No Mains Water

[OffGrid2024]

Putting this here as I'm not sure where else it would fit on here.

We are in Europe where there are off grid houses in rural areas.

I'm waiting to find out if we can move into a place that has no mains water. There are a couple of water tanks, but I'm unsure how taps or hot water would work. Tanker delivery of water is a minimum of 10k litres but there aren't big enough tanks for that. A neighbour would let us fill the tanks from his property, and we'd pay him per month, although he didn't say he wanted money.

Where we are now we already buy bottled water for drinking but use the tap water for teeth, cooking, ketttle, washing.

Would you consider this? Or should we discount it entirely? I f we discount it, we will have to move 3-4 hours away, as there is nothing suitable for us in our price range where we are now - with deposit and moving costs.

The house has mains electricity and a septic tank for waste.

My main concern is hot water for handwashing. I dont want to be washing my hands in cold water in the winter.

We would have an electric shower for hot water put in.

We would get one of those toilets with the handbasin above the cistern to reuse the hand washing water to flush.

Gas can be run off gas bottles bough tin the local shop but I'm not sure if there is anything gas in the property. It has a fireplace but we have calor gas fires that run off bottles anyway.

My first question would be if you can solve the water problem, would this be your ideal home? Because if it is not, then I would be concerned in the investment if your are likely wanting to move in a few years.

Hot water is not really going to be a problem if you have water to heat, for example my local village hall has an electric heat on demand boiler above the sink.

How did the present occupiers get enough water?

You say that you can not get a tank large enough to warrant a tanker delivery, but could you install say four 250k litre tanks that are connected?

Would the neighbour trade something you produce or a skill you have, rather than money for water?

Could you drill a well or harvest rain water to reduce ?

I would also seriously consider ways to minimise water consumption, for example collect water from the shower, cloths washing excreta and use this to either flush the toilet or water the garden.

If water is going to be expensive and or difficult to come by, then I would seriously look at one of the modern dry / composting toilets as well.

If water is stored in tanks it will need to be filtered and treated. UV filters are the norm.

There is a massive legionella risk with standing water that's not stored and filtered properly. Other nasties, too, potentially.

Can you get a well sorted out? I lived in rural Ireland for ages and that was the usual solution in places where there was no mains water. A proper well would usually have a pumping system these days which means it is pressurised and can be put through pipes throughout your house (and into a boiler, most Irish homes have oil boilers although Bord Gais is trying to make gas catch on now, in places where they even have a gas pipeline).

I'd still want a filter though and you probably need to test the water quality regularly, but much less of a faff than getting water tanked in regularly (I lived somewhere in Asia where this was done and it was an absolute nuisance), and I'd expect it to be cheaper in the long term. With a well, you would also be less dependent on infrastructure and society working as usual.

Otherwise you might want to consider a rainwater harvesting system depending on your rainfall, but it won't be as reliable.

You can also get above-sink water heaters. A lot of trades with showrooms/yards, and used car places used to use them in their toilets back in the 90s and 2000s.

Do also bear in mind with an electric shower you usually need reasonable water pressure in the pipes for it to work as they don't pump the water, they just heat it.