...which offered us an opportunity to test our resilience. Showers are a great morale builder, especially when there is a long day ahead. With a failed well pump, you can still take a hot shower - if you have a stainless manually air compressed water tank. It works just like a garden sprayer except you can heat it with propane and pump it by hand to create pressure.
Turn the red lever on the left (where the hose leaves the tank) and a significant amount of water sprays out the nozzle on the right.
We're also better prepared with a giant external poly water tank. We've tried living three days off of water from this tank so far and learned that as a family we can get by with consuming 50 - 60 gallons a day and even less if you use the outdoor bathroom facilities (up to 40% of the drinking water in an average home is consumed by toilets). Just don't try and turn the knob when the temperature is freezing (the "ears" on the plastic faucet will break off. Trins thinks that's funny. No hot shower for Trins).
Freezing temps create snow and snow creates other challenges especially for rabbits raised on grass. Theses guys are being housed in a culvert until the snow dissipates. (Our rabbits actually do better in the cold.)
Freezing temps can make it challenging to feed other animals. In this pic the goats are being provided with leaves and pine needles (Keena makes farming look glamorous - I guess it can be but not today, we lost two goat kids this morning).
Before it got cold we were busy with some usual maintenance items (hauling wears your breaks out faster than normal - I'm starting to delegate auto maintenance to TJ)
...and other occasional tasks like wild life control. This is a pygmy rattler. Otto walked up and sniffed it. I yelled at the dog to back off and just as he did the rattler struck and missed.
Was this water outage before the winter storm hit? How much water does your "hot" water tank hold? That looks like a good back up. I will have to send Ralph over your way to check it out. Stay warm.
ReplyDeleteYes, before the storm, the relay failed on the water tank that turns the well pump on after the tank pressure runs low. The hot water tank didn't last long. I think the 275 gallon IBC ("palletized") liquid tanks may be better - they certainly cost less ($50-75 each on craigslist) and can be daisy-chained together, with 10 of them you can create a lot of back-up.
DeleteI am glad it wasn't during the storm. Thanks for sharing your information and experience. It helps us make decisions on what we should do.
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