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>>I have a Baker Monitor force-type hand pump on a well >>where I'm building my house, where I hoped to live >>without electricity. I've learned that the county >>health department requires a pressurized water system >>for dwellings. Can I adapt a hand pump to do this, or >>to otherwise satisfy the code's aim of preventing >>contamination from air when water flows back through >>the weep hole below the frost line? > >I thought and thought about this. > >I wonder if the aim of the code is what you think it >is. No well can work under pressure or vacuum and must >be exposed to the air, else it wouldn't work. See this >explanation: ><a rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/page1.php?QNum= >1542">http://howthingswork.virginia.edu/page1.php?QNum= >1542</a> > >Air doesn't contaminate wells. Surface water, >chemicals and debris does. > >The pressurized system rule could be there to keep you >from doing what you want to do and that is to build >without electricity. Indoor plumbing is a sign of >prosperity and "Mama don' want no 'po folk hangin' >'round here." An argument could be made that after the >water was pumped into a bucket, it could be >contaminated before it got into the house no matter >how far-fetched that sounds. > >All may not be lost, though. There is a way to >pressurize water without electricity and that is to >use gravity. If you constructed a water tower, then >pumped the water up into the top, what comes out the >bottom is under pressure. It roughly works out to .5 >psi per foot of height. The tank can't be sealed to >air. Like a well, it must have air or a vacuum >develops and water won't come out. Usually a loose cap >over he tank will suffice. > >This is how people got indoor plumbing before they got >electricity out in the hinterlands (the other way was >to put the pump next to the kitchen sink). A tank and >a windmill and they were all set. Ten PSI was better >than nothing for them. > >If someone else has better ideas, I'm all ears.

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