How do I tap a natural spring source?

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I have what appears to be a natural spring source on my new property. It has a small flow of water, a trickle, but it flows down a mossy, muddy ditch. How do I "tap" it to provide pure water? Do I just drive a copper pipe into what looks like the origination point?

-- Bowser the Dowser (H@2.0), June 29, 1999

Answers

Springs can be tricky to use in the "legal" way. In WI the regs are long and expensive (I work for the water supply section). The reason behind that is that you cant really tell the source of a spring (is surface water beong filtered by a few feet of sand, or does the sping come from a hundred or more feet underground?).

Still, I would be very tempted (and probably would) try using the copper pipe you mentioned --- but then have it tested. Most springs used nowdays have a "spring box" installed - a cement or plastic type box to collect the spring water (instead of just on the ground) and you then pump or bucket it from there. You can always boil or disinfect it for drinking/cooking if you have to.

I would love to have a sping of any sort, safe water or not.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), June 29, 1999.


Our water supply comes from a spring. We have several others in various stages of development on the property as well. We had ours "developed" by a contractor who also did the septic system and driveway. Basically, it involves digging down deep into the spring, putting some sort of gravel I believe in it and putting a large concrete casing around it to protect it. Call around to companies that do wells- they can probably do springs as well. or ask your neighbors for sugestions on who to call. Our spring water is WONDERFUL! Most springs seem to be pretty deep if they run year round- ones closer to the surface tend to dry up part of the year in my experience.

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.net), June 29, 1999.

BD -

Depending upon the soil type I'd think that you would not want to drive a pipe in. Instead try creating a 'water corral' with a pipe to feed the collected water away from the source. This could be a half a plastic drum, a curved wall of cement or other retainer wall. The water would slowly accumulate to the level of the pipe and then run off at the rate of the flow.

If there is contact with surface soil then I'd assume you would need to treat it for biological contamination after collection. Giardia is endemic. Which leads me to also suggest that you place a cover on the collector which keeps even insects out of the water retainer.

You will want to do a though assay of the water for mineral, organic and biological contamination. Your local county agricultural agent can help you find a company which will provide lab services (though they can not recommend a company). That way you can be sure you aren't drinking some toxic waste left over from a mine, oil spil, dumped pesticides, arsenic or the like. Better to do this now and spend a few hundred bucks knowing for sure what you've got then to get sick when you can't get any help (post roll over).

-- -.. (Dit@dot.dash), June 29, 1999.


I have a tiny spring on my property, also. I rented a small backhoe and dug out a pool (about 4000 gallons) downstream. It filled right away and I am now irrigating my garden with a 12 volt pump, a battery, and a solar panel... works great, and the water kept flowing through a recent drought. I bought a 500 gallon poly tank to hold water for personal use in case my well is inop.

I am

-- Fat_C (f@chance.com), June 29, 1999.


Risking future chastisement here!!

I would not spend too much money *IF* this is to be a source of emergency water, rather than primary, But then I'm broke, so it is just the way I think. {:`)` Here is one way to accomplish your *emergency drinking water* needs.

1)Hand dig a hole 6' in dia. 4' deep... 2) line the pit with brick, large river rock, or use clay if available in your area. 3.) Place a 55 gal. drum or two in the center[plastic, food grade, full of holes in all sides aprox 3" apart] 4.)surround the barrels with drain rock [again river rock if available, but any rock with stones no larger than 3" and no smaller than 1/4", approx 18"thick...5).surround the rock with course sand to fill the void between the lining and the drain rock...6.)cover the pit with anything that will keep the critters out, up to the top of the barrels, leaving access to the bungs. 7). see http://www.users.uswest.net/~fabio/index.htm my Homepage for a cheap and effective way to pump water without primary elec. The design is meant for wells, but will work fine for a spring cistern.

This design will work for wells up to thirty feet to [top of water, not well depth, which is generally much deeper than the actual water table depth.]

