DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Jack's House
HTML https://jackshouse.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Free Discussion
*****************************************************
#Post#: 27211--------------------------------------------------
Rural Life and City Visitors...
By: stevieweeks Date: June 8, 2023, 10:10 am
---------------------------------------------------------
For most of Stevie's life, water was supplied by the
municipality and came out of the tap upon command without any
thought involved.
This has changed drastically since moving to the beach; Stevie
has learned more about rural water systems than he ever really
wanted to know and all.
One thing that seems to dog Stevie on a regular basis is
visitors from the city (mostly brother in law's relatives)
remarking upon how nice it must be to get your water 'free' from
a well and not be charged for it... ::)
Um... first, the water is in the ground and you have to get it
out by pumping with electricity... the well pump is on a 20 amp
circuit and the cost to do so is not inconsiderable.
The well is what is known as a 'sandpoint' and the raw water
that comes out of it is not drinkable; it is contaminated with
ground water and contains a lot of iron beside the biological
content.
This necessitates having a treatment plant which has an iron
removal system, a water softener, a carbon microfilter and an
ultraviolet disinfection unit. The water has to be treated
before you can disinfect it because the ultra violet light must
be able to pass through the water; softening in particular is
necessary to prevent lime buildup on the glass sleeve which
contains the ultraviolet tube. All of this equipment costs
thousands of dollars and requires regular maintenance; the
ultraviolet lamp requires yearly replacement, for example.
Sandpoints have a limited lifespan and ours is about two thirds
of it... it will cost about $2000 when it finally must be
replaced. A drilled well would be longer lived, but they cost
about $20,000 and come with their own set of problems...
firstly, the well pump would need to be replaced with one
suitable for deep level use, and secondly, while there would
likely be less biological contamination, the deep aquifer in
this area has a high sulfur content which has a pervasive scent.
Sulfur can be removed, but the equipment to do so is expensive,
both to buy and to run. Ultraviolet disinfection would also
still be necessary.
Let's not start discussing the septic tank and all...
#Post#: 27219--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rural Life and City Visitors...
By: Emlyn Morgan Date: June 9, 2023, 1:51 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Very interesting, Stevie. And surprising as you are in Canada.
Where l live oceanside in Morocco is classed geographically as
semi-desert, but there is enough rainfall in the distant Atlas
mountains to provide good (mostly) treated water through the
taps except for a couple of months in summer when tbe town
overfills with thirsty Moroccan holidaymakers getting away from
the heat of the cities and the interior. Then the tap water
becomes brown and salty.
Many of the oldest houses in the town have wells, no longer
used.
Out in the bled (Arabic word for backcountry) isolated houses
and some villages rely on a well. As far as I have observed they
are wound up and down with a bucket (recycled from a car tyre)
on a rope: no electricity or chemicals used.
I've also seen such wells in the desert proper. When passing,
you must draw some water up to pour into the trough for animals
to drink, and make sure the well itself is covered to prevent
contamination from an animal falling in.
The high hills not far away are subject to ocean fog, and there
is one project up there where they catch the fog in nets and
condense it into water for to supply five villages which used to
rely on wells.
#Post#: 27221--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rural Life and City Visitors...
By: Plagosus Date: June 9, 2023, 5:08 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The last time I was in Thailand the tour included a short visit
to Burma/Myanmar. Some children drew up some water from a well
to show us how it worked. They then threw the water away as it
is considered unlucky to tip it back down the well.
Surprised to learn that ultraviolet light is a disinfectant. It
has apparently been used to disinfect water since 1909:
HTML https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780124158467000342
#Post#: 27225--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rural Life and City Visitors...
By: Zyngaru Date: June 11, 2023, 10:01 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=stevieweeks link=topic=2951.msg27211#msg27211
date=1686237015]
For most of Stevie's life, water was supplied by the
municipality and came out of the tap upon command without any
thought involved.
A drilled well would be longer lived, but they cost about
$20,000 and come with their own set of problems... firstly, the
well pump would need to be replaced with one suitable for deep
level use, and secondly, while there would likely be less
biological contamination, the deep aquifer in this area has a
high sulfur content which has a pervasive scent. Sulfur can be
removed, but the equipment to do so is expensive, both to buy
and to run. Ultraviolet disinfection would also still be
necessary.
Let's not start discussing the septic tank and all...
[/quote]
Stevie.
I can't speak precisely to your area of the world, but here in
America, deep well water can be some of the best water you have
ever tasted. It can also be some of the nastiest. I have lived
with both.
I lived with my grandparents off and on my entire boyhood. They
always had a well, even after the city ran city water and sewage
to their area of the city. They refused to connect due to the
cost. So, they originally had a hand pump well and an outhouse.
