From water insecurity to offgrid, solar pumped, gravity flow 1000 gallons of running water.

I enjoy hauling water by hand, which is why doing it for 8 years was not really a problem. But water insecurity is; the spring has been drying up for longer periods in the fall, and the cisterns have barely been large enough to get through.

And if I'm going to add storage, it ought to be above the house, so it can gravity flow. And I have this 100 watt array of 20 year old solar panels sitting unused after my solar upgrade. And a couple of pumps for a pressure tank system that was not working when I moved in. And I stumbled across an odd little flat spot halfway up the hillside. And there's an exposed copper pipe next to the house's retaining wall; email to Africa establishes that it goes down and through the wall and connects into the plumbing.

a solar panel with a large impact crater; the glass has cracked into thousands of peices but is still hanging together barely perceptable flat spot on tree covered hillside a copper pipe sheathed in black plastic curves out of the ground next to a wall

So I have an old system that doesn't do what I want. Let's hack the system..

(This took a year to research and put together, including learning a lot about plumbing.)

Run a cable from the old solar panels 75 feet over to the spring. Repurpose an old cooler as a pumphouse, to keep the rain off the Shurflow pump, and with the opening facing so it directs noise away from living areas. Add a Shurflow 902-200 linear current booster to control the pump.

red cooler attached to a tree with a pump in it. water is streaming out of one of the two pipes attached to it circuit board with terminals labeled PUMP, PV, HIGH, LOW, GND, FLOAT SWITCH 50 gallon water barrel perched on a hillside with some hoses connected to it

Run a temporary pipe up to the logging road, and verify that the pump can just manage to push the water up there.

Sidetrack into a week spent cleaning out and re-sealing the spring's settling tank. This was yak shaving, but it was going to fail. Build a custom ladder because regular ladders are too wide to fit into it. Flashback to my tightest squeezes from caving. Yuurgh.

very narrow concrete water tank with its concrete lid opened and a rough wooden ladder sticking out of it interior of water tank drained with muck covering the bottom and plaster flaking from walls interior of water tank with walls bright and new, water level sensors and pipe to pump

Install water level sensors in the settling tank, cut a hole for pipe, connect to pumphouse.

Now how to bury 250 feet of PEX pipe a foot deep up a steep hillside covered in rock piles and trees that you don't want to cut down to make way for equipment? Research every possibility, and pick the one that involves a repurposed linemans's tool resembling a medieval axe.

hillside strewn in large rocks with trees wherever there are not rocks just unboxed trenching tool looks like a large black metal spatula 30 feet of very narrow trench comes out of the woods and along the side of the house past the satellite internet dish lines drawn over a photo of the hillside show the pipe's curving route to the top

Dig 100 feet of 1 inch wide trench in a single afternoon by hand. Zeno in on the rest of the 300 foot run. Gain ability to bury underground cables without raising a sweat as an accidental superpower. Arms ache for a full month afterwards.

Connect it all up with a temporary water barrel, and it works! Gravity flow yields 30 PSI!

Pressure-test the copper pipe going into the house to make sure it's not leaking behind the retaining wall. Fix all the old leaky plumbing and fixtures in the house.

water pressure guage connected to PEX pipe coming out of trench and connecting to copper pipe that goes into house modern restaurant-style sprung arched faucet with water flowing into the kitchen sink

Clear a 6 foot wide path through the woods up the hill and roll up two 550 gallon Norwesco water tanks. Haul 650 pounds of sand up the hill, by hand, one 5 gallon bucket at a time. Level and prepare two 6 foot diameter pads.

Joey standing in front of a black 4x4 pickup truck with a large white 550 gallon water tank on its side in the bed and arching high above Joey from the back as he rolls water tank up a forested hill six foot circle marked off with rope and filled with sand; a water tank is in the background and tools are strewn around the cramped worksite

Build a buried manifold with valves turned by water meter key. Include a fire hose outlet just in case.

in a hole in the ground between two water tanks is a complex assembly of blue pipes and brass fittings, with several valves close-up of old cracked solar panel the two tanks installed, high on a hillside

Begin filling the tanks, unsure how long it will take as the pump balances available sunlight and spring flow.