I have a rural house with no drinking water supply, but I have a water supply from a pond used for irrigation. I'm thinking of using 10 inch water filters, first a 10u filter, then a 5um or 1um, and last an activated charcoal filter. I dont expect this to purifiy the water at all, so I was thinking on installing some kind of bleach dispenser? I don't want this water so it can be drunk, but I would like to use it for shower or cleaning. I've seen some chlorination systems, but I don't find info on the quantity, and i'd like to do it as diy as possible. Any advice on this kind of systems?
don't even bother if you're using pex since you can't filter out all the female growth hormones it will be injecting directly into your water supply causing you to grow breasts bigger than your ass.
Can you boil it after filtering? That's what camp showers typically do. A little chlorine (pool level) will kill stuff on the timescale of hours, but it'll also bleach all your stuff, and wont work instantly.
Have you considered adding UV light treatment in the final stage to avoid chlorination?
UV doesn't add taste or odour like chlorine based systems.
You can throw as much UV at the water as you like with no adverse effects, whereas chlorine needs to be added in certain amounts. This could mean UV is easier to apply in a DIY system.
Lastly, a surface pond isn't the best water source to begin with. Around here we have small companies going around to rural properties, drilling a narrow hole down to the ground water table (generally speaking several 100 feet down) and using a small pump to hose the water out of the hole. Usually they get very clean water that needs little to no treatment, although it's sometimes high in calcium.
I don't have an electric supply yet, but this might be the best idea, I could turn the UV only when I'm in there and have the generator running (or solar system, haven't decided yet), seems safer than adding chlorine.
That would be very energy demanding, and I would lose the water pressure because of adding an stage like that. Now i have like 2.5 bar only because of height difference with the pond, and it's so usefull. But for drinking and filling bottles, it will be the way to go. I'm going to do some research on the UV systems. Thanks anons.
Sounds like a win-win situation tbh
You don't need to boil it. You need to keep it above 72 degrees celsius for around 10 minutes. That is a bit easier to manage than working it up to a full boil. You got any wood around you?
If OP got electricity, then water pump, 3 stage filter, and reverse osmosis system is most effective in removing bacteria/viruses
First thing first, get a water sample and analyze it to get the idea in what condition is at.
From a mechanical standpoint you'd want a self cleaning 60-90um filter, then after it do a step down to 25. After this, or another smaller mechanical filter depending entirely on far you wanna go, put a UV filter to kill all the viruses/bacteria, and then after it put active carbon/ceramic filter. You want to kill the bacteria/viruses before they reach the last filter.
One last thing, all those filters will cause a pressure drop so make sure to have a pump set up.
good advice
OP get ur water tested. it's cheap and easy, mail in a vial. u could have nasty chemicals that you wouldn't wash ur truck with. tailor ur filter chain to match ur water.
read about "farm dugouts"
some good ideas on here. first stage u want a sand filter (pool filter etc) that u can backflush and reuse. spin on filter will get expensive, so let ur sand filter do the heavy lifting.
flocculation with alum in a tank may be required for real dirty water.
doing batches may work best. u can dose with chlorine and fill a tank which will last a few days. bonus points if u put the tank on a hill for gravity feed.
know what i mean? dont pull directly from pond. instead use pond to fill a holding tank
u can drink anything with the right treatment
This post has it..
Was also going to suggest a pool "sand" filter. And You definitely want a reserve tank of clean water to draw from.
Release Plecostomus and Ramshorn snails into the pond and let nature do the work.
start with a sand filter system
Get a well. If you really want surface water get your water tested. It could have all sorts of nastiness in it. Depending on the tests (for example you may need a water softner), you need to choose your filter setup accordingly. Never tried using surface water but if I had to, i would use have two step filter setup. Outside have a filter to take big shit out so it doesnt clog your main filter. Then main filter inside with UV. Dont get chinese garbage this is what you are going to be drinking and get one with a prefilter so it doesnt clog. If you want to go full schizo you can also put filters in all your sinks (under so it doesnt look ugly) and shower. You will need to once in a while life every 6 months replace filters and shit.
When i mean dont get chinese garbage i mean get a pentair or something that is certified to clean the shit you dont want out.
Yes, sink a well. You can do it by hand and use a manual pump if you don't have electricity.
So you're in a house, like a real house and not a shanty/makeshift camp shelter or old barn. You have no city water and no well? Make it makes sense Op. And no power? Did you panic and decide to bugout without planning? You running from a prison sentence?
A well would be best.
Otherwise: Test it, filter it, then run it through a solar still.
I'm going to second the UV option. Since you're off grid I assume you care somewhat about self sufficiency. A UV system has a life (~1 yr per bulb @ 100% duty cycle, bulbs store indefinitely) that will far exceed the shelf life of even dry chlorine (2 years once opened). If you can power it (40-100w), I think it is the most healthy and rugged option.
