The day has arrived.  You decide it’s time to move away from the busy home town or city you have always lived in.  Now the work begins as you search for the perfect property.  

The SINGLE most under calculated aspect of that search is water.  Naturally, we all read or discuss the prospects with friends/acquaintances to help guide us in the process.  The advice you will receive is as endless as the seas.  Sorting through the experiences, opinions, and myths can send you in the wrong direction many times before you even have a chance to escape into the peace of the wilderness.

I have subsisted for varying periods of time in some fairly amazing environments.  Knowing the correct way to develop a new property for water is sometimes very overwhelming if you have not done it.  Let’s start off with some basic things I use myself, and each thing on my list has saved me frustration as I got older and learned what did and did not work.

1. Not every stream, creek, spring is eternal.  When you purchase a property make sure to find out if the water source lasts all year.  The changing of the seasons will cause the water on the surface and in the ground to rise and fall.  Sometimes this change is dramatic and will very much do its best to deny you easy access when you need it most.  In many areas you can search for well records from the surrounding well logs.  You will want to pay close attention to the standing water level in the hole, flow rate, and especially the driller’s record of the layers of earth that were encountered as they drilled deeper. 

2. Is the amount of money you will need to expend to bring water to the surface (if you don’t have a spring, creek, stream, river) worth the effort?  I have watched as clients touted the perfect property high on a mountain top only to discover they had to eternally pump water in the valley and haul it to tanks so they could maintain their dream.  That can be horribly frustrating.  I have seen the same people also drill wells in desperation after a few years of exhausting all other efforts to lose their life savings on a well drill that goes 900+ feet with NO water.  

3. Will all of the renewable energy you install (Solar, Wind, etc) be utilized just to pull water from deep in the earth?  Most of the systems we design start with an evaluation of the water system, when one exists.  If the well is deep we design to support the pump effort.  In many cases during the dark months you will literally drain a battery bank just to fill a pressure tank.  I personally have felt the pangs of anxiety as my child flushes a toilet (when I had those) and the water pressure tank hits low pressure, then activates the pump.  In the dark months it will almost cause you to develop a tic.

4. Rain Water Catchment! Sounds great right?  Here is the issue:  Acidity, organic exposure, micro-organisms, bacteria.  Most of our clients are quick to see rain as a solution until after a drought year.  Even if you are going through a wet period, and your excitement is at its peak, you cry out in joy, you sit buckets, barrels, tarps, pots, jars, pans out and suddenly feel the relief you have been seeking for what seems an eternity, then mosquitoes and other larvae invade.  The sickest I have been in my life (and my body has been at war with illnesses in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Arctic, the Arabian Peninsula) was from contaminated water.  Never ever again.

5. At a point almost everyone comes to a phase where they ask themselves if they can drill a well themselves.  How hard can it be right?  So you try to dig an old time hand dug water well.  In the wrong place.  When that doesn’t work you ask a neighbor (or us) and you shift to a low point in the terrain where perhaps the water funnels under the surface.  When you are in the wet periods of the year that does help, until it doesn’t.  Once the surface water penetrates to the standing water level underground it takes paths dictated by the immovable objects that cause it to twist and turn to follow a path of least resistance.  As elusive as the holy grail, the water will always do its best to evade capture.

6. But the neighbor has water, surely I should be able to get it too.  A word of advice:  Your neighbor possibly acquired the property he has with water, or the previous owner had it.  In the event that he did not, he went through the process you are now and rolled the dice.  Fortune favors the bold!  But not always.

7. I can just pipe water over from the river, creek, insert body of water.  Transferring water requires either 1. Gravity (most water features are at the lowest point on a property) or 2. Electricity.  In hindsight you could also throw in mechanical pumping with the wind.  Now remember that you must protect the aforementioned water from freezing in the winter.  That beautiful water cistern you spent months building can freeze.  Insert my above comments about contamination and being horribly sick.  Good luck!

8. Hand Pumps:  If you want to hand pump then by all means do so.  Even the best hand pumps take mechanical motion and that means instead of tending the homestead you are basically getting a rewarding bit of exercise while you go draw water out of the well.  My advice to many is to have a large family.  Many children makes easier water pumping.  Maybe you can design something like the great turning wheels with mules, men, or some other creature forever walking and pulling the water.  

At this point I think you are seeing the broader picture.  Taking the time up front to find a proven water source that will last is the key to happiness.  Especially when going Off Grid when you are so intent on doing the many things it takes to sustain that dream.  

Here is my top hint to set you on the right path:  Always look for a spring.  Always look for a spring that is uphill from your living structure.  Always always bury the water lines below frost line.  Always try to have the water source far enough uphill to build the vertical head (pressure) with volume and flow rate to keep your property happily sustained with water.