Surviving Off Off-Grid: Chapter 10 - Water

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FIRST GO READ THE INTRODUCTION
THEN GO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 2
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 3
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 4
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 5
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 6
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 7
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 8
THEN GO READ CHAPTER 9

Chapter 10 – Water

“Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Hungarian Biochemist)

Life Requires Water

Many people have a mental image of the pilgrim, the pioneer, or the settler, standing as a solid and immovable force (like a stone wall) against the relentless tide of destructive forces: hunger, drought, challenges, heartbreaks, and disasters, but, while this image does represent one pixel of the snapshot of pioneer life, all-in-all we cannot say that it is precisely correct, especially not if we are able to look at the bigger picture. In order to be successful, homesteaders and settlers had to be flexible… like water:

“Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.” (Lao Tzu – Chinese Philosopher)

As the saying goes, water is the medium of life. It is both life-giving and destructive. It gives buoyancy to ships, and with the same force it smashes them against rocks. It has given both hope and dread to cities of every size and in every time. It has served as both lifeline and currency. It is boon and bane. One might be doomed with the lack of it just as easily as one might be buried and swept away by the overabundance of it. It is everywhere primary, everywhere necessary, and it is everywhere the first and last maxim of life and living. It represents the Alpha and the Omega of our life. It is both secular parable and religious metaphor, and as a vivifying force it is both shadow and reality.

If irony is your thing, in our own day and time, the city of Los Angeles, California, perched on the edge of the largest body of water in the world, is actively perishing from a lack of water, and must pipe billions of gallons water from the Eastern Sierras and the Colorado River in order to stave off what is an inevitable disaster.

In every age of the earth it has been recognized that life requires water. “The Romans realized, as have every civilized people since, that living in cities is impossible if the water supply is not reliably clean and fresh” (Frank and Francis Chapelle, The Hidden Sea: Ground Water, Springs and Wells). Likewise, in arid rural areas around the world, it is common to see abandoned homes and dwellings, and over each one of them an epitaph might be written: “They ran out of water.” There is no category of survival more elemental and important, and, sadly, there is no category over which we have less control, than that of water. Whenever I walk on my ranch I have an ever-present reminder of the importance of a diverse and well-thought-out water supply system. At the front of my property, along the county road, are the ruins of an old homestead that was probably built in the beginning of the 20^th Century. Based upon the look of it; and on my knowledge of the history of the region; and after seeing all of the other abandoned homesteads around the area that date from the same period; I would guess that that old homestead failed because of a lack of water. It stands as a very real reminder to me of the importance of the “mater and matrix” of life.

A Rude Awakening

When we moved to Central Texas from West Texas we had no idea that we were in for a rude awakening. In West Texas (which is a semi-arid desert) we were used to living in a place that only received about 15 inches of rain a year (and sometimes much less). However, living on the grid we were not attuned to the reality of water. You see, although we lived in a desert, we lived on top of one of the largest aquifers in the world, and because we had grid electricity, we felt like we had endless amounts of “free” water. Sometimes I would put the garden hose on a garden or a tree and just leave it there, forgetting about it until hours later when I would come out and find the whole yard flooded. Who cared? I didn’t. I had enough money for the electric bill and, after all, water was “free”. Because we were not really farmers, rain seemed like more of a nuisance than a blessing: it made the roads muddy and kept us inside for days on end; and since we had endless amounts of “free” water coming out of the ground, we thought, “who needs rain?” Right. We had no idea how ignorant and foolish we were. We had no idea how precious water really is, and, living in the middle of a desert had really not taught us anything about the value of water.

In 2005 we moved from a semi-arid desert, to the rolling hill country of Central Texas. Rather than expecting 15” of rain a year, we could expect 26” or more. We automatically assumed that water would never be a problem for us. Our first few of months (which happened to be spring) were a bit of a shock to us because we were not used to humidity, and it seemed like everything was wet all the time. My cattle tanks were full and it seemed like there was water everywhere. Then summer came.

The temperatures were over 100 degrees almost every day, and not a drop of rain fell… month after month. We had to drive, over 30 minutes each way, to a nearby State Park for our drinking and cleaning water. We didn’t have a well but we were trying to drill one for ourselves. After over a month of drilling in the brutal and dry heat with a small drilling machine, we had gone down only 80 feet. A friend told us that we might already be to water, so we prayed for the best, cased the well, dropped a pump down there and started pumping water. It pumped water for a few minutes, then it went dry. There was no water down there. The well was a dry hole. We hadn’t reached water. The only water in the hole was the water we had pumped down there as part of the process of removing the drilling material “waste” and dirt.

