(Continued from Part 2. This concludes the article.)
I have had difficulty determining the stored volume since water enters from the springs and out of the extra washed stone surround during drawdown. On multiple occasions, I have filled two and a half IBC totes virtually back-to-back and left the pump intake baffle submerged without stirring up the bottom sediment. Thus, my best estimate is that I have around 650 gallons stored in the channel cistern at all times. Throughout the years, I have measured the springs’ output from as high as 8.3 gallons per minute down to a low of 3 gpm. Taking a rough average of flow as 5 gpm, that translates to 300 gallons per hour or 7,200 gallons each day, every day that I can harvest to sustain gardens, orchards, or with minimal treatment — our family.
After digging the spring cistern, I needed a way to get the water from the lowest point of our property to the orchard at the upper reaches. My initial plan was to reuse a deep-well electric pump. After putting together a materials list and an installation plan, I recognized that this option was going to be more expensive than I originally expected because the lower flow requirements for irrigation would require a pressure tank and the wire and conduit costs were already higher than I wanted. I was also concerned about the voltage drop the pump would experience given how far the electric line would be running from the closest source down to the cistern.Continue reading“Practical Homestead Irrigation – Part 3, by A.F.”