How we collect our own drinking water

For the last few years, we have stopped consuming tap water from our city utilities. And instead collect well water from a good source. The same person that lets me keep my Honey bees also lets me collect water. And I am quite thankful for that, having a well is something I would like one day. But until then I still get to enjoy the benefits of clean water.

We started off buying just a few dozen half gallon glass bottles. These are quite sturdy as long as they do not bump into each other too much.

Carrying six bottles at a time in these crates weigh about 25 pounds. Its manageable, much more would be too heavy to lug around.

As we prepare to travel up to the mountains where this well is, I remove excess water by hanging them upside down on a home made rack. You can find my post below showing how I made one.

@solominer/making-a-bottle-drying-rack

Without the rack, the bottles form mold inside at the bottom as its hard to get all the water out. But with the rack we get many more uses out of these bottles.

I grab a bunch of micro fiber towels, I bought mine from Amazon. You can get 144 of them for around $50

The towels are quite important, as they keep the bottles from clinking together. If there is too much room between them they can break and shatter making a huge mess.

We just place the towels over the top of the closed bottles, and then down the sides. This helps the glass from touching each other and packs them in tight.

With six bottles all packed together, this crate is ready for transport.

Above is an example of a bottle that is getting too old. It starts forming mold inside and we need to retire them or find a way to remove it. I may try my pressure washer on them and see if that helps.

Once I have taken all the empty bottles, placed in crates with their towels they are ready for transport. @lovely.logic stands by them to show how tall they stack.

The well at this house in the mountains is a modern one. No using buckets and a rope to pull up water. Its pumped into a house faucet that we use instead.

I start to fill the bottles and place them next to the faucet to dry a little as I do the others.

There is a pretty view out the window I can enjoy as I am filling up a few dozens bottles.

As I do more and more they start filling up the floor around.

It can take about 30 or so minutes to fill up all these bottles, but they will last us a week or so depending on how much we drink.

Getting done filling them up and stacking the bottles back in the crates, where they will be put in our car and brought back home.

I hang out in the back seat to help stabilize them, sometimes they try to tip over if we take a tight turn so I got to watch them.

And once back home they are now ready for us to consume. I usually drink a bottle or two a day, and so does @lovely.logic so we will return to the mountain home and get more when its time. Occasionally we run out and start using distilled water mixed with a salt sole. But we prefer the well water as its all natural and has been tested. The quality of water is better than what you can get at the local public well. So glad we have access to this private well that is much better than the city water.