Our new house has a really neat little building called a spring house. I'd never heard of the concept before and now that I'm learning how it works I appreciate we have one.
Spring houses were built in places where a stream was nearby and the water was used to keep the building cold year round. This particular spring house had pipes carrying water from a cistern that catches rainwater and stream water a good distance away from the house. The pipes would bring the water to the spring house where the water kept them room really cold year round. People could store food and milk in there during summer months.
This is a really useful building on a farm. Our goal is to have a big garden and start canning our own foods to have a year round supply of food.
It needs some cleaning!!
I don't think the actual water source in the spring house will be used. It needs some serious maintenance. Water definitely comes in through pipes in the yard but the water is very muddy and dirty where some of the pipes were ripped up and ground water is coming through the pipes under the ground still. It is a very cold room though so it would be good for storing foods.
When the weather is warm I'll clean it up really nice. The walls and floor were painted and the paint is chipped up. I'll scrape it down and repaint it to look nice. It's so cold in there it's like a fridge right now so I'll wait until summer to do any work inside.
I would be quite interested to know the head of water you have, i.e. the height from where water enters the property down to where it leaves. I've often imagined having not only land with water, but using the water to generate electricity... :) But perhaps you don't have enough sustained flow to make that practical...
Of course, with just what you've described, it sounds as if you may be able to clean out the upper cistern and put in new piping down to the spring house. Either PVC or a long roll of polypropylene should do...
Very happy for you! :D
😄😇😉
Basically our new house is in a valley in between 2 mountains that join at a higher peak. The center where the stream is located is downhill from the peak so when it rains all the water drains down the center where the stream is locate. The former owners put a lot of money into putting in drainage pipes under the ground in places to direct the flow of water coming off the mountains into a ditch on a public road.
Today the stream seemed more like ground water aka not more than a trickle. When it rains it's like full blown tiny river. It's not a good source for electricity. That being said we do have 2 mountains with good sun exposure and we're thinking solar panels would work well for us.
Oh wow, never heard of that myself. Sounds like a great addition. Have fun sorting it out.
Thanks for reading! It is so messy it won't be fun cleaning it but I look forward to seeing how it turns out!
Lol, yeah, I feel your pain. I have some stuff that needs sorting out too. My dogs destroyed my irrigation system and the mere thought of digging through all of that makes me want to cry 😭 The reward will be worth it though, but for now, I'm happy using a hosepipe 😁