site is 200' from a stream.  Is there a way I can use the stream water for my household needs?  Some sort of pump, filtration, and perhaps storage system?

[glenn-k]

There are some purification systems - chlorine - ozone - possibly hydrogen peroxide.

The concern is parasites and waterborne illness from animals etc.

If you can get to a spring source and protect it there are less problems with purification.

[MountainDon]

There are some purification systems that use UV light as well.

Whatever you do you do not want to take a chance on having some of those invisible critters take up residence in your gut.  I've understood the things to avoid for years and when camping / trekking in the backcountry carry all my own water and have a mini purifier in case of emergency. BUT..., and I still don't understand how or just where it happened, I got hit with a double whammy of Giardia and some unpronounceable amoeba a couple years back. I ended up in the hospital for a week. One of the treatment drugs  lowered my immune system and I developed Sepsis. That put me back in the hospital for a week. I went home with oral and IV antibiotics for over a month. DIY IV at home. After a couple months I was still not fully recovered. It's not an experience I recommend. So as they say "Don't drink the water"  

Granted, mine was an extreme case I believe.

[glenn-k]

I also got some parasite once - drank from a crystal clear spring at the edge of a High Sierra Meadow.  I learned the pleasures of a sigmoidoscopy and the sanguineous Hershey squirts.  Samples were taken at the local lab.  A week later they called me and wanted another sample as they had lost the first one.  I chewed them up one side and down the other-- told them, a lot of good they were - I could have been dead.  I wasn't about to squeeze them out one more drop.  By that time because of the antibiotics the doc prescribed or for some other reason, I had recovered.

Not that much fun. :-/

[Lonicera]

I also got some parasite once - drank from a crystal clear spring at the edge of a High Sierra Meadow.  I learned the pleasures of a sigmoidoscopy and the sanguineous Hershey squirts.  Samples were taken at the local lab.  A week later they called me and wanted another sample as they had lost the first one.  I chewed them up one side and down the other-- told them, a lot of good they were - I could have been dead.  I wasn't about to squeeze them out one more drop.  By that time because of the antibiotics the doc prescribed or for some other reason, I had recovered.

Not that much fun. :-/

I'm aware of purifying the water for drinking.  My question is just one of getting it from the stream to the house.  GE has some very good purification systems

[glenn-k]

OK - I didn't quite get all of the question. :-?

Yes - depending on location - elevation - stream flow etc a ram can be used to pump the water to a tank using just stream power.  No electric power required.  We had some info on that here.

http://www.countryplans.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1160605047/0

[glenn-k]

The ram can just pump to a cistern or large water tank continuously then the overflow used in a pond or something.  Gravity or pump from the tank depending on your situation.

[MountainDon]

I've been searching for a great website that covered a remote cabin water system from a stream. Can't find it yet. Will look.

Is your stream source downhill from the house? If so you will need a pump. Is winter freezing a problem. Yes, you'd need a cistern or tank. And you'd likely need filtration and purification. Filters get out the dirt, some get rid of metals. Purification gets rid of all the things that can make you sick. You'd need one that gets rid of cysts and the like.

Looking for that link I have or thought I did.....    

[glenn-k]

Note that the ram can pump water from a source lower than the house or tank uphill to the house if there is sufficient flow to run it,  Free.

[MountainDon]

Glenn was busy posting that while I was searching..... I just found the same ram info.... someplace else some more info.....

Wish I had a stream or spring  

[glenn-k]

I have a nice little potable spring at the bottom of my property - year round 1/2 gpm about minimum flow.  Only problem is it's 450 feet elevation drop below me.  With the well here having great water and pumping it with my solar power, I haven't looked for a way to get the spring water up here.  I leave it flowing for the wild life.

[jraabe]

Here is a good book on the subject (I have an earlier edition)

http://tinyurl.com/2xt2u9



Also, scroll down a bit until you see "Customers who bought this item also bought" to see related books and resources.

[Amanda_931]

I read Cottage Water Systems first.  Learned a whole lot.  Although it may be in need of a new edition.

http://www.amazon.com/Cottage-Water-Systems-Out-City/dp/096969220X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/104-9496174-2308747

My miserable water situation was that the never-failed spring (that we later screwed up  :'( ) was about 400 feet away, and maybe as much as 40 feet down, although that may have included an uphill storage tank.  For a while it looked as though I could put use Dankoff Slow-pump, solar direct with not-too-horrible wire sizes less than half-way up (around 12 feet elevation from the spring), with the solar panel out by the road.  A few times we we even hand-pumped from the spring to a small tank about where the pump house would be.  Guzzler pumps are right amazing.  Especially after we (different we, actually) discovered that up to a point, the slower you pump the more water you move.  That would have meant that I didn't have to run any electric wires anywhere near a stream that floods a lot, through one of the privet deserts.  But I could just run a hose down to the spring.  And from the pump up to a cistern (get it out of sight) or a tank on a platform, or even a water tower (wonderful if expensive) by the trailer.

It didn't happen.  I will never buy from the "local" solar distributor over their attitude on that.  So for six years now, my drinking water has been from the sometimes gets too low for use spring, upstream a bit from the "big" spring.  That's rough walking.  No solar possiblity. Pumping is iffy because it's shallow and apt to be silty.  No ram pump possibility--most of the year, might be able to do it now, but not in July or even June.  I did find some pretty nice 3-gallon HDPE (now considered less likely to leach chemicals) jugs for very little.  Much much easier to carry than the 5-gallon ones.

The now retired water quality/septic tank aprover guy was frequently quoted as saying that all the county's wells and springs were contaminated by bacteria.  And that most of us just got used to them.   I think I've gotten a bit of something every once in a while.  And I'm kind of glad that my current helper brings her water from her home well (also, IIRC, untreated water, but she's used to it).  She drinks my coffee, though.

But the setup wasn't going to be that bad, even though there were going to be at least 400 feet of pipe.

And I know people who are running a ram pump almost that far, although maybe not that much vertical.

They are pretty expensive, but the panels that the Earthship^tm people sell, with a couple of in-line filters, uv light thing, and I think a final pressure pump already wired and mounted, all you need is an electrical connection and in and out water pipes, may be the easiest way to do this.

I think if I ever get to the point of having a largish supply of water in a ground-level tank, cistern, or water tower, I will put, if not their panel, at least most of the components of it.