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I live on a farm that doesn't get city water. As a result, the property has a water tank and rainwater is collected from the rooves (house and garage). I moved here in 2012 and drank that water for 11 years now without any problems... until now.

If you collect rainwater into a tank, and keep your gutters clean, and the water looks clean (a little leaf matter is okay, but not too much) then drawing water from the middle (not the sediment, not the floatsam) is generally very safe and drinkable, and tasteless too.

Anyhow, here goes my story.

I moved into my new house in July. Things were great for 4 months, but by mid November the water pressure had dropped... most noticably in the shower. This new house has two water filters that filter water for the whole house: a 20 micron filter followed by a 1 micron filter (the sleepout I used to be in only had a metal mesh screen filter and it was never a problem). I guessed that the filters were getting clogged and replaced them. Being right as usual, the water pressure returned to high pressure and my showers were again masssaging and wonderful.

Within two days however, the shower water started smelling foul, like open sewerage (more like farts, less like sulphur). My first thought was actual sewer gasses were coming up through the drain, but I eliminated that. It was the hot water. I compared cold tap water to hot tap water, and I boiled the cold tap water in the kettle to compare their smells at the same hot temperature. The water from the cold tap did not smell foul, but the water from the hot tap did.

So I drained the hot water heater. Let it refill and for 2 more days, all was bliss. Then the smell came back. I thought maybe I will need to flush it with a shock chlorine treatment.

About this time a float in a paddock watering trough broke off and the trough ran and ran overflowing until my water tank ran empty. I noticed the bottom of my water tank had quite a lot of organic matter buildup, but didn't smell bad. This is pretty typical. From time to time I have someone come clean it out, but the only guy I could get ahold of doesn't clean them he only delivers water. So I had 8,000 litres of chlorinated water added (to the 22,500 litre tank). I was hoping this chlorine would help fix the hot water tank issue. As that water was added, it stirred up the sediment quite a bit, so I waited about 4 hours before turning the pump back on and using water again.

Now the water tasted like chlorine. I don't like that taste, so I bought a 5 micron charcoal filter to replace the 1 micron normal filter. The result was not stellar... there was still some chlorine taste, and worse yet, now I was smelling and tasting that foul sewerage smell in my cold water!

So I stopped drinking water from my tap and I pulled out a ceramic water filter I had bought to filter alcohol with, and used it to filter this foul water. Luckily the filtered result tasted sweet and good and so I started bottling up the filtered water and intended to only use filtered water until I got the problem sorted.

After a few days I opened the bottle of filtered good water and ... it smelled foul. This really suprised me.

So it turns out my water smells and tastes foul if left alone in an anaerobic environment, and that there must be an anaerobic bacteria doing this, and there must be enough dissolved organic matter in the water for the bacteria to feed on.

So last night it rained and today I went to check the water tank to see how much it filled up. Well, it went from 1/3 to 2/3, but I was in for a shock. The water wasn't crystal clear at all. It was brown like tea (not like clay) and the whole water tank smelt foul.

So now with a lot of chlorine bleach and bottles of city water I've got my kitchen sanitized, and within a week I've got a guy coming to drain and clean the water tank, and I'll probably have to do chlorine shock treatments from the rain gutters all the way through to the taps, and to replace my water filters including the charcoal filter I just bought.

Anyhow, that's my story. Oh... and the toilet got to experience part of this story too, the part that I left out for your sake.

Dargoyle 2y ago

Hi,

I followed you and came here to sort of belly ache about your client needing macOS beyond my 11.3.1 (and my typical trope of 'let us wrest these tools from techno-elites blah bla'). However, hearing your woes of water, and having been on catchment for about 25 years now ... well, there's Nostr ... and there's water. Me, I been through a fair amount of the permutations of harvesting rainwater (Hawai'i Island). Your persistent stanky water anecdote brings me back to the formative years of the homestead when, to my dismay, and after longer than I'd prefer; I realized that I was showering in water infused with essence of dead rat.

Dues paying!

Stanky rat-water anecdotes aside, and fwiw, having water that cycles robustly has been real important ... obviously catching it cleanly is super important. I should add that my homestead is in the rainforest ... so copious rain. (How many inches per year down your way?)

Mostly this is a note wishing your and your water well (anybody?). We have gnarly stories of leptospirosis and the rest, however, best I can tell, I, nor anyone else consuming my water has. In fact, over the years, when having to travel, it was always a drag to have to leave my super clean water behind. Even now, living on the kona-side of this island, I haul water from my homestead as it is unmatched. Again fwiw, I run two tanks, so the second one gets filled by the first off the gutter, which 'cleans' it ala, well in a way not unlike how some pool filters sort of work. I have a little sediment filter. (caveat: don't use my techniques dear readers. use UV filters and ... masks if need be!) Nah. And then, at the end, I run a 1/2 carbon 1/2 calcite filter to harden the water a bit. (Then I can caffeinate with fine taste. But, by all means I rescind my OS-kvetching until your water clears up. ...then if there's a crustier version of Gossip that plays nice with OS 11 ...?) Aloha.

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Discussion

Mike Dilger ☑️ 2y ago

35 inches of rainfall per year. I have about 250 square meters of roof to catch it, and a small rainstorm fills the tank about 1/3 so it generally flows through pretty good. Not good enough I guess for the amount of leaf litter in there.

Lots of people around here have stories of dead rats and dead possums found in their water tanks. So far I've not found any. I keep the lid closed, but something might fit down the rain gutter pipe (I should put screens on those).

A friend of mine caught lepto, he thinks from helping cattle during pregnancy. Fucked him up good. He swears he is 10 IQ points dumber now. I didn't know him from before so I can't say. Tends to collect in stagnant watering holes and be transmitted through water or urine. When I kill rabbits for the dog I hold them such that they dont pee on me. She hasn't gotten lepto herself though either, so I'm hoping it's not around here.

And yes, like yours, my rainwater has always been delicious and I don't like anything else, and I tended to brag about it.

I think I can compile gossip for Big Sur. I wasn't sure how far back to go. Last person who complained ws on Monterey (12) and when I thought I should just go further back and get everybody at once he thought it wasn't necessary. LOL.