At the time we were building a cabin, so we built a catchment system to catch the water off the roof, which was fine except for the fact that it almost never rained. We had a couple of downbursts towards the end of the summer, and a little in September, then it stopped raining altogether for a very, very long time. Drought had come to Central Texas.

We continued to drive to the State Park or to town sometimes twice a day for the next 10 months. One of my cattle tanks went totally dry early the next summer as we tried to pump water for our gardens. Water became so precious to us that when we would drive to a city and see people watering lawns, we would be shocked and depressed. Every drop of water became a symbol of life to us. Every gallon of water had to be hauled by hand, and the constant trips to the State Park or to town for water became a financial drain. We seriously wondered if we were even going to make it. God taught us a very valuable lesson about what is truly valuable in this world, and how much we take for granted His gifts and His providence. We have learned to highly value water. When the rains finally came, I remember that a bunch of us just went out and stood in it. It felt like life coming back to dead men. I cannot fully express the feeling of appreciation and relief that came upon us. As I write this, we are still lingering in drought conditions, although we have received some good rain since 2007. The land, though, has not fully healed from the brutal drought that started during the fall of our first year here on our ranch.

There is a truism that this understanding will help us all to recognize. We do not value anything aright until we are able to see the situation clearly. Until our minds are decolonized, we will always take valuable things for granted.

There is an old saying that survives from the depression era. It is said that, when the dust bowl conditions hit, and when the wells went dry, and when the rains failed, and when drought and the greed of industrial farmers and producers forced many homestead farmers from their land, that many farmers would, upon abandoning their farms, write messages on the walls of the living rooms they were leaving; messages for others to find. The messages usually went something like this one:

“Thirty miles to water, 10 miles to wood, and 6 inches from hell”

Water is more valuable than Gold, because you can live without Gold

Not long ago I was helping a friend of mine pick up a wood burning stove that he had purchased from a man who had put an ad in the paper. The man might have identified us as survivalists, or maybe he just liked to talk, but he indicated that he was very serious about the dangers out in the world today. He talked about (and showed us) some of his preparations for “when it all comes down”. He seemed to think that our biggest worries ought to be about boogeymen and terrorists, but in any case he had rightly determined that the world is not as safe and dependable as it pretends to be. He spoke as if he had realized that the "grid" system of life was in a tenuous condition and that it is destined to collapse.

One of the things he told us was that "the terrorists" were going to attack our electrical and water systems. Ok, I thought, so what was he doing about it? I looked around. He was obviously on grid electricity and grid water. It might be true that he had stowed away a generator or two, but, as I have shown many times in this book, the system of petroleum delivery in our modern world is subject to interruption at any time. I want to pause here to again make this point, and it goes back to our overall philosophy…

Congratulations if you have seen the problem; but if what you plan to do about the problem (your solution) is destined to fail, are you that much better off? If you recognize that our systems that deliver power (for example) are vulnerable, are you really better off by trusting in backup systems that require petroleum products?

So, as this man talked to us about the threats we all face as a modern society, we looked around and saw that, with all the roof lines available on his property, not one had a gutter or any semblance of a mechanism to catch rain water. Do you see the disconnect between what people say they believe, and what they show that they believe by their actions? I never believe what a man says to me... not ever. I believe what he shows me by his actions.

There is very little doubt that someday there will be an attack on our already dwindling fresh water supplies. Where any future attack comes from and just who is ultimately responsible for it, I cannot tell you - but there are two things you ought to know about the current industrial water supply:

1. It is already poisoned. If you are living on unfiltered and un-purified city or county water, then you are already being poisoned every day. If you didn't already know that, then you need to do some research, because this book on off off-grid living is not going to be big enough or long enough for me to catch you up on the dangers of city water supplies. Heavy metals, dangerous and caustic chemicals, toxins, fecal matter, etc. exist at some level in almost every urban and suburban water supply. Think about it.

2. It is highly susceptible to attack. Although the post 9/11 focus on possible terrorist attacks has increased the security of some elements of the water supply in some of the bigger cities, the security measures that have been implemented are hardly foolproof and are generally considered by more than casual observers as more cosmetic than actual.

3. The system of mechanized water delivery is tenuous at best, even if there is never an attack. With very few exceptions, city and surburban water supplies require electricity or other source of power for pumping, distribution, and purification.
   

One of the most glaring realities that urbanites and suburbanites face every day is that they may wake up in the morning with insufficient water, undrinkable water, or no access to water at all; and it can happen without notice.

