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dan
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# Posted: 4 Nov 2010 03:33pm
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I need all suggestions of how you supply your cabin using a water well. such as plumbing runs and winterizing when not occupied. someone suggested putting a 55 gal container in the attic area and fill upon arrival. the water would be gravity fed from there.thus being easy to winterize. thanks for suggestions
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MikeOnBike
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# Posted: 4 Nov 2010 03:45pm
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I'm going to put four 30gal. food grade barrels under my kitchen/bath counters. An RV type pump will be used to pressurize the system. Water will be raised from the spring, 160ft lift, up the hill either by a RAM pump or a solar pump. We will experiment with a home built RAM pump next spring.
All of the lines in the cabin will be sloped to drain to a common point for easy winterization.
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 4 Nov 2010 04:04pm
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Water generates pressure at the rate of 0.43 PSI per foot of head. That means a tank in the attic will not have much pressure, not too usable, IMO.
MikeOnBike is on the right track. A storage tank under the counter with an RV type pressure pump works well. We have the same. I also plumbed in a valve to connect an air compressor to. That blows all the air out of anyplace it may get stuck. Slopes work well as long as your careful with doing it.
Use RV antifreeze in the drain traps if you are connected to a sewer or septic system.
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MikeOnBike
Member
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# Posted: 4 Nov 2010 04:13pm
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I think MtnDon also has an underground cistern. I would like to go that route and store more water but we run into pretty solid basalt rock just a few feet under the surface. The 120gals. should last my wife and I a week. A couple of hours of pumping water up the hill should refresh us for another week.
I will also have some extra barrels outside for garden/flower water. I will route the gray water to irrigate the butterfly bush and honeysuckles.
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islandguy
Member
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# Posted: 4 Nov 2010 11:06pm
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We use a gasoline pump to fill our 40 gallon tank from the river, then an rv pump on a pressure switch to feed the cabin. This way we have adequate pressure to use an on deman hot water heater. When you open a hot water faucet in our cabin, it trips the pressure switch and fires the pump, which, in turn pumps water through the water heater, which opens the propane on the heater and fires a spark igniter which lights the burner, and voila... hot water at the turn of a faucet. We are very happy with our system.
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larryh
Member
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# Posted: 5 Nov 2010 03:11pm
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A water tank in the attic can be quite good as long as its installed properly. For years when I had no city water access I had a cistern and installed a force hand pump on it to push water into a tank which was 45 gallons in the attic. I read some old articles and studied a bit before setting to install it. What I learned most was that the larger the line the better the pressure. So I installed 1 inch lines from the tank to the kitchen sink and and bath room. From the large lines I then reduced it to the 1/2 inch lines that fed the facets. I had a hot water heater that ran from the wood cook stove and I sent the hot water side to the tank with pvc piping, but the hot side was then made from 1 inch copper till it reduced to go to the outlets. The water pressure was sufficient to take the cold to the water heater and then back up and over the kitchen and dining and into the bath where it ran a shower on the tub with no problem. It wasn't a huge force, but it worked fine enough to shower with ease.
In installing it like mentioned I had to figure it so that in freezing weather I could drain it back into the cistern and at each outlet. At the time I had a toilet in the house which was the only place where I couldn't get below the water level to put an outlet so it would have to have freeze proofing in the water if the house were to be left without heat. Since your going to slope it to all the outlets you need to go above the rooms and down to the outlets. I put the drain lines at the lowest parts like under the kitchen sink, ect. Or drained the line to the tub though the spout which was the low point for that. The hot side ran out though the roof with a "t" for a cap so that if the wood stove ever over heater the 30 gallon water boiler it would force the water up and out the line rather than blow the tank which is a real issue if you don't have an open system. In order to tell when the tank in the attic was filled from the cistern I ran a pipe from the opening on the top of the tank side, it lays sideways, and when the water was almost full it would then run back down that pipe and exit at the upper wall next to the cistern. I even had a outside exit which could run a hose enough to wash the car with light pressure.
When the city water line came though I ended up getting the city water due to the old brick cistern being constantly leaking ground water. I still have the same set of lines but it gets quite cold here in winter and I have a valve where the line enters through the kitchen floor behind the wood stove. That way if I have to I can still shut the water off and drain the system except the short spot from the ground to the foot off the kitchen floor. In fact when the old septic systems and quit working once again last winter I turned off the water to all but that short section in the kitchen and returned to using a bucket to take water to the kitchen sink and bathtub when I use it. The outhouse went back into service and no running water is in the house. Its really not that inconvenient once you get used to using buckets to do the dishes. It also means that since the only heat I have is a wood stove, should something happen to me I don't have to worry about water freezing and breaking in the lines that run over the rooms either. Beware, plastic pipes will freeze and shatter very easily if exposed to an air leak in severe weather. I had to have my lines in the outside walls well towards the house and insulated well to the air outside and over the rooms. I left about a foot of ceiling just below the lines over the kitchen without insulation against the ceiling so the wood stove or other heat from the front rooms would help to keep it from freezing. I put batts of insulation laying over them to retain the heat off the ceiling. I also at one point had a remote reading thermometer under the batts at the coldest exposure so I could read in the kitchen what the temperature was at the water lines and then would drain it if looked like it might finally get to freezing up there, which a few times with high wind and well below zero it did.
That is about all the points I can recall at the moment as to the installation of the system, I know there are other small details that may come to mind if I consider it a while.
Larry
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bobrok
Member
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# Posted: 5 Nov 2010 04:40pm
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We have almost the same setup as islandguy and it works flawlessly. Only difference is that we have an RV tank heater with a standing pilot and not a demand unit. Our system is not pressurized (no accumulator tank) and the 12 volt pump puts out a constant 2.9 gpm. I bought a deep cycle marine battery and I'd bet I could run it most of the summer w/o recharging it.
Everything drains to a low point for emptying the system, and I don't even need to use antifreeze. One suggestion: don't install any j-traps under sinks and showers, but rather use 90 degree bends. No worries about freezing there either.
If you are interested I did a bit of investigating on 'jet pumps' before I bought mine. We have about 125 feet at a 45 degree angle from lake to cabin so I needed to be sure that there was enough rated and actual head. You can't return these once they are gassed and oiled so I was very careful before ordering. Just let me know if you need this info.
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marg Gurr
Member
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2015 10:05am
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I'm new here. Got water problems at the cottage. Cold water is a direct feed from the lake but I'm getting no water. Hot water is fine. Shot some compressed air through the lines...improved hot pressure but reduced flow of cold completely. What to do next?
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 5 Aug 2015 12:56pm
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Where does the cold thar enters the water heater come from?
Diagram of the piping?
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