New To Solar

System

We're new to Solar! In process of purchasing a 160 acre addition to our registered Texas Longhorn and registered Tennessee Walking Horse operation. The new property only has "gypsum" (high calcium and magnesium) water via well. The closest electric service is about 2.5 miles and closest rural water service is about 3/4 mile. To hook up to these 2 utilities the provider companies want about $100,000 total between them!!! NO THANKS!

We're going to go Solar and be off the grid. Until we are able to hook up to a good water supply (probably never) we'll be hauling drinking water to new property and put in storage tank. The water well is adequate for our livestock uses, however. Our present property has a very good "sweet tasting" water that's very unusual in our part of the State.

Bill

niel

Re: New To Solar

do you have a question for us or are you just making comment of your circumstance? if you haven't gone solar, but are planning to go solar do try to tally up what your watthour load requirements will be for at least 1 typical day and if you can figure for a week then that makes it even more accurate. will your load requirements change with any of the seasons as pv output most likely will change for differing seasons?

Telco

Re: New To Solar

Check this link out. Looks like you can just filter that stuff out of the water. Be a whole lot cheaper to maintain a water filtration system than to truck the water in.

mike95490

Re: New To Solar

As Telco said, a ordinary Brine Cycle water softener will clean that water up. Or an under-sink Reverse Osmosis system would clean up the drinking water. But you want to do the household supply (not garden water though) because the deposits (scale) that forms on the fixtures, ruins their appearance, and is not warranted. Both systems waste water, and you have to dispose of the Brine water somewhere, not your septic system. (a dry well maybe?)
ps - some systems use a potassium salt instead of sodium.

halfcrazy

Re: New To Solar

Also look into rain water collection may work for the animals especially you may be able to gravity feed to them from the rain water tank and save on the solar electric.
Also welcome to the offgrid world

System2

Re: New To Solar

mike90045 wrote: »

As Telco said, a ordinary Brine Cycle water softener will clean that water up. Or an under-sink Reverse Osmosis system would clean up the drinking water. But you want to do the household supply (not garden water though) because the deposits (scale) that forms on the fixtures, ruins their appearance, and is not warranted. Both systems waste water, and you have to dispose of the Brine water somewhere, not your septic system. (a dry well maybe?)
ps - some systems use a potassium salt instead of sodium.

So...I guess a reverse osmosis unit would not be appropriate for a whole house filter system since the RO system takes a long time to "process" the purified water.

As soon as I can get a water sample from the well, I plan to have it tested at a lab. Then, maybe I'll have some more answers???

Just had hoped we could find some kind of system that would "clean out" the calcium/magnesium particulates so we could use the water for our appliances and faucets without clogging up everything.

Any other ideas?

thanks,
bill

mike95490

Re: New To Solar

Nope, that's "dissolved" in the water, and you can't filter it our. RO will handle you kitchen and drinking needs, a couple of gallons daily, but to do the whole house, you need an Ion Exchange (brine water softener) system, AFIK

Sometimes, as wells are used, the quality changes, as the water that has sat for hundreds of years in the same rock, starts moving. Sometimes, better, sometimes not. Just another surprise waiting for you.

experimental :
Then there is the "Magnetic Water Treatment" crowd, which may or may not "polarize" the minerals so they flow and don't clump up. I installed one, $10 for a dozen high power magnets, and $13 for the book on where to stick them. LA has pretty hard water, and my 2, 50 gallon gas water heaters are still going after 20 years. Flushing the crud out, I get pea size pebbles of mushy soft calcium deposits. Magnets cant hurt, not for $22.
Won't do much for the magnesium AFIK, but still, can't hurt.

- -
WindSun - delete sig if you sell these, I did not find them on your site.

Magnetic Water Conditioning
http://www.orgonelab.org/cart/ymagnets.htm
Basic Set of 10 Ceramic Magnets
(each measuring slightly less than 2" x 1" x 0.5")
Without Polarity Markings or Instruction Sheets Price: $10.00
Magnetic Water Conditioning Handbook, by Everett Moore. $13

Telco

Re: New To Solar

Might also consider drilling a new well. My mother was telling me about when she was growing up, they had a well with very good water. They wound up having do dig a new well less than a quarter mile away (don't remember why) and they found the new well had water that had so much sulfur in it that it was nearly undrinkable. Dug another well a little way from this one, and they had drinkable water. So, water here may be full of minerals, but another well dug nearby, or perhaps deeper, may be of a completely different makeup. No guarantees on whether the new water will be better than the old though.