Not long ago, Coleman, Texas, which is only twelve miles from my ranch, had a serious water situation. During what was called a "random" sampling, a water test expert detected dangerous levels of toxins in the water supply. The word went out for everyone to boil their water. Stores and restaurants were informed that they could not provide water or ice for drinks. Usually, when a disaster happens (like when the power goes out, or if an ice storm is expected to sever power) people have an opportunity to fill bathtubs and other containers with water. In this case, however, the water already in the pipes (or already stored in the house) was already contaminated. In fact, who knows how long the water had been toxic? The response was quick, but how long was there a problem before a “random” testing caught it? And, what about notification? If someone did not listen to the radio, then he or she would never have known that there was a problem. And this situation is not an isolated incident. This happens in cities around the country virtually every day. When this understanding is added to what we already know of the state of the power supply system (a system that is required to pump water to city dwellers), a very stark reality becomes apparent. No one can be sure that there will be water when they turn on the faucet; and no one can be certain that the water that comes from that faucet is not already harming their health. In short, when the “water of life” is pumped and piped to you by government bureaucrats, do you really think you are safe?

I could go on and on, but the point is that you cannot trust water that is provided to you by government. Ever.

Sources of Water

There are several ways to procure water for an off-grid life, and I will discuss a few of the methods and then give you some positives and negatives to think about:

1. A water well (either deep or shallow)
2. Surface water (lakes, streams, ponds, tanks, etc.)
3. Catchwater
4. Water from the air (Air-wells, dehumidifying systems, etc.)

In the modern world water can easily be taken for granted. Most people, despite the fact that they use it every day, have no idea how much water they use or require. If you plan on living off-grid, you will need water for your own family use (for drinking, washing, cooking, cleaning, etc.); and you will need water (and larger amounts of it) for keeping animals, watering gardens and trees, etc. Your long-term water plan needs to provide for sufficient water for every conceivable need.

On average, modern urban and suburban dwellers use about 100 gallons per person per day! Most of that water is wasted. Getting your mind around how much water that is in a week, or in a year, goes a long way towards illustrating the depth of the problem of industrial colonization. Smart, efficient, off-grid agrarians may use anywhere from 5-15 gallons per person per day - usually less than ten. For my family of six, I figure our absolute minimal needs for personal use (not including gardens or animals) at six gallons per person, per day, which adds up to almost 14,000 gallons per year; and remember, this number does not include the water needs of animals, gardens, or trees.

Well Water

Most people, when they first begin to consider their future off-grid lives, if they think of water at all, believe that it is absolutely necessary that they have a well. Of course, people who still rely on city or county water may not even be thinking about wells at all. Many rural folks around where we live still rely on the county water supply, since our underground water supply runs from “spotty” to “non-existent”. All that said, I would still say that 95% of the people who ask me about our off-grid life here, ask me if I have a well. I do not have a well. Now, a water well is a good thing, so long as it works. If the land you buy has a working water well, then that is a great start. Your next job will be to diversify, because I need to warn you: a well isn't always as dependable as most people think. Wells often have problems. They can cave in; the water can dry up or go bad; the pumping system or mechanism can break or stop operating, etc. Having access to a well is a great thing, but always be careful not to depend too much on it. Most of the people who homesteaded out in the Great Plains a century ago failed because of the failure of water wells, and because of their dependence on them, and on their failure to diversify. We said earlier that the epitaph could be written for most homesteading failures in arid rural regions in the past: They ran out of water. Under it we might find written: “The well went dry.” The well didn’t always run dry though. Sometimes the well caved in, or became contaminated, or the system of drawing or pumping the water failed. In any case, the over-reliance on one source of water doomed many aspiring homesteaders, just as the over-reliance on pumped, chemically treated, government provided water will likely be the doom of most modern urban consumers when the industrial system does begin to fall apart.

Today, a good well in an area that has a pretty dependable aquifer at a reasonable depth can cost you between $3,500 and $5,000; and that is before you ever pump a single drop. That price does not include pumps and pump supplies, getting power to the pump, etc. If you plan on going non-electric using a deep-well hand pump you will still probably spend over $1000 for the pump and all of the pipe and other supplies you will need. A hand pump is more dependable than an electric pump though. Some people choose to use both, and it is possible to have both an electric (12V or AC) pump and a hand pump in the same well hole. Again, the well is susceptible to cave-in or contamination, especially if it is not properly and carefully cased; and there is always the possibility that the well can run dry during a period of extended drought. Here in Central Texas, the digging of water wells is speculative at best. There have been three wells dug in our community: One was successful, though it is a very low-output well. The other two were dry... failures. One of the dry wells cost $2,500 even though it never provided a drop of water. My point is that depending inordinately on a well can be a very dangerous thing. A well could be a good solution if used in conjunction with other water solutions. This is what we call diversification. Have insurance. In my opinion, you ought to have at least two different water sources, and several different ways to pump or deliver the water, in case of emergency.

