Well water and power outage plans...what do you do?

[Simkie]

I admit I’m really in the dark about the whole well thing. I know we have a well, and there’s a pump there that needs electricity, and we have a variety of water things in the basement (pressure tanks, various treatment things) but that’s really about all I’ve got.

We’ve been here a year, and through winter, without any significant power outages. Have casually talked about a generator, but they’re pricy.

Power was out today when I got home shortly before 6 and stayed out for perhaps 90 mins. No idea when it went off (but beer was still cold in the fridge! Ha!) Back now, but the time really underscored how, wow, if we have no power, we have no water in the barn. Scary.

What’s your plan if you’re on a well and the power goes out? I’d like to have a contingency plan with some water in reserve. It’s really all auto waterers here, so no trough that are full to fall back on. Not keen on heating 100+ gallons through the winter…maybe store a 55 gallon drum or two in the house? Keep a trough or two full outside during the spring/summer/fall?

[HungarianHippo]

I always keep water troughs full enough to last a couple of days. If bad forecast I may fill an extra trough or two. It’s incredibly rare that an outage would last longer than a few days.

We have a 35-gal tank that fits in back of car, so if needed we can drive to a friend or business that has city water, and fill there. There’s not a soul in the world that would not let you get water for your animals in the midst of a big outage.

If you have lots of animals to water, then be prepared in advance with an account set up with a bulk water delivery truck.

Winter has the extra issue of water freezing: here, power outages are usually due to ice storms, and air temp is generally not frigid with ice storms. So the trough water’s not going to freeze solid very quickly. Just prior to power going off, water temp would be 40-45deg due to the trough heaters, and we wrap our trough with insulation and cover most of the surface. You’ll have to break surface ice (and remove it-- leaving ice floating around drops the temp of the rest of the water significantly!). When you can’t keep ahead of the freezing water, then revert to above plan of going out and getting water from someone on the city system, or water truck if large volume.

Iowa (where I am) is pretty cold, but in Minnesota you may not be able to stay ahead of the freezing water. A generator really might be a good investment for you.

ETA I skimmed yoru post and missed that you don’t have troughs. If you don’t want troughs, then get a generator.

[hosspuller]

Have a generator that produces 220 volts. The Well pump requires 220 volts.

[cutter99]

You need a generator. We had been out for as long as 10 days at a time in Pennsylvania and I would never be without a generator after experiencing that. You can’t flush toilets, take a shower, wash dishes, or water animals without one. Yes, they are expensive, but it is part of the cost of living in the country and having animals.

[poltroon]

We try to keep our systems so we won’t be totally in trouble even in an extended power outage.

I keep a certain number of bottles of water in the house.

If there’s a storm, I prefill additional bottles or buckets or a tub as seems convenient.

All the horses have access to large 250 gallon tanks, so it is not necessary to put water in them every day.

Our well pumps to a 2500 gallon tank with an ozone system. In a power outage, water will not flow into the house, but there is a tap near the bottom that allows some to come out into buckets via gravity feed. You can also dip from the top.

During rainstorms I keep a plastic trash can at the edge of a roof which fills it with water in short order. This water has been super handy for filling animal waters or flushing toilets.

We have surface water on our property. Oh it would suck, but we have buckets and I have camping water filtration/treatment supplies.

If your animals rely on automatic waterers, and you think it’s possible you’d have an outage more than a few hours, I would say you may need to suck it up and get a generator. Talk to the neighbors, see what their experience is. The problem with generators isn’t just that they are expensive, but also that they have to be maintained, turned on regularly, kept with fresh gas at the ready (gas goes stale), etc, so pick something that fits your lifestyle for maintenance for the boring 3 years when nothing happens so that it will work on that crazy day when you need it.

A small contingency might be to have a bucket for every horse and just add a tank to a paddock area as you suggest. We keep fish in ours and they seem to have come to a nice stasis. You can then dip out of the tank if you have to.

Of course, power can go out in the middle of a deep freeze, so factor that into your contingency.

[JoZ]

I barely know what I’m talking about here, so take that into consideration, but at the place I used to live, the landlord was able to power the farm with his tractor during outages. He didn’t keep it going all the time, but we’d get a window during which we could fill horse buckets, shower, etc. If you already have a good-sized tractor it might be worth looking into.

[Doctracy]

We have a pond for the horses. I filled up 5-10 gallons before the ice storm last winter. Generator is high on our list of things we need to buy but we’ve only been here a year and barn/fencing have taken precedence.
I just hope we don’t need the generator this weekend cause I have a feeling they’ll all be gone! At least it’s not cold like when we had the ice storm last winter!

[AKB]

We had a transfer switch installed by an electrician and bought a wonderful Honda generator that powers the well and much of our house. It starts with an easy turn of a key. Several of our neighbors have generators that need to be started with a pulling of a cord/recoil start. They cannot get the generators started most of the time, so the generators are useless. Our Honda is quieter than most generators and starts so quickly and effortlessly. Check prices if you get a Honda. We got ours from a place called Speedway Sales that was much cheaper than anywhere else. They may not be the cheapest now, so it is good to comparison shop.

[Guilherme]

[QUOTE=hosspuller;8340813]
Have a generator that produces 220 volts. The Well pump requires 220 volts.[/QUOTE]

This is the best plan I can think of.

You can also get a box and wire the generator into your regular electrical system.* That way you can pump water, keep your food cold, and warm the house in winter. In MN that’s not a small thing; I know because I grew up in IL, MI, and WI!

G.

*This does NOT mean you can run the house like you’re on the grid. You will have to turn things on and off so as to not overload the generator. It’s not pleasant but it’s a whole lot less pleasant than the alternative.