The two were separated by a good 150 feet. The well being
the furthest from the house and the outhouse being the closest.
When I was born, they used a hand pump and during the winter it
was cold pumping water by hand, but again, it was crystal clear
ad tasted wonderful. They had the best water in the entire area
and their pump always worked even in the driest of summers, when
other people's well would go dry. No external devises need to
purify or make the water safe. It was safer than city water.
By the time I was going to high school that had put in an
electric well pump and ran a line to the house so there was
water in the kitchen. No more hand pumping. But still no
inside bathroom. Just water to the kitchen sink and no indoor
sewer line either. Water had to be carried outside and dumped.
We still used an outhouse.
When I lived in Florida, the Children's Home I worked at had its
own well. I was in charge of maintaining it. We ran a water
softener and a chlorinator. Between the two of them, they
eliminated the Sulphur smell. I used pool liquid chlorine in
the chlorinator. It was cheaper than chlorine made for that
purpose and worked wonderfully. We had a pool supply store
about a mile away where I got the chlorine.
This is why I recommend drilling a deep water well. You won't
need, or at least shouldn't need a biological purification
system. Deep water wells are filtered by ground water and
underground water flowing through rock and sand to purify it.
It will be safer to use than the water you are currently using.
I know nothing of sandpoint wells, but from how you describe it,
they don't sound very safe to use and extremely expensive to
operate. Yes, your initial outlay of funds will be high, but
then the maintenance will be cheaper. Over time the deep well
will save you money and be safer.
This is only my opinion. I can't speak specifically to your
area and the potability of your water. I know my experiences
with well water and that is all I can speak to.
As for septic systems. Just make sure, you keep your drinking
water well/supply a long way from your septic fingers. You do
NOT want cross contamination. Like my grandparents, they always
kept the outhouse at the far end of the property away from the
well. Remember. Crap always flows downhill. Keep the well
higher upgrade than the septic fingers, that way the crap will
flow away from the well and not toward it. I realize this is
all common sense, but some people, even professional installers
don't take common sense into consideration. They look at cost
and space as their main considerations and then just hope there
isn't cross contamination and people get sick.
That's the last of my limited wisdom.
Good luck.
#Post#: 27226--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rural Life and City Visitors...
By: Emlyn Morgan Date: June 12, 2023, 6:20 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Although I do some unpaid voluntary work (rendering reports and
publicity material into good English) on the Dar si Hmad
fog-into-water scheme, I actually disapprove of the project.
My in-a-minority view is that the system is unnecessary and
costly.
The majority "white saviour" view is that the scheme is
beneficial. The women (for traditionally it's a woman's job to
carry water) no longer have to make the "potentially dangerous"
trek to the village well, returning heavily laden. Now they can
just turn on the tap in the kitchen, freeing them to do "more
productive" work or go to college.
But as I see it, the project is costly: German technology, 50
kilometers of pipes, diesel generators, pumps, valves, taps.
And all these villages have a well. Human settlements only
arise where there is water. Do the women actually mind fetching
the water? When trekking in the bled and coming to a well, I see
the young women sitting there happily socialising while their
young children play with each other nearby. What other work is
there? There is no danger. Who would harm them? They come to
greet me offering pomegranates. Isn't that the natural order?
Why change it?
But what do I know?
#Post#: 27227--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rural Life and City Visitors...
By: Plagosus Date: June 12, 2023, 8:01 am
---------------------------------------------------------
"The village pump" is almost synonymous with "place to gossip",
but there are other places to gossip and socialise. What is
important is what the women think. Do they feel they have gained
or lost? A good test for an outsider who thinks something has
been lost would be to spend three months having to fetch water
every day.
If you grow up in a town it is easy to get romantic about the
countryside. When I was a boy I used to spend weekends on a farm
in the Sussex countryside and thought it idyllic - apart from
when I learned that the farmer had drowned the cat's kittens.
Reading Akenfield by Ronald Blythe gives you a different
picture. I did a long train journey in Vietnam and the scenes of
children wearing conical hats riding buffalos was very
picturesque. Then I saw two men manually shifting water to
irrigate a rice paddy and thought, "That's a back-breaking job."
#Post#: 27237--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rural Life and City Visitors...
By: Emlyn Morgan Date: June 14, 2023, 8:59 am
---------------------------------------------------------
In around 1989 the British government placed all the local water
boards under the ownership of private companies.
So a woman living in a remote cottage received her very first
water bill. She declined to pay explaining she lived a mile from
the nearest water pipes and happily relied on a well her family
had used for generations.
However, the newly-contrived Yorkshire Water plc responded
pronouncing: All the water in Yorkshire belongs to us, so you
have to pay for using our water.
"No, " protested the cottager. "I'm not using your water, I'm
using God's water, and God never sends me a bill!"
*****************************************************