Surface Water

If you happen to procure a property with a very large lake that has good, clean, water - then you are way ahead of the game, but you will likely pay a very hefty price for the privilege. One of our neighbors has a four acre pond with a pump that serves his house. The pond has always, even through our recent drought, held enough water to provide for his needs. In this case one would only need work out a delivery and purifying system (purifying is usually only necessary for any personal use and drinking water) to feel pretty comfortable about the availability of water.

If there is enough water running through the property during heavy rains, a large tank, pond, or lake can be built. This can be an expensive process if you have to do it all from scratch, or if you have to pay someone else to do it. Here in Central Texas it can cost upwards of $15,000 to hire a crew to come in and build a new cattle tank (what the locals call a small, man-made pond, primarily used for watering cattle) that may be less than 1/4 acre in size. In our community, one of the residents has been working to build a tank without professional assistance. He rented a backhoe and is doing all the work himself. It still will likely cost him several thousand dollars in backhoe rental costs before it is all done, but it will be well worth it in the future. Always remember that these costs are generally one-time costs, and if your water plan can provide you with dependable water year-round, then it may be worth it to you to spend the money up front.

Of the two tanks we have here on my property, one went totally dry during the drought that started in 2006. Always remember that surface water can also be tenuous during drought conditions. This is another reason to diversify.

Catchwater

This, to me, is the ideal solution for most situations. When we were in Western Australia in 2002, we noticed that virtually every roof line, no matter how small, fed water into gutters that ran into personal cisterns - even in the big cities. Almost every drop of water that fell from the sky was caught and stored. This, it seems to me, is the way we ought to live. It is a great philosophy for several reasons:

1. Rainwater in most rural areas is pure and clean. It only must be filtered because of the material that gets in the water from the surfaces it lands on (such as roofs and gutters); but, as it falls, it is pure and perfect. As a child, I was taught by a lot of fear-mongers and disinformation specialists to think that all rain was poisoned by pollution and was harmful for me. This is absolutely not true. Rainwater, especially in rural areas, is pure water. Pollution does affect rainwater in highly populated areas, but most off-grid Agrarians do not have to worry about polluted rain.

2. Catching rainwater shows and displays our complete reliance and dependence on God, and not on the systems of men. We rely on God to provide us with the rain necessary to maintain us. When we rely on rainwater, we show this dependence, and we are more likely to remember to pray and give thanks to God for His provision. City people do not usually think of God when it comes to turning on or off a faucet. People who rely on rain directly for daily use water are more likely to pray for it, and to thank God for it.

Although we live in Central Texas, there is plenty of water (many, many times more than all of the families here in the community could ever use) that passes through our property, especially during heavy rains. The primary philosophy of water catchment is to utilize as much of this water as possible, not only by catching it from roofs into cisterns and tanks, but by catching runoff water in tanks or ponds. The man-made lake, tank, or pond I mentioned in the previous section is actually a system of water catchment.

I have heard that in some states and regions it is not lawful to catch or store rainwater. You ought not live in any place that considers it the right of government to restrict land-owners from catching rainfall.

For the same amount of money that you would spend on digging a water well and procuring pumps, etc., a structure can be built and a tank purchased that will supply you with a good percentage of your water needs. You can catch water off of any roofline or building (barns, outhouses, sheds, etc.), but if you do not yet have a building off of which you can catch water, a simple shed roof can be built for the purpose very cheaply. This covered area can then be used to store equipment and tools out of the rain, or as a protection for equipment or livestock.

My cabin is 610 square feet, but it has 710 square feet of roof line. This means I catch somewhere around 350-400 gallons for every one inch of rainfall. That is not a lot, but it adds up to over 10,000 gallons of water a year. Not enough for all of the needs for a family of my size, but it is a lot of good water, and it helps. We have since built a second structure that has a roofline that will catch about 420 gallons of water per inch of rainfall. Considering the rainfall for our area, this will add close to 11,000 more gallons of water per year, provided we are able to store all that we catch.

