Water: From Where It Is to Where You Need It

Adding the Amenities -- Introduction

Just because you are getting away from it all does not mean that you must give up any kind of basic comfort; even when your cabin or cottage is not equipped with conveniences that you take for granted at home—electricity, central heating or an endless supply of hot and cold running water. Until fairly recently, most people got along quite nicely without these conveniences. Many old-fashioned ways can be readily adapted to a comfortable vacation retreat, and you will soon discover that most modern necessities are not quite so necessary to comfort as you may have thought—at least for a few days at a time.

For light and cooking, the kerosene, propane or gasoline lamps and stoves developed for campers serve admirably inside a cabin. And without such luxury appliances as a dishwasher or washing machine, water-supply requirements will be relatively slight. You may be able simply to tap an adjacent stream or pond, or use a cistern to collect rain water. In most cases, however, some sort of well is necessary; generally it's best drilled or dug by a professional, but a pump is fairly easy to install yourself.

There are a number of ways to bring water into your cabin. A small, hand-operated pump mounted on a counter next to a kitchen sink is not only picturesque but practical. If you prefer a more convenient source of running water and are using an electrically powered pump, you can install a pressurized tank that will force water under pressure to a conventional faucet.

You may not have access to a sewer line for waste-water disposal, but for the limited amounts of water that you will be using, you will not need an elaborate waste-treatment system. In most localities, you can pipe your waste water to a simple seepage or to a small drainage field where the water is absorbed into the ground.

A flush toilet may be the convenience you will miss the most. But a well-constructed privy—the type that once was a fixture outside nearly every American home—can be a comfortable enough alternative, especially if it's used primarily during mild weather. For the colder months, you may want to consider a chemical toilet that can be installed indoors.

A wood-burning stove will throw out enough heat to keep a cabin snugly warm even in sub-zero weather, and if you clear away a number of trees on your building site, you will have a ready-made source of fuel. Otherwise, wood-gathering is permitted at many state and national forests, and it does not take long to lay in a season’s supply. As for keeping food cold for storage, you can have a gas powered refrigerator as efficient as the sleek electrical model of your year-round house; use tanks of propane gas to run the refrigerator, but have a professional install the gas line.

100 Parts for a driven well. The perforated, spear- like drive point at center can be hammered down through sandy soil to water that lies as much as 30’ below the surface. Sections of metal pipe are coupled to the shaft of the drive point until the water is tapped, then a flexible plastic pipe is fitted to the top section with a plastic pipe adapter and routed to the cabin. An old-fashioned pitcher pump draws the water through the metal and plastic pipes to a countertop in the cabin kitchen.

Water: From Where It Is to Where You Need It

One of the most taken-for-granted conveniences of modern life is water—a stream of fresh water at the twist of a tap. Bringing such a stream to a cabin may simply involve connecting up to a public water line. If you are off the beaten path, far from public utilities, you can generally tap a supply of surface water, rain water or ground water. (Before you do so, have the water checked for contaminants by the state health department.)

Surface water from a stream or lake is the easiest to tap. If the water is uphill from your site, fit plastic pipe with an intake—a cone of screening—drop the pipe in the water and run it to a tap. If the water is downhill, attach a pump— hand- or power-operated—to the pipe.

Rain water can be collected almost as easily as surface water by a catchment system in which water runs off a roof into screened gutters, down a drainspout, and into a roof washer, a contraption consisting of a screened trough leading into a plastic garbage can. Plastic pipe carries water from the can down to a holding tank, or cistern (4), to be pumped out as needed.

A 275-gallon cistern—which is sold as a galvanized-steel pressure tank by plumbing suppliers—holds enough water for weekend use by a family of six. To purify cistern water, add 1/4 cup of liquid chlorine laundry bleach for each 300 gallons of water after every rainfall. Drain the cistern annually and flush out sediment with fresh water.

Where surface and rain w are not readily utilized, well water almost always is. At a site on a sandy soil, you may be able to tap it easily. Check with neighbors; if their experience indicates that ground water in the area generally is within 30’ of the surface, you can drive a well by hammering a pipe down. In a soil so dense or rocky that you can not drive a pipe, you can turn to an old-fashioned dug well. Once laboriously excavated by pick and shovel, such wells are now easily dug by a backhoe. A ceramic casing protects the shaft from cave-ins; water that collects at the bottom is pumped like surface water.

Where water is not within 30’ of the surface, most people turn to a professional, whose equipment can drill as deep as necessary to reach water. A professional will also install and seal a galvanized-steel casing. From that point, you can lower an electric pump into the well (2) and hook it up.

