Water Part One (Not a trilogy)

Two years ago my water mistake was that I did all the wash for both places over here at the lodge. In time, right when 168 people showed up for the disc golf tournament the well went all but dry so was tough getting through the tournament. Then I put in an extra 1700 gallon tank, filled it up from the well at one gallon per minute, which is what the water pressure was, then put in a jet pump for it so designed that whenever the water pressure fell off inside the lodge the jet pump would kick on and take up the slack. But when I quit doing the laundry over here and moved it to the garage next door, the well eventually filled back up and I never needed the reserve tank or pump, though it was expensive, I'm glad I have the back up.

Next door at Last Hurrah, now part of Base Camp, it's a whole different story. I use to pump water from the river under permits, to the pond up on top by the main house, let it settle for a few days, then back down the hill to a settling tank for a few days, then through some filters and into the holding tanks, then into the houses and hogans. However the first year the former owners maintenance people winterized the place but never told me so when I pumped water into the settling tank it filled up, flooded and ruined all the pump equipment, and now won't pump into the holding tanks. So I've had to improvise, as usual.

I pump water from the river up the hill to the pond. Let it settle for three or four days or weeks sometimes if I don't have much demand. Then I run an extension cord from the house to the far side of the pond.

I hooked up a couple hundred feet of hoses to a pump and slide the pump into the pond. Then ran the hose uphill for 30 or 40 feet and then a couple hundred feet down the hill to the holding tanks just above the second house or Condo as it's called.

Earlier this week when I went to fill the tanks back up the hose was on a north facing slope and frozen the entire length to the holding tanks so I pulled it up and laid it out on the road for a few days to get some more sun until it unfroze.The pond was also frozen and the pump was in it so I had to break through and get the pump out to let is dry out.

I run the hose up to the pipe at the top of the holding tanks. With the pump going it fills up about a hundred gallons an hour.

There were problems. I didn't want to run an extension cord across the porch and patio at the main house while people were staying there and they might trip over it and it looked bad so I couldn't fill up the tanks while they were being drained. I had to wait for the house to go vacant and then get in there quickly and fill up and chlorine as much as I could while it was vacant. So one day I was pumping water when the new guests arrived. I yanked the hundred plus something feet of extension cords, wrapped them up and forgot about it. Figuring that with no electricity the pump would quite pumping. Later that day when I came back to clean the lower house where the holding tanks are just above it, was flooded with hundreds of gallons of water. I ran up the hill and pulled the pump out of the holding tank and then the pump out of the pond. That's when I learned about gravity feed. Even though there was no electricity pumping the water out of the pond up the hill and down again, it was being sucked out by the water already going down the hill. Took many fills of two wet vacs to get the lower house dried out and a permanent stain on the wall where the water came in.

I realized I didn't need to run extension cord and hook up the pump every time. I just needed to seal off the water so the hose stayed full and then when I released the seal it would automatically start running again. So I bought a little shut off nozzle. Actually I bought a lot of them to make sure I had it right.

Now I could go over and turn the water on whenever I wanted without it being a nuisance to the main house. That's when I learned that it doesn't fill up the tanks as fast with the nozzle turned on because the outlet at the end of it is smaller than the hose. To get it to fill up faster I take the nozzle off and then put it back on when I've filled the tanks.

There are more issues but I'll save that for when I have some pictures and can better explain.