On 6/28/2014 12:41 AM, DannyD. wrote:> > Everyone has 10,000 or 15,000 gallon tanks of water. Most have two > or three large tanks. I don't think anyone doesn't have a tank or three. > > So, that's where the water would be stored. >
With that much capacity, you might look into a bigger delivery truck. I mean, if you had a
5,000 gal truck, you could split the water off, and deliver some water to two or three houses at same time. OTOH, 5,000 is a LOT of weight and would probably be the size of a semi trailer.
Would be nice to get the local FD out for relay pumping practice one day a month, and fill ALL the tanks and be done with it.
It sure presents a lot of challenge, for sure. I'd guess a few folks have those coolers with five gal jugs to put on top. Not perfect, but what you gong to do? Get a couple more jugs each time you go to town.
What does the FD do, with housing and no hydrants?
Would it be a fair guess, that the high mounted
10,000 gal tanks, you're supposed to fill them during the rainy season, if there is rain?
That might provide the input, so you can put water into the tanks? I'd think that in case of fire, the FD would need to tap the resident tanks, for water.
I'd not considered the altitude question. That does cause all kinds of problems, trying to get up hill.
Ideally if each HO brought home 10 gal of water with each trip to town. But, back to my experience with the family with bad well water. Few people have that mental capacity, even when she goes out and puts the jugs on their car seats.
Danny says most HO have 10,000 gal tanks at home, so delivery of complete load doesn't sound like a problem. Sloshing is a major problem when turning corners. Every now and again, a fire department flips a tanker, cause of the slosh baffle problem.
As former volunteer FF, and having taken some fire protection courses, I remember lift takes 0.434 PSI per foot of rise. Sounds like you're better off driving than pumping.
I paid 3.69 for cheap nolead yesterday, and it's more like 3.89 in some places, here (western NY), IIRC. I think California with the botique designer low smog fuels cost a pile more than NYS.
So, you'd best to budget a LOT for motor fuel on your project. Driving water uphill is not going to be the same as one frail gramma in a Prius. Might get dual 1,000 gal tanks, one white for potable water, other red for gasoline.
With plastic casing, which is what is being used here these days, AFAIK you can't just drill an existing well deeper. You have to start all over. Steel casing, etc maybe you can. I'd definitely find out about that option though.
Since they are 2,000 altitude, it may be there isn't enough water to be useful. Danny, do any of your neighbors have good supply of water? If no neighbors have water, it's possible the deeper well option isn't viable.
Lets also look at the time factor. Suppose that Danny or other worker decides to shuttle thousand gallon trips. Fill the tank will probably be 10 minutes at hydrant, plus connect and dis- connect. Threads, put the meter back on the truck, and so on. At the house, we're not sure what is the GPH with a pump, there is time needed to pump into the house tank. Drive up and down the hill. Anyone want to make a SWAG as to the time for one shuttle? More than anyone expects, I'm sure.
If you have a well system that *normally* doesn't run dry, then why would you need so much storage capacity for potable water?
And how would you keep the tanks clean enough (and the water clean enough) to drink or cook with so much stored water?
What exactly is this water used for? Household stuff?
I thought the point of this whole thing was to rent a single water meter and an inexpensive transportation system to convey the water to multiple people. If a large truck + tank would cost 10 times as much as a smaller tank on a trailer pulled by your own PU, then maybe a few round trips to each person with the smaller tank would still end up costing less than dragging around the 5k gallon truck.
the only guy I knew who actually had to do this had a water tank in his pickup truck, not too large, and filled it up at work. No mileage costs. I assume he paid back his employer, or maybe the employer suggested it as a low cost fringe benefit.
And that sounds like excellent idea. I have a gut sense this is more of a retirement community. Danny,anyone in your area going to work every day like PR's friend?
Any chance for a used fire department truck. Fair amount of water, already baffled for a little easier carry, you know they are built to go places and already have the pump on board.
That bit the city fire department badly. about 4am one night the city fire department garage caught fire (later determined to be caused by a plugged in extension cord hanging over a nail). All the trucks were inside and cou ld not be gotten out...except one, the antique "Wimpy", a truck from the 20 s or 30s stored in another shed. Fully operational and full of vintage equ ipment...none that was of any use as the connections did not mate up with t he fire hydrants. We lost the garage and all fire department equipment. By the time other agencies got there all they could do was keep the fire from spreading.
From the description of the problem (which apparently will be on-going and not getting better, it is time for that community to get together for a LID (local Improvement District) and run a pipeline those 5 miles for a permanent connection.
Cost of the 5 miles in equipment and pipe would soon amortize over the hauling, rental, etc. Right Of Way acquisition would be the deal breaker probably.
Stormin Mormon wrote, on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:06:14 -0400:
Well, there are all types. For example, the woman who ran out of water just divorced from her husband about two years ago, and she got the house and kids so she's actually renting her additional cottage on the property to another ex homeowner who lost his home down the street to the bank. So, she's not retured.
Yet, others own multiple companies, and the only ones going up and down the hill are their landscapers and repairmen.
The majority are independently wealthy (except me, as I've retired, but I may have to reconsider my options), but some are people who have been here for 40 years, and they must have bought when prices were less than a million so their taxes aren't killing them like mine are killing me! :)
I just got an update from the divorced lady. She is contracting out to get her rather shallow (only 300 feet) well drilled deeper. The next in line is a lady whose husband recently died, and her house is under foreclosure.
Her well (as is mine) is tripping every few minutes, so, she's conserving water (as am I) and hoping the water supply lasts until the next forcasted rain (which will come in October or November).
As for me, I filled the pool, so, "my" supply, while intermittent, was good enough to last, but, there are vineyards here which must be using a LOT of water ... so it may simply be a matter of location.
I don't know, but, for me, and for those without the ready capital to drill deeper, I'd go for the temporary solution of trucking the water up the hill.
The sloshing tipping over the truck seems to me to be a very real concern that I hadn't considered, because, there is no guardrail, and you're going down a slope that doesn't end for thousands of vertical feet, so, it would behoove us to better understand the sloshing effect on a pickup truck filled with a 1,000 gallons of water in a tank.
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