Period borehole

[Flyfisher]

I suppose I could take a new pipe south to Coldharbour Lane but I'm different to the previous owner and would want permissions from all the different land owners who own those fields. I'm very friendly with Fiona and our pipe could perhaps go through her grounds to emerge on Coldharbour Lane. It's certainly a lot lot higher up than Beacon Lane, and if the pipe just ran straight across the fields the up part and the pump could be located in our field below the house.

From your description of things, that is starting to look like a much better scenario than trying to get the existing pipe into operation. If you really can get a mains water supply to the lowest point of your own land then you would then be in full control over things like building, powering and maintaining a pumping station to get the water up to the house.

As others have mentioned, I see no problem getting a new electricity supply connected to a pump house on your land. We had two meters at one time and before that there were three meters (one for a 3-phase supply) to outbuildings. As I've mentioned before, our new gas connection cost was £295 because we dug the trench on our land and I wouldn't imagine electricity being much different.

As for the pump, you'll need the requirements properly designed but I doubt it's a huge problem in the grand scheme of things. The previous points about flow AND pressure are good ones but if you can also provide local storage near the house then a 'trickle' flow might be adequate and things like pressuriseed showers could be handled by standard shower pumps within the house.

With good neighbour relationships you should be able to negotiate a suitable wayleave agreement (we have a number crossing our land so it's all very standard stuff) then it's just a case of laying the pipe. Depending on the land, there are pipelaying attachments available for tractors that sort of "plough" the pipe underground without even needing to dig a whole trench first and there must be specialist contractors who could do this for you.

And given that you have a £15k borehole budget to play with (I entirely agree that spending it on a borehole with no guarantees is too risky) then I'd say it's starting to look quite encouraging and it could be that your biggest problem will be to decide on a suitable design for the pumping station itself - some sort of gothic 'folly' perhaps?

 

[Penners]

Once I have a nice big pond I might be able to pump water out of it for my roses in the summer?

You could certainly do that at minimal cost. Less than a tenner for a little pump that's driven by your electric drill. It's not going to have a great deal of volume but certainly enough to water your roses:-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/271286621144?hlpht=true&ops=true&viphx=1&lpid=95&device=c&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=95&ff19=0

 

[JoceAndChris]

That looks ideal - thanks dear Mr P! I'll have about 100 rose bushes in total but the watering keeps me fit and I don't mind it.

And thanks for all the help and encouragement - it certainly has opened my eyes to new possibilities like taking a new pipe to Coldharbour Lane.

And a folly would be lovely to house the pump - it would go round about where the sheep at the front of the photo are.

 

[Penners]

And a folly would be lovely to house the pump

Definitely! Something modest like this, perhaps:

The electric drill pump would fit nicely in there.

 

[eezageeza]

The coldharbour lane solution is sounding promising - if you can get mains water, at any pressure, to your boundary, you're sorted! It would be very straightforward (and not very expensive) to fit a pump to then get water to a holding tank in the house loft (if the mains pressure was too weak to jump that final hurdle) or a pressure vessel located anywhere convenient (if you want a mains-pressure supply).

As far as showers are concerned - our only water supply is from a borehole, pumped to a tank in the loft, and although our shower room is immediately below it, giving less than a metre head when the tank is less than full, we shower perfectly well. We've thought about installing a supplementary pump for the shower, but always concluded that it wasn't worth it.

We have a supplementary pump for garden (and nursery) watering - ours is big, because we use a fair bit of water, but you can get a very respectable one for < £100.

 

[JoceAndChris]

That folly is just the job Mr P! And thanks for the encouragement eeza- I'm glad your borehole is working out for you.

Just heard from a private water supplier adviser/installer- apparently water can't be stored in vast 10,00 litre containers as it goes stagnant and there's no way to make it un-stagnant, so it's best stored in smaller containers. I'm keen to really push for mains now as it just seems like the only solution where you can stop worrying about it.

 

[worms]

I bathe in mud and worms, essentially

:wink:

 

[Penners]

Mucky devil!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Sounds a lot more fun than the wriggly type of worms! :lol:

 

[Penners]

Those Norsemen can be pretty wriggly, given the right circumstances.

 

[LadyArowana]

Those Norsemen can be pretty wriggly, given the right circumstances.

Ooooooh I love a well groomed wriggly Norseman

 

[Penners]

I expect that's a celeb joke, but I'm afraid it's lost on this particular old fogey.

 

[Flyfisher]

Never mind Hollywood stars, I'm still waiting for pictures of Joce in her mud bath.





(. . . did I just say that out loud? )

 

[Penners]

I imagine she had quite enough of that during the Magdalen Bridge incident!

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: But as FF asked so nicely, this page has some good pics of me in my mud bath:


http://www.sabisabi.com/wildfacts/hippopotamus

 

[Penners]

Tut tut! You've been eating too many Kit-Kats, haven't you?

 

[jocelyn plummer]

In my day the water under Magdalen Bridge flowed clear and clean :roll:

 

[Flyfisher]

How strange . . . doesn't match my mental image at all.

 

[Penners]

In my day the water under Magdalen Bridge flowed clear and clean

Yes, but if you jump into it off the bridge, I reckon the mud at the bottom must become a factor...

 

[jocelyn plummer]

It was a LONG time ago :wink: :!: