We design only off-grid homes and consult too.
For a great water systems we recommend rain water catchment with a clean surface and a properly sized cistern system. These water reserves could be placed in several places upon the landscape or on just one location such as at the home, initial gravity flows can give you line pressure enough to draw water without electricity. On the landscape we have even run a ram pump to redirect water to higher ground, to multiply that gravity pressure for landscaping, so throughout the land, water is available.
The last well we had dug for a home we designed, cost $20,000, and smelled of sulfur with a bad taste. That was a lot to spend to get bad water. It could be cleaned up by open air pond, with constant agitation, then filtering & UV Stabilizing , but in the end it was just used to water the animals and landscape, so NOW we advocate for our clients to only build rainwater cisterns in place of wells initially and this is cheaper, than what we spent on that last awful well.
As partially stated above, sometimes located upon several parts of a project, [all depending upon the projects size requirements of the several systems and/or as may be needed ] the cistern will allow us to triple filter our drinking water supply and to UV stabilize all that drinking water too. It's possible to capture naturally distilled water and use that too, but the natural way is far less of a supply than our earlier description can provide and distillation equipment [can be a simple home pressure cooker and copper line] to provide ample distilled water should that be required from time to time easily, and other products could be distilled from that same set up too, (all of which is easily stored in the ample closet space a Georgia Adobe Home(TM) has). Buying a thousand or two gallons of fresh water to fill a cistern the first time is always available in most urbanized areas , just until the house build is complete so you have water as the build progresses, and is normally very affordable once, and after the metal roof of the home is complete, with directional gutters, the roof starts collecting lots of rainwater. stand alone cistern can be built from many local components, and they can also have their own collection surface, made of metal or cement. Always a manhole must be included in the top, plumbing to dispense the water to your use and we like to have connections to other cisterns installed for later additions of water reserves plus always a flush valve to empty the tank during our normal yearly cleaning of each of our cisterns. By having more than one tank built, or a plastic tank installed, one can clean and empty one, then allow it to refill, before tackling the other tanks so as to conserve 75% plus of your water reserves with a four tank system, so this 4 tank system, is our standard plan for our clients.
A 1000 sq ft roof area, will collect around 600 gallons an hour, from just a 1 inch of rain fall, so build at least 10,000 gallons of storage in perhaps 4 small [or more] - 2,500 gallon plastic water tanks is the best minimum system we suggest ( a better system would be four times this ) and we set them across the Northern buried side, of the new structure at minimum of about 4 ft higher than the finished floor is at for gravity feed into the building. Insulate them well and the back of the building too using closed cell foam insulation, thereby allowing them to converge to one 2 inch pipe point, all inside the building with shut off's and tees on each. Gravity delivery, then gives one ample water always and a spigot before the pump, pressure tank and filters, always allows bucket or hose connection, to draw water from just gravity pressure only, thus no power required when other equipment may fail ( for example if your area is hit with an E.M.P. attacks or the pumps electricity flow stops ) .
This is part of how we design and build Georgia AdobeTM, Earth sheltered, passive solar, passive ventilated Rammed Earth Home, that can basically heat and cool themselves, make their own water, power, gas sometimes, lots of food and are generally paid for, when built as we plan and consult to our clients to build for themselves, upon the day one moves in.
Give us a call to start your home project at 706-363-6453