I should add that the useful life of a UV system becomes really good if you use it for a few hours once a week to fill a reservoir, rather than having it run 24/7. Depending on your location, a 100w solar panel and an entry level lifepo4 battery might be able to run such a system most of the year (not counting the water pump power usage), and still have power left to run some lights or charge tool batteries.
the youtube channel red poppy ranch has a shallow well system that uses a UV system and they've been living off it for several years. Might be worth a look.
Use a spin down filter first, or two of tiered mesh sizes depending on how much sediment and particulate is in your water source. These are 'reusable' filters that allow a quick flush to purge trapped sediment. They will save you money and time in replacing filters.
Use a 5-1 um poly spun as your last sediment filter, then an equally sized carbon filter after that to sort out any VOCs, runoff, and other chemicals of who knows what got into your pond. Maybe you decide you don't need this but they are effective against most of the chemicals that are trying to kill us. Their lifespan is fairly short and will stop effectively trapping VOC and the link before they 'clog'.
Installing pressure gauges before and after any spun poly sediment filters will objectively show you the pressure drop across that filter and therefore simplify maintenance to an as-needed basis.
I would recommend 20 inch filters for less changes, higher flow rate, and better value.
As far as disinfecting the water, you're looking for a 'dosing pump' that measures the water going through and adds a proportional amount of disinfectant. I prefer hydrogen peroxide as it does not mess with mammalian hormones to the same extent as chlorine.
The other way to dose disinfectant other than a dosing pump is filling a cistern think 'intermediate tank' with trigger floats near the bottom and top, and knowing the volume between the floats you can approximate the necessary dose to be delivered by a small standalone pump such as a cheap china peristaltic pump to accurately deliver the necessary volume of disinfectant at stored concentration.
I should note that hydrogen peroxide is slightly less effective than chlorine at disinfecting. Either method should be held in at least a small buffer tank. You could place a carbon filter after that tank to remove the bulk of the chlorine/hydrogen peroxide if you wanted to.
If you have a nasty chemical or heavy metal contamination this won't be enough, you will need more special filters.
>pond used for irrigation
better be careful with ponds and where the water flows from to fill the pond. Lots of natural organic matter (shit and decomposing rodent parts) or fertilizers can runoff on flow to ponds. Better get the water tested to see what is in it so you now if you can purify the water to ensure it is safe to drink. You really need to investigate the area and history to know about natural contaminants (metals) or industrical/commerical contamination for current or long ago could be leaking/leaching into the water and getting into the pond.
And to think we made it thousands and thousands of years prior drinking from ponds and creeks with the population today being out of control.
OP here
I will test the water, didn’t think of doing it, but seems like an obvious thing to do.
I’ll probably consider the deposit option, wether with UV treatment or chlorine/hydrogen peroxide.
About the sand filter and the durability of the filters, this is not going to be habitated everyday, mostly weekends, so I’m not really worried about changing the filters, maybe if it becomes a pain I will add the sand stage.
First thing first, I’ll have to install a FV system so I can think on powering the UV and the pump.
If you want drinking water get a 5 or 6 stage reverse osmosis system that goes under your kitchen sink.. creates perfect drinking water.. you need to prefilter the water though or your filters in the reverseos system will get used up too quickly. Also you should collect rainwater - your roof sq metres * mm of annual rainfall in your area is a lot of water that's going to be pretty clean except for bird poo and other gunk on your roof. Get some 1 cubic metre /metric tonne tanks, many people just use a very basic filter on this to remove moss and poo and then use for toilet water directly, lots of youtube vids on this.
You could do rainwater with basic gunk clearing filter and then into the reverse osmosis no problem.
I had a similar problem OP. tannin-rich water with a very high sulfur smell and some dissolved solids. Paid $7k to make it drinkable again since when we moved it it was just yellow groundwater coming out the taps, picrel.
From left to right but not in sequence:
>pressure tank
>1:1 chlorine (don't use fricking bleach)
>Softener step #1
>Tannin filter
>dechlorinator
>reverse osmosis machine
>Softener step #2
>reserve tank with chlorinated water
As long as you don't have high salt, it'll all be manageable. I probably got taken for a bit of a ride with the sheer quantity of equipment but I'm a water princess and like I said, it was just shit water coming out of the taps.
This seems like the best thread if any to ask. My main well pump is 240V and hard-wired into the breaker. If the power goes out, I have no running water. My generator doesn't support 240V. Can I just put a smaller pump in series down the line from the first which I can plug into a generator? I feel like I'd have to somehow "open" the main pump to even allow water to flow, but then I'm wondering too if a 120V pump will be enough to supply water to the taps
Elecchicken here. Easiest way would be to find out how many amps your pump draws running, and multiply that by 2. If your generator can handle that, you can get a 120/240 or a 120/240/480 buck boost transformer to step your 120 volt generator output up to 240 volt to run the pump. You would have to devise a way to isolate the electrical panel when this system is in use.
Actually, there is an easier way. Just buy a 240 volt generator, they're pretty cheap.