Thursday, February 19, 2009

Mountain Living - Water Part XI

Another in the ongoing saga of our water woes...

Now we have a 5000 gallon tank full of mud.

Well, that's a bit hyperbolic, but still somewhat factual. The other day I noted that the water in the dog's dish was slightly brown. Wondering about that I did some research and discovered that all the water in the house was that color except what comes from the RO unit.

So I wandered out to the water tanks to see if anything was up out there. Oh yeah. Suspended silt in the water. Probably the result of two years of drought and then finally getting some water into the water table this year. Cruft is getting dislodged and washed out into our well. Fun!

Eventually I think it will settle out, but it will take time. And in the meantime it's ugly. I backwashed the filters and things are better now, but it's not pretty out there.

Once again I repeat for those who hate city water: you have no idea how good you've got it. Just pay your bill and quit complaining.

At the moment I am waiting for referral information on how to build my own sand based turbidity filter that might help with this (and other) water quality problems. We'll see if that ever shows up or not. And in the meantime I'll keep asking the oracle.