The piping for any of these systems is easily done with 1- and 1 flexible polyethylene plastic pipe and hard plastic fittings widely available from building- supply dealers. You can connect pipe to the metal, female-threaded openings on pumps, tanks or well casings with a flexible pipe adapter—a plastic fitting with a male thread at one end and a ridged neck at the other. The male end of the adapter is threaded into the female-threaded opening of the pump or other device and the ridged neck is inserted into the pipe and secured with a stainless-steel hose clamp. If a female thread is larger than 1 or 1¾”, you may need an adapter plus a reducer bushing—a ring threaded on the inside and outside, with out side dimensions that match the female threads on the device and an inside diameter that matches the pipe adapter. Always cover male threads with pipe- joint tape or compound.

An Intake for Surface Water

1 Assembling the intake-pipe fittings. Using as much 1” flexible-plastic pipe as you need to reach your downhill tap or uphill pump, insert into its intake end the ridged end of a 1” pipe adapter, used to connect female threads to this piping, and secure the pipe with a hose clamp. Wrap pipe-joint tape around the threads of the adapter, beginning at the outer end and following the direction of the threads, and screw on a 1” intake screen.

2 Positioning the pipe in the water. Run the in take end of the pipe through the core of a mason ry block, tie a length of nylon cord to the intake screen and place the block on the river or lake bottom as far from shore as you can safely wade. Tie the other end of the cord to a float—a stoppered jug—to hold the intake at least 2’ above the bottom. Hook up the free end of the pipe to a tap if the cabin is downhill, to a pump if the cabin is uphill.

A Catchment for Rain Water

1 Connecting the pipe. Cut a 1 3/4” opening 10” from the top of a new 30-gallon plastic garbage can and insert the plastic sink connection called a 1½” PVC drain adapter, securing it with its nut. To connect the unthreaded outer end of this adapter to your 1” plastic pipe, assemble the parts illustrated, first cementing to the sink adapter a 1½” female-threaded adapter, - then screwing on a 1½”-to-1¼” reducer bushing and a 1¼” male adapter, and finally attaching with a hose clamp enough 1¼” plastic pipe to reach the cistern.

Drill a 1/8” hole 2” from the bottom of the can as a drain, so that the can will not remain full of water between rains.

Install a roof gutter (or clean an existing one) and add a downspout (or shorten an existing one) to empty about 6” above your plastic can. Shield the gutter with 5-foot lengths of the plastic screening sold as gutter guard , cutting and bending them so that they fit snugly at sides and ends and around braces.

104 3 Connecting the cistern. Place the cistern— buy what is called a galvanized-steel pressure tank in the size you need—as close to the cabin as possible but with its top below the level of the roof-washer outlet, If necessary, raise the washer on a platform or dig a pit for the cistern.

Connect the pipe from the roof washer to the 1¼” threaded opening near the bottom of the cistern with a 1¼” pipe adapter. Remove the threaded plug on top of the tank, replace it with a nipple—a 6” length of 1½” pipe with male threads at each end—and screw on a 1½” vent cap, a mushroom-shaped fitting with holes to let air out of the tank as it fills.

Insert a 1¼-to-1” threaded reducer bushing into the opening near the bottom of the tank opposite the intake from the roof washer and run another pipe inside your home to a hand or jet pump—the two kinds suitable for use with a cistern.

2 Assembling the roof washer. Make a trough to break the force of water from the roof by nailing 1-by-4 sides to a plywood square having a 4” hole in its center; staple ¼” galvanized screening over the top.

Driving Your Own Well

105 1 Attaching a drive-point shaft. Join the drive- point shaft—a special section of galvanized steel pipe with screened openings and a sharp point at one end—to a 4-foot section of 1 galvanized steel pipe with a coupling, a short length of pipe internally threaded at both ends. Secure the pipes by using two pipe wrenches. Screw to the other end of the pipe a drive cap, a closure that covers and protects the pipe threads, and push the drive point into a pilot hole 2’ deep.

2 Hammering pipe sections. With a sledge hammer, drive the assembly a foot into the ground, then retighten the coupling around the pipe and drive point. Tap the assembly sideways for the first few feet to keep it fairly plumb. When you have driven the top of the assembly almost down to ground level, remove the drive cap, add another section of pipe with a coupling, as in Step 1, and put the drive cap on it. Drive the assembly another foot into the ground and retighten the coupling as before.

Each time you remove the drive cap to add sections of pipe, lower a string with a nut tied to the end inside the piping. When you hear a splash from the bottom of the shaft, you have reached water; drive the piping 2’ deeper.

3 Capping the well pipe. Remove the drive cap and thread a metal 1’ 1/4” T fitting with a 1” side outlet to the pipe. Tighten the fitting with a pipe wrench and plug the top of the T with a 1 1/4” threaded plug.

Thread a 1” plastic pipe adapter to the side outlet, clamp flexible plastic pipe to it and run the pipe to your pump. If the flow of water is insufficient when you use the pump, the drive-point screen may be clogged. To clear it, use the pump briefly and remove the plug from the top of the T fitting—the water will fall back down the well pipe and force sand and sediment away from the screen. Repeat this procedure until water flows freely.