Off-Grid: Berkey Water Filter and a Full 1000 Gallon Cistern of Drinking Water
The drinking and cooking water at our off-grid cabin is filtered through the gravity fed Berkey water filter. Many homesteaders and preppers know Berkey water filters for their high quality and ease of use. Our bulk drinking and cooking water is stored in an underground 1000 gallon cistern at the top of the valley where we will be building our house over the next two summers.
The 1000 Gallon Water Cistern
In the picture below you can see the green plastic risers for accessing the buried underground 1000 gallon rectangular cement box cistern. You can also see the white PVC pipe poking above ground level. This is for an electric pump setup or wires. For the 900 square foot house that will be built where the car currently is, we will make a trench from the cistern to the house to lay an underground pipe for water delivery. The majority of the cistern is 4 feet below ground level to prevent the water from freezing in the winter.
Pump and Power Shed Plans
Beside the cistern I will be building a large shed. On the shed roof will be all the solar panels for the house electricity. Inside the shed will be the solar power battery array, battery charger, and power inverters. Backup gas generator to charge the batteries will be sheltered beside the shed. Underground wires carrying 120 volt electricity will be laid from the power shed to the new house build. The house will have standard 120 volt household wiring. The solar panels will not be installed on the roof of the house for many reasons. House insurance companies require that the solar panels are installed by a certified installer - I'm more of a DIY guy and have no plans to get certification. My new house roof will slope down to the north, so the install would require lots of additional hardware. Solar panels are also very difficult to clean snow off of when the are on the roof of a house.
Twice a Year Water Delivery
A water truck delivered 1000 gallons of drinking water to the cistern a couple weeks ago. According to our calculations we will require two truck deliveries per year. If the water trucks ever stop or the water quality becomes questionable we will fill the cistern with rain water to filter with the Berkey and use for drinking and cooking.
Cistern Water - Truck Delivery - Click either GIF to watch the full video.
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After the water delivery we added the appropriate amount of bleach to prevent green algae and red bacteria growth.
- "Add 1/4 teaspoon (16 drops) of bleach per gallon of water if the water is cloudy and 1/8 teaspoon (8 drops) if the water is clear." - Source: Emergency Water
In the picture above you can see the green plastic cistern riser and cover. For drawing water from the cistern, I have not yet set up the hand pump for easy above ground access, or the electric pump for the house water feed. I haven't decided on an electric pump for the house, and the cast iron hand pump is on back order.
For now, twice a week, my son and I bring a wagon load of clean bulk water containers to fill with a bucket by hand. My son cuts the job time in half by holding the water funnel as I pour buckets of water into the bulk containers. In the picture below you can see the cover removed from the cistern access riser.
Berkey Gravity Fed Water Filter
In the picture below you can see the Berkey gravity fed water filter.
Water Goes in the Top
Water to be filtered goes in the top chamber of the Berkey after removing the lid. In the picture below the lid is removed and you can see inside the top chamber where there are two large black filters that came with the Berkey. The is gravity fed through the filters then drips down to the lower chamber where it can be accessed at leisure from the spigot.
Additional filters are available from Berkey including a filter specialized in removing fluoride from city water. Visit their web page for more information about their water filters: Berkey Filters Web Page
Filtered Water Spigot at the Bottom
In the picture below you can see the spigot that came with the Berkey has a water level sight to easily see how much filtered water is available.
Rain Water for Cleaning
Rain water is collected and boiled for washing dishes, clothes, showers, and bathing. Adding an outdoor gravity fed cold water line to be used with the existing rocket stove boiler's gravity fed hot water line. A post is coming soon for the new outdoor plumbing setup.
Previous posts that may be of interest to you:
- Prepare: Water Containment for Emergency, Conservation, and Off-Grid Living
- Off-Grid: Rebuilding the Rocket Stove Boiler and Connecting Outdoor Plumbing for Spring Showers
- Off-Grid: Wood Stove Top Boiler and Standard Garden Hose Connectors
Have a great day!
Wow very cool. You have clearly done your home work. I'm surprised by the bleach in drinking water. Berkey take out the bleach? or is concentration low enough to be ok? Since you are building on high ground no way to use gravity for water pressure? or just want more reliable water pressure?
Bleach as in chlorine - most cities and towns put chlorine in the water to keep it from going bad - it's a small ammount - not like swimming pool water, you cant even smell the chlorine in the cistern. Iodine is an alternative some use for maintaining bulk stored water.
Plenty of gravity water pressure, but running the 150 feet of water hose for it is lower on my list of things to do, and it would only be for while we are staying in the cabin, so most likely the house will be done before I bother to run the hose. Most of the hose running this summer will be for garden bed irrigation.
Truly onboard the Ecotrain haha. Gotta water the plants first ;)
Lol .. the great thing about eco is that if it's done right it also equals extra dollars. The gardens will cut back on food costs and bring in extra money at the market - we also thought the water might taste funny from sitting in 150 feet of warm garden hose.
amazing man...
Thanks @heaterville - A lot of fun topics when it comes to self sustaining :)
Did you know that over 900 million people live with unclean drinking water? In the US, we take our access to clean water for granted. Not only does a https://watertechguide.com/berkey-vs-reverse-osmosis/ Berkey Water Filter improve your life (ever had food poisoning from bad tap water?) but it also improves the life of many less fortunate than yourself. Every time you purchase a Berkey, 73 gallons of water is provided for those without.
Great post jack. I wanted to comment on your future plans to put your batteries in the shed (which I assume will not be temperature regulated). Depending on how cold it gets in your area you may have a large reduction in capacity as battery temperatures cool. Heres a chart from Surrette, they make some of the better solar battery sets. Lower quality batteries will do worse in the winter.
Thanks @normok - looks like it will have to be a well insulated passive solar shed with a green house on the south side of it - with battery gas venting somehow. The 0*C battery performance looks not too shabby, I should be able to maintain that temp in there.
Very good man, i'm sure you'll be even better off when the solar is put in.
Have you audited your power needs and established how many Watts of panel you need yet? Also which type and size of inverter are you getting?
I have found that the bigger inverters can be counter-productive as they use a lot of electricity themselves.
The water set up looks pretty cool. Pity you cannot 'ditch' that delivery truck. How about processing the rain water too?
Havent done a power audit for the new house yet, but there wont be much more electricity use than in the cabin, but i'll be adding more panels and batteries regardless. Wife is the one to convince about drinking rain water, but i might have her convinced with the Berkey. The cabin roof collects just enough rain water for our cleaning purposes, so i will need the to-be-built house roof and cistern to collect enough rain for drinking water :)
Very cool. I'd heard of the Berkey water filter somewhere before, but never really looked into it. I think I might just get me one.
It's such a simple gravity fed design with minimal moving parts (just the spigot). I was considering pressurizing the water and setting up a complex in-line water filter system, but then I remembered the Berkey - so simple :)
CONGRATULATIONS!
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Your Berkey sure is shiny! What are you polishing it with?
I actually just got it last week, that might explain the shine, but I don't expect it to dull - stainless steel. When it arrived in the mail, one half was stacked inside the other. It looked like a shiny office or kitchen garbage can lol, but after I stacked them, I was like ah haa.
I have the small one. Don't remember what it is called. I really like it! It works wonders for any kind of water. Maybe you said in post, but what filters did you get?
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Nice! I'm hoping to get rainwater collection setup on the roof of the barn on the property I live on. It is 2400 sq. ft. with about a 12:6 pitch and I'm thinking it could potentially supply water for my entire 1 acre garden if I have enough storage space. Thanks for the good read.