[cjaackie]

True [x] independence in even a small capacity has a value beyond just money.

..water.. ..food.. ..housing.. ..information..

I get what you are trying to conveying, I just wanted to highlight the semantic generality of the statement if it stands alone.

[zdragnar]

If you have a house in the countryside, then water and food are relatively easy. You've got your own well and septic system for water, and plenty of room to stock up on food, plus you can supplement your diet by growing your own vegetables and raising chickens, fishing or hunting as seasonally appropriate per your local regulations.

The well and septic system require no real effort on your part once installed, though you may find harvesting your own food to be too time consuming or labor intensive to really be actually independent.

[nradov]

Lol. I grew up in a house in the countryside. Dealing with the well, water storage tank, and pressure booster pump were far from "easy". They required frequent maintenance and occasional large expenses. The well got clogged with sand. The pump motor burned out. The tank float sensor got stuck and caused an overflow (several times). The tank had to be emptied and cleaned. An earthquake caused a pipe to shear off and dumped thousands of gallons of water out of the tank. The pressure booster pump burned out. The pressure booster tank corroded and leaked. The water was hard and required a softener to prevent mineral buildup. Etc.

[zdragnar]

What is the water storage tank for? We've never needed one, and the only time I've heard of someone getting one was for trapping rainwater or they were a farmer.

I've lived with well water for all of my life except my college years and a few years after. In all that time, the only maintenance that's been needed has been to replace a water pressure tank (not a difficult job unless you've never seen hand tools before) and adding salt to the softener once a blue moon.

My sister in law had to get a new well put in, but that was because it needed a new well pump and the plumber she called told her he couldn't work on the existing one because it was out of code and her well wasn't grandfathered in.

[nradov]

The storage tank was for storing water. Obviously you don't want to run the well pump every time you flush the toilet.

[zdragnar]

Sure, that's what the pressure tank is for. The well pump keeps the 20 gallon tank pressurized, and as the pressure drops the pump kicks on until it is stable again.

Maybe you could get a bigger one if you have a large family, but I've never heard of one that would be large enough to dump that much water except for mountainside cabins that are too far from the water table for a well in the first place.