Collecting Rain Water at an off grid cabin

[Music] my son Mick and I just made it up to the cabin in Alaska generally we spend the whole summer up here working but this year we're just gonna be up for a little while looks like the place made it through the winter just fine we stopped into Fairbanks on the way through and grab some groceries right now although the most important thing in our world is water now we haul drinking water from town and we've got a good well infox that we get our water from but for everything else for dishes for showers we collect rainwater and right now we've got just a little bit of time to get everything situated before a big storm blows in that's a real blessing because other than the water we brought from town we don't have a drop up here so we're gonna pack our groceries away on ice [Music] we're gonna get both of our cabins cleaned up and get as ready as we can it's kind of a mad dash there's nasty weather blowing in from the West so before the storm hits we're gonna try to get as much done as possible we're gonna try to get our camp fire pit area set up get the cabin swept out hopefully get unpacked just a little bit we're pretty much running out of time I'm guessing we've got 15 minutes maybe less [Music] on this mountain water is about 300 350 feet deep and there's no way I'm ever gonna drill any kind of a well up here it would cost more than the property and the cabin and our vehicles all put together so rain water is the answer I'll put in just a little bit of dry firewood ahead of the rain case it gets quite cold I'm guessing we have five minutes of this block I better get to the barrel now this is the rainwater barrel that we use pretty simple I built this storage shed a while back and put a single gutter across the back and then a good rainstorm it'll pop that barrel right off looks like I'm not a moment too soon either [Music] [Music] I'll mix clearing out his cabin I'm just gonna sit here and listen to it rain [Music] [Music] well we wait for that barrel to top off the rain to stop it's good time to clean up stole I'm gonna need it later please eat the shower water heat water for dishes of course we both could use a good launch [Music] [Music] ago Lord thanks so much for this day thanks arrange for their studies this thing [Music] [Applause] oh there's a bit of water in the barrel it's time to go up and give it a good scrub silt dump leaves have been sitting in there since last fall I'll get it good washed out and then dump it out rinse it stand it back up I think we're good to go hopefully the worst of the storm is still yet to come and it'll top it off before it's over this guy's looking pretty rough so I think we're in good shape now there's not a whole lot of rain falling right now and there's not much coming out of this gutter that's about to change the skies real dark to the west I have high hopes we're gonna get all the water we want and within a short amount of time we've got popped off rain barrel that's enough water for a couple weeks up here if you're conservative with it I absolutely love the colors when everything's wet make the whole world look better [Music] it's been a long trip and it's time for a shower luckily we hit that rain just right we've got to the cabin in just enough time to get things situated to capitalize on that big storm years ago it was kind of a drag when you had a really rainy nasty day the road we live on is really bad sometimes it's hard to get up and down the mountain but nowadays with the rainwater collection system I look forward to it raining saves a whole lot of work hauling water having your water right there on site it's a fantastic thing I'm going to heat up a few gallons right now and put it to good use [Music] [Music] here in interior Alaska the groundwater can be questionable and I know people that have 600 foot wells that cost as much as a house some people haul their water some even have a delivery for just a small rain system like this is more than enough for what I need it for there's a hundred different ways you can hook up an off-grid water system so you can catch rainwater or you can have storage tanks and have your water fraught to you and delivered but either way what you really want in the end is you want to be able to have water as if you had a well so it's not that difficult to get the water that you need the things that you need to do you can make the system as complicated as you'd like there's no right or wrong answer to it it all depends on what you want to accomplish and what fits your idea of an off-grid lifestyle [Music] [Music] [Music] with groceries in the cooler too fresh bags of ice and a clean clear 55-gallon drum of fresh rainwater Mick and I are pretty much set up to enjoy ourselves here at the cabin and interior Alaska you don't need much to be happy just a few things situated makes all the difference in the world that little bit of rainwater has set us up for a long time and we're thankful for it and thank you so much for joining us my name is Dave little and you've been watching bush radical hippie radically see you soon

Channel: Bushradical

Views: 1,028,711

Keywords: off grid cabin, living off grid, rain water collection, collecting rain water, rain water system, homestead rain water

Id: FTh6G0T0Xsk

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 14 2020