Using a spring?

[Deberosa]

One silver lining to my storm damage is that as I was walking around out in the waterlogged field I found a place where the water is coming up out of the ground! This is very close to a place I dug out for top soil and it's always the dampest place on the property.

Any ideas on how to use this resource? We are thinking of pounding a pipe into the ground to see if it will work as a spring, or maybe feed the hole I made and get a year round pond, in the summer I am actually in need of a source of water for the gardens!

[gardenfay]

My grandpa had a similar situation on the family farm where I grew up in eastern Oklahoma. He dug a pond and rocked in the area where the spring flowed from. I thought this was because the spring could have silted in and quit flowing.
Sounds neat though. I hope you find a good use.

[AlchemyAcres]

Is it always wet there?
Lotsa places look promising round here when it's wet, but when you need it the most, forget it!

Having said that...there are some driven wells on bottom land near me that service small dairies...that's a very cheap way to get good water!!!


~Martin :)

[Deberosa]

Martin, is it more complicated than pounding a pipe into the ground? Maybe it's like Annabelle said and it's simply been silted shut. For now I could just shovel it out a bit and see if it continues...

[AlchemyAcres]

On bottom land here they simply drive in a pipe with a well point...basically no rocks...it depends!
That would never ever work at my place!!!!
Water is definately the weak link at my place!!!
There's a driven well less than 2 miles away....It's hard to imagne but the elevation varies several hundred feet over just a mile and a half here!!!

~Martin :)

[MadTripper]

I have a need to fix a spring at my house and I plan on using a concrete sleuse pipe as the main container. The old setup was some cinder blocks with a wooden roof but most of it fell in and on top of that, during the septic portion of our house building, my excavator and father-in-law thought it would be unsafe for the kids so they filled it in while I was at work. Very unhappy about that as it was already piped to my house. I do still have flow but less than what it was.

So I had a great link that showed how to establish a tank for your spring. Unfortunately, I can't find it so I'll do my best.

First off, this might be a great project for ferrocement if you are interested. I'm just begging to find something to build with it. However, as I stated, an easier method would be to get a large concrete culver pipe. Lets say 24" diameter by 6'. You would dig out at the source of your spring. Drop the concrete in on end allowing water to enter the concrete. A pipe would be run from about 1' off the bottom to a usuable location. Back fill the inside of the concrete with gravel of some sort to about 6 inches in depth so there is still 6 inches from the top of the gravel to your exiting pipe. Keep in mind, this pipe can be valved and ran to wherever you want. Common protection from freezing is needed. Up near the top of the concrete, you need an overflow pipe that can go to a bathtub or similar tank for feeding animals and will run as long as the spring produces and you have not depleted it to a level below this pipe. Additionally, you need to cap the container to help prevent freezing and keep bacteria out. Most water is fairly clean until it reaches air which allows the introduction of bacteria.

Once a year you could pour some bleach into the spring, allow it to sit and then flush throroughly. As always use common sense with bleach.

Here is a quick diagram:

http://www.madtripper.com/gallery/d/7344-1/spring+design.JPG

Tripper

[DM]

One silver lining to my storm damage is that as I was walking around out in the waterlogged field I found a place where the water is coming up out of the ground! *This is very close to a place I dug out for top soil and it's always the dampest place on the property.

Any ideas on how to use this resource? *We are thinking of pounding a pipe into the ground to see if it will work as a spring, or maybe feed the hole I made and get a year round pond, in the summer I am actually in need of a source of water for the gardens!

The real question is, is it "really" a spring?? I'm not sure you will know this untill next summer when everything finally dries up!

[MadTripper]

Found a site that works:

http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/programs/extension/publicat/wqwm/ag473-15.html


Tripper

[Backwoods_Bob]

Here is the spring we got our water from this year -
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/etdbob/P1010062.jpg

It's just a concrete ring, about three feet deep. I forget what they call 'em.

It has a pipe under it that dumps into a holding tank that we pump the water out of. -

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/etdbob/P1010059.jpg

We use an inexpensive gas powerd pump from harbor Freight to transfer the water to our truck, then siphon it out back at the homestead.

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o320/etdbob/P1010276.jpg

We had to start doing this because we got horses this year and our rain barrels just couldn't supply the water we needed any more.

Heh, this spring has quite a history.
Back in the 1890s, this neck of the woods burned real bad. It was a huge old growth cedar forest back then, and massive fires descimated most of it leaving big snags that stand to this day -

The brush grew back and so the sheep herders came to take advantage of it. A rail line was laid pretty much along where highway 395 runs today to get all tthe mutton from the hills down to the market.

It was during these years that a great many water sources hidden way back up in the hills were developed to water all the sheep wandering the hills.
That's when this spring was dug.

Well, the forest grew back fast, especially the white pine.
The economy of the hills went from sheep to cutting white pine for matches!
The springs and watering holes were forgotten.

This spring has the best water on our mountain. It has been fought over for decades with various property owners moving boundry lines back and forth so they could claim it as their own.

Finally a few decades ago, some logger drove over the top of it with a cat and foirced the steel cover into the well and jamed it in good.
The spring and tank filled with mud.

Then we come along! We traded the property owner some .44 magnum ammo and some preserves for the right to use the spring this summer.

Took several hours to get that %&&*&$# steel lid out! I eventually had to bend it as much as I could with a pevey with a come-long tied to it and up in a tree.

Finally we got it out. We bailed out the spring and jumped in with a pot to scoop out all the mud.
We dug it back down to the bottom and used a scrub brush to scrub it out.
Then we snaked out the drain pipe and cleaned out the tank.
All the work was worth it though, it is the best water on our mountain!

We cut a little hidden trail back to it and use a 100' poly pipe to get the water to the truck. So far no-one knows it's back in service except us!

[bookwormom]

:) :)I love springs. we had one at home, it ran day and night into a stone trough in front of the house and if I close my eyes I can still hear the sound of the water.
Hope the owner will not change his mind after all the work you put in.
I remember there were what was called wet weather springs that would dry up as soon as the weather got dry.

[Faye]

When I was a very young girl we had a spring. All of our water came from it and it was very cold and very good tasting. It was built up around it and had a lid on it. I wonder why you never hear of people having springs anymore? I know they didn't just stop running. I have heard of spring houses being used to keep milk and butter cold.

[MadTripper]

They are popular in my area. Of course I live in Springville Twsp. I know of three on my property however the neighbor, who used to farm this land, said there is six. I plan on putting at least one to good use, whether a spring house, garden watering, or a small power generator.

Tripper

[DM]

There's LOT's of springs here on my place... When i was a kid, my dad took a 165 gallon tank, cut 1/4th of it off, and put the 3/4's over a spring. Then he put huge rocks on top of it to hold it in place.

There was a pipe going to our old house, and that tank made all the pressure we had for our water in the house...

The pipe also went to the barn and milk house for all the water we needed there too...

DM

[flatwater]

When we got our place in eastern Washington it had two huge springs side by side. Only one is tapped into. It has two 700 gal. culvert pipes set side by side. One acts like a filter to the one that is hooked up. Lucky for us it is gravity feed. One draw back is about every ten years it needs the silt pumped out.
If you have a spring make sure you have the water tested and when you develop it use cement rings rather then a culvert pipe and make sure you seal it up the best you can. Because if there is any sort of hole or crack , mice , bugs , snakes , slugs , lizard , etc; etc; will find their way in.
When you lay your line in , black pvc will work but thick walled plastic pipe will hold up better and be sure to put 4 to 6 inches of sand or pea gravel under and over it. If not rocks and the earths movement plus freezing and thawing will ware your line through. My spring yields 32 gal. a minute
flatwater