Category Archives: Water

Diggin’ It

Last week we rented a small backhoe and began excavating the cistern and leveling the front yard. The plan was to dig the root cellar, level the workshop/shed site and dig out the straw bale duplex foundation at the same time, but we managed to break the rear wheel drive and were cut prematurely short after nearly finishing the cistern and leveling much of the front yard area of the common house and making a greywater mulch basin.

The cistern will hold about 3,500 gallons of purified rainwater and keep it from freezing.  We’re going to seal it with a cement plaster lining and reinforce the frost zone with a rock/cement retaining wall and seal the top with a concrete lid poured in place.

We’ve spent the last few days digging the ledge to hold the retaining wall and squaring up the hole somewhat, although it doesn’t need to be perfect for our purposes.  We’ve still got to dig the trenches for the overflow and outlet pipe runs, but in the meantime though it’s perfect for some good old fashioned pit fighting…

 

Rainwater Hand Washing Station

I finished up the rainwater hand washing station that’s attached to the composting toilet.  I put up a gutter covered with windows screen to keep debris out a several weeks ago, and John built the bucket/soap platform.

Today I added the downspout and secured a piece of window screen over the top of the bucket as a secondary filter and to keep mosquitoes out.  I drilled a bunch of tiny holes in the back side of the bucket near the top in order to keep the max level of the water lower than the window screen, otherwise mosquitoes could still lay eggs in the water.

I also added a little carabiner to hold a hand towel that Jesse put down there.   That water can be pretty cold, so drying your hands helps a lot.  There’s nothing but a couple inches of mulch catching the water.  If it becomes an issue we may dig a small french drain.