I was on the phone a lot this morning with well and pump people, trying to find *anyone* that could tell me how/why mother nature can draw fluid hundreds of feet above sea level in the trunk of a tree, and with all our technogreysplatter we can't figure out how to draw water up more than 30' without a mechanical valve down at the water table level if it is more than 30' deep. I understand about atmospheric pressure and inches of water, and down hole pressure, and lots of other reasons *why not*. I want to know why capillary action cannot be explained or used by us superior life forms? The pumps I could find, from foot, to solar,,to generator run, were all very expensive, at least to me, soooo.....

The design was taken from another excellent example of mother natures incredible smarts. It follows the methodology of breathing. The vacuum created by the diaphragm causes the lungs to fill, etc. etc.

I am also about to spawn a *blackout*, deep well design, using a totally different approach, unless of course some other tree hugger can fill me in on the mechanics of capillary action in the ?civilized world.

As always, helpful hints appreciated, and promptly ignored? .....JUST KIDDIN!! JEESH!

Respectfully; Michael

PS; Sure wish I had the money to explore from a position of *more* rather than less.

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), June 29, 1999.



Capillary action WILL WORK. iTS JUST NOT TOO FEASIBLE. I can promise you that if you take a tall ladder and stand it over the water source and put a piece of terry clothe from top of ladder down to the water source, you will get capillary action. But now, what do you do with it? You have to keep removing it for it to continue. Water, like gas, goes to the area of least resistance.

Taz

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), June 30, 1999.


I only have experience with one spring...ours, so I can only report on what the folks that installed ours did and info obtained at that time. If the spring is in the side of a hill, dig into the hill aways, and you may find a bolder "vein" to use. We then took three PCV (?) water pipe about 1 1/2 inch diameter, and drilled several holes into each pipe and connected them into a larger pipe which collected the water from all three. Layed this down on top of the area around the vein and then they used about a cubic yard of clean gravel ontop of the pipes.

They used a barrier between the hill and the gravel, and plywood covers the exterior, but I don't remember what the barrier is made of, and can't see it now. The main PCV (?) pipe runs into a 400 + gallon cement tank (cost about $300 as I recall...available and delivered from folks who sell septic tanks).

Now the pump, a 3/4 hp Jaccuzi, is in the tank, and pumps uphill about 400 ft high, 600 feet in lenght, and the pressure tank is at the house. We get about 80 pounds pressure on the water, and if I recall the spring output itself is 1 1/2 gal. per minute...which isn't alot, so we needed a large tank.

The plumbing within the tank is beyond me to explain, but anyone handy with this sort of thing would recognize the procedure in short time. The water source goes into the tank on high level, and the over flow comes out of the bottom. However the plumbing arrangement inside the tank is somehow reversed (?). Thus if we would use water faster than the spring puts it out, the overflow pipe would be high in the tank, so no water would escape during heavy usage. Also the intake comes in low in the tank to keep freash water circulating. (Sorry, I can't be to technical about it all.)

Also at that time, I learnt you shouldn't put the storage tank directly on top of the water source, as the (water pressure/weight??) can cause the spring to turn/slow down...just repeating what those who installed it said...no idea myself.

Our county offers water testing for $20.00 through the Department of Health and Sanatation, however, the water must be obtained from a contained source...they couldn't test before the spring was contained, not just coming out of the ground...strange, because you have alot of money invested by that point?

Have never had any trouble what so ever, line is buried 2 1/2 to three feet deep, NC climate. A couple of times it froze where the line from tank went into ground, as it is more shallow there, so we heaped more dirt on top. We are careful when filling swimming pool or when watering garden to watch clock, watering and filling in cycles.

Tank stays surprisingly clean except for algea on surfaces of tank that never has water contact. A couple of times a year I dump a gallon of bleach into tank, having saved our drinking/cooking water separately for a couple of days.

Hope this helps Browser; the basic structure simplfied would work very nicely for emergency/back up source. Good Luck!

-- Lilly (homesteader145@yahoo.com), June 30, 1999.


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