Q & A
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| [Books] [Classified] [Q & A] [Commentary] [Self-Support News] Current Questions: LandQ: "I'd like to become at least mostly self-sufficient in the country, but don't know what to look for in a piece of land, any suggestions?"--M. C., Alexandria, VA A: Land for autonomous & secure living requires 5 principal attributes:
We don't have web space to go into it all, but in the book Husbandry, you'll find info on acre/yields for most common foods, plus how to get the land you need. Q: "How do you find the perfect place--where do you start?"--B. L., Gainesville, FL A: You probably don't "find" the perfect homestead so much as "see" its possibilities and "make" it. Explore areas that appeal to you on weekend trips & vacations, looking for districts within your chosen region that have land you think you can afford. Q: "What's the most common mistake when choosing a place for becoming self-sufficient?"--M. D., New Orleans, LA A: The most common mistake is getting more land than you need: Too-big land holdings drain you and your wallet, because you work a lot of area poorly instead of a little area well. You have to invest in ever more equipment, and that forces you into business to pay for it all! Owning too much land rules out your privacy because you can't keep an eye on it all. Trespassers can come and go at will--and you can't do anything to stop it. Sadly, a common attitude among intruders is that if you own more than you "need," it's o.k. to trespass against you. How big is too big? More than you can see from your home; more than you can conveniently work; more than you can defend, more than you can pay for thru only part-time labors. Current Questions: Water ResourcesQ: Our gravity-fed spring doesn't flow as well as it used to. The spring is still running strong, but very little water comes through the pipeline. When we pump it out, we never find the clog, but it runs well for a few weeks, then clogs back up. An intake screen hasn't helped. Is this an air-lock? How do we fix it?--B. W., Asheville, NC A. It sounds like an air-lock. Undulations in the pipeline, even if they're only slight, sometimes allow air to be trapped, sealing off the full flow. This is especially true if the spring doesn't produce enough water to keep the inlet submerged at full flow. Using a fairly large reservoir between the spring and the pipe inlet will help a lot, say about 200 gallons or more. A bubble in the line may be from a few inches, to several yards long (or longer!). It can't float up, or flow downhill. If you know where it forms, you can install an air-bleed, which allows air to escape, but not water. Check with your plumbing supply house. Q: Is it possible to make your own hydraulic ram pump without machine tools?--T. G., Charlottesville, VA A: Yes, and it's not very difficult or expensive, but it usually requires some welding, or at least brazing for a ram that won't break apart from the repeated water-hammer effect. Plastic water-rams are o.k. experimentally, but they don't hold up for a long time. Some folks have succeeded with it by casting the finished ram in concrete, but for that to work, properly, you have to design it to come apart for repairs and/or cleaning. We hope to one day post an illustration of water-rams we have built at Cobblemead. Q: How do you dig a shallow well, and how deep do you have to go before you hit water?--S. W., Salisbury, MD A: It takes too much space to describe the well-digging processes, but the quickest (and not too expensive) way is to hire a crane operator with an "orange-peel" bucket to dig it for you. This device can dig and lift out hundreds of pounds of dirt with each drop of the bucket. It can dig more in an hour than you could dig in many days, so it's worth contemplating. Also, it's not as dangerous as hand-digging, although it's possible for an unskillful operator to lose his crane's bucket to a cave-in if he's not careful. This type of well makes its own reservoir, so that if its total flow is slow, at least it'll fill back up while it's not being drawn from. Wells are more fully explained in the book, Husbandry. In most of the United States east of the Mississippi River you don't have to dig deeper than about 25 feet before hitting water, if you dig in a reasonably likely spot. Q: Is there a book or diagrams on maintaining a gravity-fed spring? I have a box that the initial spring water flows into and two collecting tanks my problem is silt. Most times I have no problems with water quantity but now it is running slowly. I need information on how to maintain.--D. A: Siltation is caused by one of 5 things:
It will require periodic maintenance, but you can make a silt trap pretty easily as follows: Dig a nice, big hole just downhill from the collection box, and fairly close to the collection box's outlet, and sink a plastic, concrete, or other water-resistant barrel, into it. Channel the pipe from the collection box into it, and caulk around where it enters the barrel. On the other side of the barrel, attach your current pipe to your holding tanks. Caulk around it, too. You may have to limit the size of the exit pipe somewhat, so that the suction going to the holding tanks doesn't constantly suck it dry, depending again on undulations. This big barrel considerably slows the movement of water, so that most of the silt accumulates in it, instead of in your lines & tanks. You'll still get some silt in them, but look over the above 5 points, and find the one that fits your situation. (Undulations should never rise above the "straight-line" gradient. This means if you could draw a perfectly straight line from your tank to the consumption point, the pipe--though undulating--never rises above this line.) You may need to flush out the line. Often fire departments have pumps that will do the job: but it requires a pretty good supply of water to do it. Some have been successful using compressed air, like with one of those portable tire inflator air tanks. NOTE: You forgot to put your location. We normally don't put answers to people who won't give a hint as to where they are, because local conditions usually greatly affect the answer to land-based questions. We then have to speak in generalities, which takes a lot of time, space, and often doesn't quite answer the question in your locality. Compare the length of this answer with the ones above. Ask Us!Please share your questions about self-sufficient country life with us. Our readers especially want to know answers to puzzles that affect folks just starting out. Please submit your questions in the form below. All personal info will be kept confidential except for where you're from (like you see on the questions above). |
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