Gravity Is Our Friend

As you may remember, we have no well at the Cañon City homestead. We have a 1200 gallon cistern buried in the ground slightly above and to one side of the house. It was a royal pain in the patoot to get the water from the truck cistern into the ground cistern. We had to drive the truck up the hill as far as we could - which wasn't very far - and hope that we didn't run over the water line that goes from the cistern to the house, and also hope that we were far enough above the cistern that the water would drain out of the truck and into the ground.

Last week we installed a new and improved system. It was a complete success on it's maiden voyage, but we yet to test it in the winter. Still, we are hopeful.

We now drive the truck full of water part way down the drive and stop at the telephone pole. This is where the magic begins.

Note the pink fabric tie holding the water line to the pole. The line is connected to a ball valve on the truck cistern.

The waterline then proceeds down the hill at a rather severe angle.

See the pink thing? That's the next fabric tie. Hanging on to a tree.

This is looking from the bottom up. It is 175 feet from the telephone pole to the cistern. And no fun at all to climb.

Here are the inspectors checking the permit. The white cap you can see on the straw bale is removed when filling the cistern, and that L portion of the line sits down in the top of the white cistern cap.

Now, you make wonder why this is such a big deal. Well, it now takes only 30 minutes for the truck cistern to empty its precious cargo to the house cistern, instead of the 2.5 hours it took before. And it's way easier. Except we've never had to do it in cold weather. That may not be so neato. It is a long walk to the house from that spot on the driveway.