Wednesday, May 12, 2010

filtered water from the sky . . .


Justin and Dave, who happen to have the SAME brown hoody I have, have been somewhat regular visitors to our home in the five short months we have lived here. We are on a fun first name/story basis. :) This last visit they came to replace the sand filter that had a faulty backwash function. It was as cheap to by the whole tank and regulator as it was just to buy the regulator. Now, we are UP-TO-DATE . . . in code . . . and drinking FRESH water from our pond. "POND WATER?" you ask. Yep, we drink the water that falls from the sky!

The well water we have here at the house is horrible to say the least. It smells of rotten eggs due to the large amounts of sulfur content. The sulfur isn't necessarily bad for you, but it does have a rotten smell, and it does damage to items in the house after being exposed to it for a long time. The owner before us had a pond dug and were also using it for their drinking and washing water. However, they, like most people around here, used chemicals to "clean" it. As you are probably thinking, I'm not sure how clean it was though. Anyway, wanting to have a natural water cleaning system, I had the guys install a series of filters to clean the water before it reaches us. It has had some bumps along the way, but today they installed the last piece to keep us up and running for a long while.

Here's the breakdown. The water gets pumped from the pond using the small blue tank. (there is a filter on the hose in the pond to collect some of the debris wanting to get into my children's mouths) It then goes through a sand filter first collecting most of the gunk that ponds grow naturally. It then passes through the charcoal filter that takes virtually ALL the smell out of the water. Then it is drawn upwards to the two filters pictured to collect the remnants of pond life before it is sent to the ultra-violet tank to kill off the micro organisms. At that point, it is ready for our use in the house for all our water needs.

The system has a backwash built in that causes it to flush out the junk each night (around 2:00 am) and send all the stuff collected to the septic. There for a couple of months it smelled a little pondy when we drank the water, and taking a shower was sort-of like having a pond sauna, but all is good now. Water . . . from the sky to our home. It's beautiful.

And for the barn animals . . . they get the well water. (they don't care about the smell)

1 comment:

Camille.thomas said...

I love your adventures! They are so fantastic! Your pictures of your farm are idyllic, too. I know you and Ildi and the kids work very hard, though. How gratifying that must be. I also love Nolan's pencil holder. Beautiful! Laura