Hi, I have a camp, off the grid (no electricity) here in VT and was considering plumbing it. I would have to use gravity for pressure (put a spring-fed storage tank above the house) and run it to the camp where it would hit a tankless water heater. I assume in a “normal” house the water is pressurized when it goes through the heater, not afterwords. At 1psi per 2 feet elevation (appx) I could set the tank 70 feet above the camp and have plenty of pressure. this is my half baked idea at this point. Anybody have any encouraging, discouraging or otherwise sarcastic advice they wish to share? Please do.
Chris
Edited 3/29/2005 3:01 pm ET by cjvt2
Replies
Paint the tank black to help pre-heat the water.
How are you planning to get the water 70' off the ground INTO the tank?
This sounds similar to my parents house. A spring up the hill from the house is developed to feed into a 1000 gal plastic tank that is buried so that the top is just below ground level. It is probably 70 - 100 ft elev. drop down to the house. this head pressure supplies plenty of pressure for showers, etc. The tank burial and constant flow prevents freezing and the overflow from the tank is piped over to a small stream.
The line is buried about 4 ft. down for the run to the house. We upgraded them to this setup a few years ago after 50 yrs with only a 50 gal resevoir at the spring and a pipe that froze near the house in extreme cold conditions. Now they have an endless supply of water even in the worst dry spell.
Hi LEfty,
How do your parents heat their water though?
The parents have an electric water heater that has been suplemented with one of the outdoor wood burners that provides hot water for the forced air furnace through a coil in the duct and also heats the water before it goes to the electric water heater.
The breaker for the water heater has been turned off since the furnace was installed last fall. This furnace requires power for the circulation pump for the furnace system and power for a blower for the firebox. Does this help any?
Lefty - Lurker without an attitude or a clue
or otherwise sarcastic advice they wish to share..
Well, here I go again..
I was thinking the Romans did that long ago.. I never tried a search but maybe you can find.. As in get water up hill.. I think I even saw someplace a pump without 'electric' in Africa or someplace like that...
Yeah, you use a "ram" or something that uses the water pressure from a dam to push the water. It's in almost every book about alternative energy and such.
A guy I knew up here in cold and sunless Michigan heated his swimming pool by running the fill water through a black hose he draped on his roof. Worked quite well.
Interesting. I have a similar "wish" with my isolated creek front property, but with our flat land (South Georgia) it's the water tank itself that I would need to elevate.
Are you going to power the tankless unit with a generator ? If you're going to build some sort of tower, is a solar water heating arrangement a possibility ? In Israel, on a trip many years ago, I saw 55 gal drums on housetops and learned that they were solar water heaters. Thing is, in that climate, they had to paint them with silver reflective paint to keep the water from getting too hot ! !
Greg
I used to work in a provincial park here in Ontario and that is exactly how our water system was designed. A 25 000 gallon tank on a little hill provided better water pressure than I have in my house with town water.
Have fun
Cliffy
Use a "west Texas water heater" -- an unpressurized black plastic tank that sits on the roof and heats the water. It's generally filled with a float valve similar to what's used in a toilet tank.
What you want out of the faucet is flow, not pressure. A rooftop or attic tank will give you plenty of pressure if you size the pipes and fixtures correctly. The only difficult part might be finding a tankless heater with big enough internal passages to get the flow you need at low pressure.
You can get Bosch tankless heaters that work without electricity - either with battery ignition, or with a small waterwheel to generate the power to ignite.
It does take a fair amount of propane to run.
Downside? Well, they're pretty pricey - somewhere in the $1000 range.
Try heating your water with a conventional 40/60 gal propane HWH. Use a gas bottle of your choosing, no electricity required. Tankless-$$$$$$$$$ ! Based on your drop, should have plenty of pressure.