Two of the homesteads here on the land have roof lines that are capable of catching between 1200 and 1800 gallons per inch of rain fall. This capacity would provide an average of 31,000 to 46,000 gallons of water a year in an average rainfall year. For a small agrarian family, this ought to provide most of the necessary daily use water. This would have to be augmented for watering large gardens or for watering animals, but if used in combination with other surface or subsurface water projects, this method ought to be very successful. I plan (if the Lord blesses and wills) to catch the water off of every roof line we build. Some of the younger and smaller families in our off-grid community are subsisting on the water caught from the roofs of goat sheds, farrowing sheds, outhouses, campers, etc. Every building project in which you engage ought to have a catchwater component.

It is also our plan (if the Lord wills), to expand our surface water projects, enlarging our current cattle tanks and even building new ones when we are able. In my opinion, the new agrarian homesteader ought to focus his/her resources and time on water catchment resources first, before considering wells or other means of procuring water.

Water from the Air

It is possible, in most places that have ample humidity, to produce water from the air. This would fall under the category of "intermediate" or "ancillary" means in providing yourself more water. Let me give a few examples: Many of you know that air-conditioners, freezers, refrigerators, etc. will produce water from the air in high humidity situations. This is why you will see water dripping from your A/C unit in the summer when the humidity is high. This process is called "condensing" and the water is derived from the process of "condensation", which builds up because of the drastic temperature transfer and differential between the freezing cold in the tubing and the warm, wet, air surrounding it. Using this theory, some companies have developed low energy usage machines called "air wells", which are units with condensers that condense water from the air and then catch it and purify it for consumption. This is something to look into for anyone who lives in a high humidity environment, and who produces their own electricity via alternative power. Several of these units could be powered by solar or wind power to provide water - although it would be very expensive and it would still be subject to failures and problems. Before we went completely off-grid, I considered purchasing one or more of these units (or manufacturing one ourselves) and putting it in a special root cellar or "dry room" where we would want it to stay less humid than in a regular root cellar (which normally might have humidity levels of 70-95%). For example, a couple of automobile compressors could be powered by solar power in an underground room with high natural humidity. The water condensing off of the compressors could be caught. Such an arrangement would provide two benefits: First, it would create a cool, dry space which is ideal for storing dry goods or some vegetables and crops. Second, it would produce a good supply of pure drinking water. I figured that up to 10 gallons a day could be produced in this manner. Water can also be gathered in small amounts from anywhere (either natural or man-made) where natural condensation appears regularly.

In the past, many ancient civilizations (the Persians, for example) were successful in building large structures designed to produce and capture moisture from the air. For those who are looking to live totally off of the grid, it might be worth your time to study these old processes and techniques.

Water Storage

Water storage is more important to your survival and success than is food storage. As we have discussed, storing water in ponds, tanks, lakes, etc. is ideal. Water can also be stored in man built tanks and cisterns. We have a 2,500 gallon above ground storage tank for our cabin catchwater, and we are procuring another one of these poly tanks for catching water from the roof of our newest structure. Someone who is handy and who can do some simple construction could build a cistern with much more capacity out of wood and/or concrete. At our ranch, as an intermediate step, we have also considered purchasing an inexpensive 20,000 gallon above ground plastic pool for temporary water storage.

The homesteads in this area 100 years ago used below ground, rock-lined cisterns for water storage. A neighboring property used to have an old house on it. When a new owner purchased the property he allowed the men in our community to tear down the old house for any materials we could salvage from it. As we were tearing down the old house, we uncovered a large, hand-dug cistern behind the house. It was probably 20 feet deep and 6-8 feet in circumference. One-hundred yards away, and somewhat lower than the house, was a man-made cattle tank. Water from the tank was pumped up to the house by a windmill (which still stands, unused), where it was stored in the rock-lined cistern. I am pretty certain that the old abandoned homestead (the one I told you about at the front of my property), has a cistern somewhere underneath it. It will be interesting to find out someday when we get the time to do some work up on that portion of the land.

I am still studying ways to further enhance and diversify our water system here on the ranch. Off-grid water is an important issue, and I imagine we will be studying and adapting our system as long as we live here.

There is no way to guarantee ourselves water. No civilization in history, no matter where it was located in relation to water, has been able to guarantee itself plentiful, good, drinking water. What we can do is make sure that our plans are wise and that we are making use of diverse sources of water procurement and storage. Diversification means that we ought not to have all of our eggs in one basket, and we should not rely, in any way, on the world for the delivery or purification of our water supply. In the end, God is sovereign over water, which is why so much of the Bible uses water as parable and metaphor. Rightly viewing and valuing water helps us understand the parables and the metaphors, which is how it really ought to be.

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