Any fellow survivalists utilize their truck?

The water off the roof is legal to catch, but I live in a desert and would fill it with a well pump. The benefit would be that I could have several hundred gallons on tap when the lights go out, which seems to happen every time there is a storm out here. We currently store water in 7 gallon jugs, and have had to use them twice already. Once when the well pump died for about a week, and once when the transformer got hit by lightning.

 

Ok guys I'm looking at a small patch of land that has a holding tank on it but no well as of yet. The holding tank is fed by a small stream. There isn't a connection to city water avail due to distance from town. I would like to make this my primary residence as it is only 40 minutes from work and the land is perfect for me. It has a small old house on it that needs lots of updating but it is perfect as well. The problem is the water. If it had a well I would have written a contract on it today. Any thought/ideas? Yes, I'm of a prepper mentality but of a practical nature.

 

Are you active duty? If so, don't buy a house. You will get orders to BFE at the worst possible moment. Are you from San Angelo? If you have family to look after the place if you deploy or PCS then maybe, but it's tough to be a homeowner on AD. That said, water is life man. Is the stream natural free flowing or a typical Texas ditch? How deep is it to water? Could you drill a well?

 

No longer active duty. Just me no family son works in the Oil Fields in Okla. Well can be drilled but I don't know how much it would be. That would be the solution but theres no gurantee that drilling would equal finding water, much less water that is potable. It's just that the land is damn near perfect. It's where I would like to retire. I'm 20-30 years too early for retiring but the land just came avail, and I'm scared that if I don't get it now and slowly work on it I won't be able to find something this good for this price when I am closer to retirement. See the dilema.

 

You can write anything (legal) into a offer. Have them install a well that supplies potable water. Or offer contingent on a supply of potable water, ect. You get the idea. If you can't get potable water by reasonable means, is the land perfect?

 

Very true if the land does not provide what you need than it isnt perfect. Very aggravating but exciting @ the same time. Thanks for the replys. I do appreciate it.

 

The first place we lived when I was little had no city water and no well but only a cistern. Dad had to borrow a water truck once a month and fill it at the town's water tower to refill the cistern.

Wells can either be a boon or a bane. My Grandpa built a farm house with a septic tank and well. He drove the well himself as the water table was relatively high. Thirty years later those wide open fields were filled with hundreds of houses, all with septic tanks and wells. Needless to say, the water quality suffered. The final straw was when the nearby city annexed the section on the other side of the highway and dug a drainage ditch. The ditch was actually lower than the wells and when it ran the wells would fill up with storm drainage. I think that area now has city water and sewer but it's only a recent addition.

Even if you have a well, a cistern may be a good idea. I've known several people who had low-flow wells and pumped into a cistern so that they would have enough water on hand for emergencies.

 

For me the issue is that there is not currently a well on the property. But evidence that there was possibly one once. Theres a cement water trough that 7x3x3 about 20ft from the house in front of one of two barns. It has several barns in disrepair and the stream is about 75 yards away and is dammed into a holding tank that comes with the property. It looks like it is several feet deep. I think that several acres worth of the stream are on this property. Once again more questions. The sad thing is that I would love to have this property as it is but my brain is saying sloooow down. For the record my brain hasn't always been correct. Just for the record.........

 

It's funny as my friend's who thought it was weird that I always have a few cases of water in my apartment and extra food are now starting to see the light as in the last 18 months Calgary has had 1 "state of emergency" from flooding and been a week without power. I should add both occasions I have been evacuated or put on state of alert to evacuate, getting really tired of leaving my place.

 

Been busy but all this talk of generators that are quiet and fuel efficient brought me back to this thread.

One thing that many of you that grew up on farms might recall but have forgotten about are antique "hit & miss engines." These small engines were commonly mounted onto carts that could be moved around the property to run multiple types of implements allowing farmers to save money by not spending all their money on high dollar specialized equipment.

I currently am restoring a 1924 "Economy" model that runs on diesel, kerosene, and hopefully on WVO once I get it running. It's pretty big and while I will appreciate the additional power I really only need half of that. I'm looking at a smaller John Deere unit but in this part of the country anything that is green and yellow draws an additional premium so that search continues.

Quick and dirty "how it works" video found on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/YUE4KwOsAIw

An "Economy" like mine in working order.

http://youtu.be/UP8laDwgtcc

Just one of the many different types of machines that could be run off fo a "hit & miss" engine.

http://youtu.be/c88nTbjH0d8

 

What do you guys feel about having 10gal of fuel in the truck as a back at all times gas prices are low right now and I'm current getting around 450miles + with the 28 gals. Depending on the lead foot of mine...

I recent bought 2 jerry cans I love it less trips to the gas station but wondering if it's a hazard....

 

Depends on what kind of cans they are. Military style cans are pretty tough. You can also get a DOT approved remote fuel cell if you are worried about it. I use Roto-Pax myself. A lot of diesel guys around here have the ones built into the tool box.

 

Those "Hit and Miss" engines are cool. Very informative videos too!

