| A few years back I decided to shop for some | | | | to a holding tank of about five hundred gallons. If |
| land in the hills of Texas. It absolutely was rough | | | | the tank is full the pump can not come back on. |
| land, all rock with steep cliffs and bottomless | | | | This is triggered by a float switch within the |
| valleys. The elevation of the property put us | | | | primary holding tank that will tell the pump |
| several feet higher than the water table so | | | | controller if the tank is full or not. Currently |
| making it rather pricey to bore a well. However | | | | remember this first tank is simply dirty water |
| the property had one factor going for it. | | | | with bugs and all. |
| Somewhere in that hill was a large abyss that will | | | | From this first holding tank the water is gravity |
| capture the rain water, when it rained. | | | | fed to a smaller tank stuffed with gravel and |
| Now this water was not gushing out of the hill, it | | | | sand. This smaller tank has a float valve that only |
| really only came out at around half a gallon per | | | | opens when the water is low in that tank. The |
| minute. There was no way to tap into the supply | | | | dirty water flows into the filter tank, conjointly |
| thus we were stuck with the lingering flow. We | | | | referred to as a slow sand filter, and slowly |
| ultimately gave the system a name; we called it | | | | moves through the layers of sand and gravel. |
| the hamster bowl. | | | | This movement polishes the water and removes |
| The hamster bowl lands up as a tiny pool of | | | | 99.99% of all impurities. The slow filter will |
| water approximately three hundred feet from our | | | | process around 15 gallons per hour or 360 gallons |
| residence. There is grass, grime, fish, snakes along | | | | ow water per day. We tend to never use that |
| with bugs swimming all in that water. The deer, | | | | much so it never goes dry. |
| hogs, turkey and other animals return to drink | | | | Once the water is cleaned via the slow sand filter |
| there too. Now it had been our turn to drink from | | | | is gravity fed into the last holding tank. The top of |
| the hamster bowel as well. | | | | this holding tank is just on top of the outlet of the |
| The objective was to turn dangerous water into | | | | sand filter. Once the final holding tank is full, the |
| good water without using high pressure or high | | | | water from the sand filter is unable to leave the |
| dollar filters and such. So we were limited to the | | | | filter tank thus causing the filter tank valve to |
| ways we might use. The added drawback was | | | | close up. Once the filter tank valve is closed the |
| that the flow rate was such that we were | | | | unclean water holding tank fills up and triggers the |
| restricted on how much water we may possibly | | | | float switch that turns off the solar pump. It is all |
| collect from the bowl while not hurting the natural | | | | very straightforward and terribly cost effective. |
| system. During normal conditions we were getting | | | | Therefore this is how we turned our unclean |
| almost half a gallon per minute of flow rate, this | | | | ground water into fresh usable drinking water for |
| translated to only over 700 gallons per day of | | | | our house. You will be able to find slow sand filter |
| total water. We set to take about a 3rd of that. | | | | designs on the web in addition to watch videos on |
| The system is very simple. We setup a solar | | | | how they work on various video sites. There are |
| panel to power a pump that is positioned in the | | | | many manufactures for these types of filters |
| hamster bowl. During the day the pump comes | | | | however you can create them just as well. |
| on, if needed, and pumps water from the pool up | | | | |