HerHusband wrote:
We had a couple of major power outages this year and ran out of
water, so it has renewed my interest in finding a backup when the
power goes out. We live in Washington state and everything here is
powered by electricity.

We have a woodstove for backup heat, and battery powered LED lights
and radio that can last for days. Power failures almost always occur
during cold winter storms, so we can just stick our perishible foods
outside if the power goes out for more than a few hours. As long as
we have water, we can cook on the woodstove or heat water in a pan
for washing up.

We have a large pressure tank (80 gallon I believe). If the power goes
out when the tank is full, we're fine. 80 gallons will flush a lot of
toilets. Unfortunately, the tank is rarely completely full when the
power goes out and this last time it was nearly empty when we lost
power.

I've thought about adding a second pressure tank, but there's no way I
can think of to ensure one is always fully pressurized (short of
filling it up and shutting the valve off. I am trying to avoid
stagnant water). Odds are both tanks would be just about empty when
the power goes out.

The cheap solution is just to store containers of water somewhere.
But, that takes space and isn't very convenient. I don't know that my
daughter would be able or willing to lift a 5 gallon container of
water to refill a toilet tank if I'm not around.

A generator is an obvious option, but power outages are rather rare. I
don't want one more engine to have to maintain, worry about gas
getting stale and gumming up, etc. Propane generators might overcome
the long term storage issue, but they still take up space and require
maintenance. Not to mention, I don't really want to go out in cold
wind storms to start up a generator. Call me lazy.

An inverter/charger system with batteries would be a good solution.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen an affordable system that can power my
1/2 HP 240V well pump. The ones I have seen cost more than a
generator, or I would have to cobble together multiple devices
(inverters, chargers, auto transformers, etc.) to make everything
work.

One final option I've thought of would be to store a water tank in our
heated attic space. I figured I could plumb the inlet at the top and
the outlet at the bottom so it is flushed regularly. With only a 9'
rise it would offer very little pressure, but I would think it would
still refill the toilets. We wouldn't be taking showers or washing
laundry during a power outage anyway. The major downside to this
option is getting the tank into the attic space and modifying all the
plumbing. Doable, just not my ideal option.

I'm curious what backup systems other water well users have come up
with.

I am only looking for a backup for a day, not outages lasting a week
or more.

Thanks,

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

A small generator set is really your best option . Use it to fill the
tanks then shut it down . Most modern sets have a valve to shut off fuel
flow so you can run the carb dry , and a little sta-bil in the tank
especially if you can get non-eth fuel will keep the gas usable for
months .

--
Snag