[Frog_Pond]

[QUOTE=Guilherme;8340854]
You can also get a box and wire the generator into your regular electrical system.* [/QUOTE]
This is the set-up we have, along with a switch that cuts off the house connection to the grid when we’ve got the generator on. Apparently, this is so we don’t accidentally fry a power company repairperson with our generated power, that will travel back to the grid – blah blah blah, you get the picture.

Here’s a water-storage lesson learned from last year: do NOT put a new 70 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank in your mudroom and fill it before you check to make sure the drain plug is screwed in tight :no::lol: What a PITA that clean up was!!

[brody]

We have generator for house. Would be a total pain for barn but could hand haul water if needed.

[UrbanHennery]

We have a generator that’s big enough to run the well, the fridge, the freezer, and a few lights. It plugs into the outside wall and there’s a transfer switch in our panel to take the house off the grid and on to the generator. If you do that, make sure you turn off all un-needed breakers before you flip to the generator. Otherwise you’ll blow the breaker on the generator (not the crisis it sounds).

We can’t run any heat with a generator, but we live just north of Seattle, so not such an issue.

We got caught off guard by a wind storm about 4 weeks ago, half the county lost power including us. I hadn’t pre-filled tanks so 12 hours in to being out we started the generator to run the well, fill tanks, and have lights for dinner and dominos (the game).

[hosspuller]

Being “prepared” is not waiting for a storm to be bearing down on you.

Generator systems can be “pricey” BUT they don’t have to be. Automatic transfer and high power is “pricey” Most wells can be run on a 4000 watt generator producing 220 volts. Even the manual transfer switch is nice but expensive .

I have a cord from the well pump plugged into an dedicated outlet. It can only be plugged into the well outlet OR the extension cord with the same prong configuration. That extension cord connects to the generator that is wheeled from the garage to the basement window. When the well pump isn’t being used, the freezer & fridge are powered. With active management, we can be at home for weeks without utility power.

Total system cost (including genset) was about $500.

I keep several 5 gallon tanks of gasoline. Contents are rotated into the cars and refilled with fresh gasoline every couple of months.

Making sure the roof gutters & downspouts were clear was the extent of preparations for the extended rain storm expected.

[oldfuzzyhorses]

No two ways about it, if you don’t have troughs, you need some kind of generator. We have 5 automatic waterers with heating elements, and they are deep enough to deal with a few hours’ power loss, but no more. We have a portable 10,000 watt gas generator (not sure of the voltage) that runs all the barn power (lights, fridge, waterers, low-voltage electric fence) the well pump, house fridge, a space heater, the computer, some lights, and some kitchen appliances. The neighbor hooks up a fridge most times. There has been talk of wiring the water heater to plug in, too… The generator is loud, and has its problems, but it is indispensable. Also very useful on the farm for big projects away from power outlets.

We went through a bad storm with no power for a couple of days, and it made the decision to get a generator very easy. We had to haul a water tank to somewhere with power, spend hours filling it, drive it back, then walk the water up to the waterers (out in the fields) with 5 gallon buckets through a foot of snow. We spent almost all day just on watering the horses, and there was nowhere warm to go to when we were done.

If you have a tractor, there are PTO-driven generators. They are, I suspect, more efficient than gas generators.

We are a rural community but many houses are close together, and you can tell when the power is out even in daylight because of all the generators echoing across the hollow.

[QUOTE=Frog Pond;8340887]
…along with a switch that cuts off the house connection to the grid when we’ve got the generator on. Apparently, this is so we don’t accidentally fry a power company repairperson with our generated power, that will travel back to the grid – blah blah blah, you get the picture.[/QUOTE]

Heh, we had an issue with this for a while. You had to be very specific about what got plugged into where and in which order, or some poor fellow up a pole was gonna get it…

[Ruth0552]

[QUOTE=JoZ;8340824]
I barely know what I’m talking about here, so take that into consideration, but at the place I used to live, the landlord was able to power the farm with his tractor during outages. He didn’t keep it going all the time, but we’d get a window during which we could fill horse buckets, shower, etc. If you already have a good-sized tractor it might be worth looking into.[/QUOTE]

That’s a generator on the back of the tractor. I can’t remember EXACTLY how it works, but all the old generators by family has go on the back of tractors and we share. So if the power goes out, we can run the generator for a while to heat up the house or to fill the animal’s water.

I’ve two stints of 7-10 days no power since I’ve been living in this house (9 years). They were in the same year- the October snowstorm, and I think it was hurricane Irene? Or Sandy? I think it was 2011.

[Chall]

Years ago someone posted about about a portable welding machine that could be used as a generator. If you have need of a welder as well, it was a cheaper option than just a generator.
The last farm my horses were at had hand pumps at the paddocks.

[Doctracy]

Ugh. Woke up to a power outage. I am switching to propane ASAP. Hate not having coffee!

[Fred]

We have a generator, but if bad weather is predicted I fill a number of buckets in the barn and fill up a couple of troughs.
If the power is out for only a few hours or a up to a day then I am ok with the water I have set out in advance.

We have cisterns, and while it isn’t fun, you can hand dip water out of the cisterns if you need to.

[fordtraktor]

What you are probably talking about with the tractor is using an “inverter”. You can use one to turn a truck into a generator too. Have done it before. Have a real generator now but worked fine. You can google it for directions, isn’t too hard.

[trubandloki]

Automatic waterers on a well means you pretty much have to have a generator.

In the long run it is a good investment, just for the peace of mind it will give you.

What we always did (before we had a generator) was keep several water storage containers filled in the basement at all times. We would rotate the water in them so the contents was never more than a few months old. We stored enough for 24 hours of all our water needs (including flushing the toilet). More than 24 hours required a trip to get water.

In your case you would have to buy and store buckets too.