 

I'm from the country; we've still got all kinds of those H&M units kicking around at county fairs, and a lot of them still do work on smaller farms/homesteads. They're pretty neat and I'd like to have one someday, but (around here at least) they're pretty pricey. What do you run off of yours?

I keep my spare fuel in the garage. I don't have a truck cap on mine, so I don't want to keep an extra 10 gallons of fuel out there where any jackass can wander off with it. I generally try to keep a spare 25 gallons of gasoline on hand, and rotate it out every few months. I figure even if I'm not driving, my coleman stove and lantern are both dual fuel and can run on gasoline. I usually keep 10 gallons of diesel (for the tractor) on hand as well, but that stuff stores forever and the tractor's a real fuel sipper, so it's easier.
Before they switched to ethanol gas I had a 50 gallon drum with a hand pump that I used, but the ethanol stuff doesn't store long enough for me to bother keeping that much on hand any more.

 

Mine doesn't run at the moment as I'm still rebuilding it and being a bit of a nerd about it trying to get the correct parts but it was designed to run on diesel, kerosene, tractor fuel, and the like. My hopes are to be able to run it on WVO as well but time will tell.

Sadly they aren't cheap around here either, and dealing with many of the people that have them and their parts makes for an interesting event as they always have other amazing stuff around and lots of great stories to tell which means that I am guaranteed to lose a whole day as well as a bit more cash than I planned to them.

So far I have five pumps, of which three currently work, a saw, and a generator unit to run with mine once I get it running - not all at the same time - so as you can imagine I'm fairly anxious to get it finished. There are a few others that are already restored around here that are working already that I might make an offer on once I know how hard uncle sugar is going to hit me for his April cut.

One that I'm keen on is mounted onto the bed of an old Ford Model TT that has the vaporizer carburetor installed so that it can be switched over to kerosene once warmed up. He won't split the pair and I can't find anyone interested in the truck so I might use it as an excuse to finally build that new shop I've been threatening to add to the place.

 

Gotcha. Finding period parts is a pain in the rectum. I had an old Case VAC tractor that you could start on gasoline and then switch to diesel, kerosene, heating oil, etc. once it was warmed up. It was a neat system, but it was a pain to get the right parts for when it needed servicing. I had to wait three weeks for a carburetor rebuild kit for it because the local tractor shop showed three part #'s and we had to flip a coin on which one to order (and of course the first two were wrong).

Are any of your pumps rated for potable water?

 

Sub, great thread

 

I have the military metal jerry. I mounted them in the back of my camper, really secure, i went off roading and they didn't even move. I just heard that the fumes would cause problems, but i on occasion will up the back windows in the camper and release the cap can.

I have a short bed so putting one of those would be a real investment ha. thanks for the idea though.

[/QUOTE]I keep my spare fuel in the garage. I don't have a truck cap on mine, so I don't want to keep an extra 10 gallons of fuel out there where any jackass can wander off with it. I generally try to keep a spare 25 gallons of gasoline on hand, and rotate it out every few months. I figure even if I'm not driving, my coleman stove and lantern are both dual fuel and can run on gasoline. I usually keep 10 gallons of diesel (for the tractor) on hand as well, but that stuff stores forever and the tractor's a real fuel sipper, so it's easier.
Before they switched to ethanol gas I had a 50 gallon drum with a hand pump that I used, but the ethanol stuff doesn't store long enough for me to bother keeping that much on hand any more.[/QUOTE]

see when i use to live in califonria I would keep stare fuel and carry my MSR stove with me at all times you never knew when a fire or earthquake my hit. Im in florida now and I'm pretty sure they have hurricane warnings lol but since I've moved into an apartment i don't have the luxury of keeping things in my garage. Im now seriously interested in buy a house now lol with some land.

 

At the moment, none of them are "rated" but two are well pumps that I've tested and they have excellent lift and wouldn't hesitate to use them if needed. A third is a general purpose which I can use for irrigation or for emergencies in clearing out flood water. The other two are effectively just spare parts and while I would like to see them operational I'd really like to sell/trade them for hand pumps or other useful equipment.

I'm working with a neighbor friend to restore a belt driven trip hammer for his home blacksmith shop and we are also working on a home built horizontal wood spliter but the dual vertical spliter shown in that video I linked earlier has me intrigued.

With that said, steering back to our trucks and the gas can discussion, I always carry two five gallon cans and when I go to fill the truck up I fill it off the cans first and then top the truck and the cans back off with the pump. I know this method doesn't suit those in a hurry but it keeps relatively fresh gas in the cans and on average I only spill about a cup each time. I also actively search out and use ethanol free pumps.

 

Understood. I have a hand pump that I've rigged up in my cellar that was labeled that it isn't safe for potable water either, but I've submitted water I pumped from it to the local lab and they declared it perfectly safe for domestic use. Been using it for water whenever the power's out ever since then.

A guy at our local agricultural fair has one of those dual vertical splitters that he runs off of an old Allis Chalmers. Brings it in every year, sets it up, and splits his firewood for the year during fair week.