[gregd]

Living without running water sucked. We had to drive to town (another expense) to shower at the campgrounds for a dollar, three times per week. We also had to drive to a rest stop south of our town to fill our 50 gallon barrel full of water for the week.

Obtaining running water was the first thing we did but it consisted of hiring a well witcher, drilling for water, putting a well in, putting in a pressure tank and piping to the house. It was a major expense. We had gray water for a few years, but eventually had to put in a septic system when we ditched the outhouse and installed a toilet.

[balabaster]

This is something I will need to consider shortly (off-grid build in the next year or two), I have much research to do on this first. I didn't realize Well Witchers were still used, I thought there was some scientific method and Well Witchers/Dowsers had been relegated to history - fascinating.

[craigwblake]

> I thought there was some scientific method and Well Witchers/Dowsers had been relegated to history

Nowadays a professional hydrologist is who you'd contract for the task. They will do a geologic survey and fracture trace analysis using data from satellite imagery, the USGS and related state agencies in order to identify fissures within the underground rock formations that are most likely to hold a suitably sized pocket of water with good recovery. Then they might conduct electrical resistivity tomography to directly measure and image the density of subsurface material to identify water pockets and narrow down good drilling spots. It's a far cry from the sort of thing that might be characterized as dowsing.

[gregd]

I'm not sure what they would use today for finding water. We're talking a good 30 years ago. On an interesting side note, I discovered that I had the ability to witch for water, which I've never really put to good use.

I've also had experience installing a catch box (there's another term for it that escapes me right now) in a creek and running miles of pipe always with a slow decent to gravity feed several holding tanks. A word of warning, bears are curious about the sound of running water through pvc pipe, so bury that pipe...

[balabaster]

You could use that to your advantage... bear meat is tasty :P