Life without water update

Earlier this year I posted a description of how we've learned to live without running water inside the house.  http://emmausgarden.blogspot.com/2013/05/life-without-plumbing.html  At the time I was still tinkering with how to run a washing machine without running water.  I attempted to operate it with pure gravity fed water, but that failed.  The washing machine has to have pressurized water to operate. 

Plan B.  While at Menards one day I found a shallow well jet pump with pressure tank on clearance.  I bought it and took it home, but it sat in my shed for awhile before a friend of mine came to visit and he decided we should try to make it work.  He's a priest now, but grew up on a farm in South Dakota and has lots of experience with pumps and plumbing from his days with the irrigation system on his family's farm.

To put it simply, we devised a system whereby we have a water tank in the utility room (I believe it's about 75 gallons), which we fill manually.  My understanding from talking to the local authorities is that "no plumbing" basically means no water lines running in to the house and no drain lines running out of the house.  We haul the water in and haul the water back out, so I'm going to take my chances with this system.  If I'm wrong, I'll be required to install a septic system, which I'm trying to avoid for now.

Connected to the water tank is the pressure tank and jet pump.  It plugs in to a local 110 outlet and pressurizes the water, which then runs to the washing machine.  Waste water from the washer runs in to a bucket, which has to be monitored and dumped throughout the wash cycle. 

We've found it takes about 12-15 gallons of water to run a normal load of clothes through our front loading washer.  I believe a top loader would take more, as they use more water. 

Needless to say, my wife is thrilled to now be able to do laundry on site, without having to haul laundry to town, even if it is still somewhat primitive in that we have to dump water in to the barrel and then dump the waste water out. 

The next project is to hook up some water barrels to our old well to see if we can utilize the water for household use, at least for laundry and bathing.  The well uses a pump jack, rather than a submersible well, so you have to have a separate tank or cistern to hold the water before using it.  Our water currently has a lot of sentiment in it, so I'm planning to create a system of two barrels.  Water will pump in to the one barrel (about 50 gallons) and will then be allowed to settle for a day or so.  A pipe about a foot off the bottom of that barrel will then connect to another barrel, separated by a valve, at which point I'll divert the now-settled water to the new barrel.  The water from the second barrel will probably then go through a sentiment filter I have to further remove sentiment, but my hope is that the water will then be clean enough to use for laundry, which is by far the biggest consumer of water.  I'll post the results of my experience later.

Gravity experiment failed

Washing machine with storage tank on right

Coleman jet pump and pressure tank