Well or rain collection for drinking water?

paluiz

I'm doing up a cottage that hasn't been occupied for a while and I need to sort out the water supply. There is no water main. The property was served in the past by a well, but that is currently out of commission.

I grew up in Australia and we always collected rainwater - for several years that was all I had in fact. The water ran off the roof into corrugated iron storage tanks, and from there into the house. The only "treatment" was a large sieve in the top of the tank that kept leaves and other large debris out.

Here in Kerry there is no shortage of rain and I'm surprised there are not more people using it, as there are good reasons to expect it to be cleaner than ground water, but most people seem to have wells. The current well for my house is located a good way up a hill, well away from anything like septic tanks, though there are a few sheep up there. Most online articles about rainwater talk about it being used for toilet flushing etc, but not drinking.

Are there any particular reasons for using a well rather than rainwater collection? I'm in the very early stages of looking at this so not entirely sure of the cost implications: maybe wells are cheaper? I've read a document that says that private water supplies are the responsibility of the householder which suggests they are not subject to much regulation, but this might not be correct.

Any thoughts or reports of experience of either would be welcome.

The_Bullman

I would have thought the use of lead on a roof in ireland would be an issue.

Trasna1

The_Bullman wrote: »

I would have thought the use of lead on a roof in ireland would be an issue.

This is the reason as well as the possibility it's contaminated with bird and rodent droppings.

Calahonda52

BS8515:2009, (Rainwater Harvesting Systems - Code of Practice)
is the recognised standard here for such setup.
Am not certain about the regs, but certainly you have a duty of care to visitors, as well as family to provide potable water.

"...states that water used in dishwashers or for bathing purposes has to be to a potable standard.

From a purely financial point of view treating rainwater with UV may prove to be more expensive to run - firstly due to the cost of electricity of running the UV system and secondly the regular replacement and maintenance of the UV lamps.

The "treated" water will also need to be tested reguarly to prove it is of a Potable (or Wholesome) standard. ..."

Metric Tensor

It's not hugely difficult but the initial up-front costs are quite high relatively speaking and you need to have some understanding of how water treatment works.

IMO:

Depending on the water source you may first need a mechanical filter like a screen or sieve. This needs to be cleaned regularly.

You would then need to construct a slow sand filter - this requires washed sand in specific sizes on top of which forms a biological filter which has the magnificent name of a "schmuzdecke." The filter needs to be maintained (by skimming) on a semi regular basis.

Then you would need a clean storage volume after the filters. Provided it is kept sealed and clean this should not need too much maintenance but would need to be sized to stop water from stagnating whilst still providing a reasonable buffer for dry weather.

Then a UV lamp between the storage volume and the attic storage tank. This needs to be maintained and the UV bulb replaced regularly enough. Some of the UV lamps require an additional mechanical filter in line with them.

You should then regularly test the water for quality.


Now:
The question is should most of the above also be installed on the multitude of domestic wells that abound across the country and if so is it?!

Lumen

This is interesting.

https://www.wqpmag.com/options-rainwater-disinfection

Calahonda52

As MT above with the following caveats re the UV lamp:
Get one that has an external method of telling you it is burned out, as you cannot look at them, they will fry the mince pies: think arc welding.
Also, particle size passing through a single UV needs to be v small to stop lads such as Cryptosporidium hitching a ride on the shady side of a larger particle

The rolls royce lamp rig will have run hours as well, you get about 8,000 hours out of some: 48 weeks

paluiz

Thanks all - some interesting stuff. Lumen - thanks for the WQP link which was a good read; interesting that the Adelaide finding showed no difference between those drinking treated and untreated water. As I said in OP, I drank completely untreated rainwater for years without any ill effects that I'm aware of. I think most of the people I know who are still using rainwater have installed microfilters, though not all of them, and I don't know anyone who bothers with all the extra treatment suggestions.

However, I suppose it comes down to what you're used to, and most rural houses in Ireland seem happy to use wells - mostly, it appears, with little or no treatment of the water. The house, as I said, is partway up a mountain and there are no houses higher up so the only possible contaminant would be sheep droppings, and even the sheep are mostly lower down than the well site.

The WQP article outlined a system that uses sunlight to convert water into hydrogen which is then burned to produce pure water and heat - the latter is recovered and powers a steam generator that's used to charge batteries. Sounds great, but I suspect the well will be a lot cheaper (and while the rain here is pretty reliable, the sunlight needed to break it down into oxygen and hydrogen might be more of a problem!).