Any other surface water users ?

[/pine]

Im curious how many use surface (gravity) water?

 

[teg]

For what? Watering plants, yes... drinking, no. Are you talking creek water or a spring, surface water. I have a spring that I'm thinking to do a little work to...

 

[LD1]

I one side of my house I use run-off from the gutters to fill barrels to water my trees. It takes a little under a quarter inch of rain to 1 55 gal drum.

On the other side, it keeps the goldfish pond full and the fish happy.

If this is what you are talking about using surface water.

 

[/pine]

I collect my water from a spring on the side of the mountain...It is our only source of potable water...We do use a tap filter for drinking water...
It is quite common in these parts (extreme N.E. GA)

Although the water table drops considerably in the mid to late summer I have never run out of water in over 40 years...even when neighboring wells have had problems...

 

[deepNdirt]

I collect my water from a spring on the side of the mountain...It is our only source of potable water...We do use a tap filter for drinking water...
It is quite common in these parts (extreme N.E. GA)

Although the water table drops considerably in the mid to late summer I have never run out of water in over 40 years...even when neighboring wells have had problems...

Yeah common for us country folks don't ya get a kick out of the city folks that stop on side of the road to get a jug filled of spring water to take back with them, just about every time going up into the Nth Ga Mnt. or on up into the NC Smokies I will see folks off to the side of the road filling their jugs from what they think is a fresh water spring.:licking:...they probably never drink it though just got it as souvenir,

 

[/pine]

city folks that stop on side of the road to get a jug filled of spring water

for a while it seemed a lot of the natural road-side springs disappeared (mostly from road improvment work)...but now there is an association (a few caring folks) that mark and maintain them...

Also now the county here marks main roads with "W" when available on side roads...

around here it was not all that long ago when the 12 miles to town was a two day trip with a horse and waggon...those springs got a lot of use back then...

Here on our hill (mountain) there are 3 "wet coves" and on adjacent hills about every 3rd or 4th cove has a spring running it...and in every wet cove you can find remanents of old stills...some even still have a lot of the infrastructure...all have a lot of broken jars and deep piles of charcoal...

 

[teg]

I collect my water from a spring on the side of the mountain...

Your mountain or down the road? How do you do it? did you drive a pipe in or do you have a spring house?

 

[/pine]

I have what is know as a "spring box"...it made of stone and mortar directly where the water comes out of the ground...it has a lid...in the bottom are collection screens/lines that travel a short ways down the hill to a settling tank about 200 gallons....then to a larger tank and a couple of others set up in reserve...all together I have over 1500 gallons of reserve water and I run off the overflow of that...I have a free running (piped) birdbath that I use to monitor the spring...

I have to use a pressure reducer as the spring and larger tanks are a good 80+ above the cabin...

 

[deepNdirt]

/Pine.... You wouldn't happen to be around the Cole Mountain area? reason I ask is My mother used to live up there and had found a couple of old still's on her property,

 

[RadarTech]

my neighbor has both a well and a surface spring..

the well was drilled when the spring dried up 2 years ago..


The way her's works is there is a saddle that drops down to the spring area-- it then goes into a gravelled area just below the ground, to a blue barrel of somekind-- never looked.. then down into a 1500 gallon tank.. the tank is about as close to a septic tank as I could imagine... it looks just like one!

anyway on top it has a round culvert look to it with a lid... and the pump hangs in there with a line that runs up to a pressure tank in her basement. Basement is 20 or so feet up hill...
There is a filter up there...
Her well has another pressure tank and filter.. and they both pipe into the house with a "selector"

The only thing it takes to switch from one to the other is to move the power..

I have offered to put a throw box in for her. but I doubt she will go back to the surface spring..


the spring has an output tube that sends water down to a small water fall....


On top of that...

Water that makes it around the tank setup goes to the waterfall....

It worked for almost 20 years before it went dry.. and then it was dry for only 3 months! (Well was drilled 1 month into that period) For that 1 month I ran hoses down to her tank and filled it up from my well once a week or so...


her well has a HUGE flow-- they rated it at 12.5 gallons per minute at 260 feet..

it is 30-40 feet lower and about 200 feet down the saddle from my well head and my well is 8.5 GPM at 465 feet..



go figure..

J

 

[/pine]

I'm in Rabun Co (where 'Deliverence' was filmed)...the name "coleman" is not uncommon but I'm not familiar with a "Cole Mountain"

 

[rswyan]

I'm in Rabun Co (where 'Deliverence' was filmed)...

Beautiful area ..... year before last I picked up a load in Walhalla, SC at the Timken plant going up to Michigan ...... took Highway 28 out, up thru Mountain Rest, SC and Pine Mountain, GA ...... on thru Highlands, NC and then US 64 over to Franklin, TN and on up US 441 to US 23/74 to I-40 ......

Incredible scenery ..... really thought that Highlands was quite the place ..... little community nestled up in the mountains ...... would really like to take the wife there at some point ....

The ride coming out of there was pretty impressive ..... very narrow windy road hanging on the side of a mountain .... probably chiseled/basted out of it .... very high and steep drop-offs and no guardrails as I recall ..... glad I drive a small truck

 

[/pine]

really thought that Highlands was quite the place

Highlands is fairly upscale...lots of old Atlanta money...lots of golf and tennis clubs etc...

very steep property, lots of unique architecture

Those roads are no fun in the winter or when it's foggy...

 

[deepNdirt]

I'm in Rabun Co (where 'Deliverence' was filmed)...the name "coleman" is not uncommon but I'm not familiar with a "Cole Mountain"

Sorry! my bad spelling, "Coal" Mountain Ga, Not as far up in the hills as you are, a couple years ago I worked in Rabun County, the Demorest/Clarksville/Mount Airy/Habersham area's. Built 8 Cabins back up in them there hills, I think the road was hwy/197 goes up past that College then the road turns to dirt and have to cross a shallow creek and becomes the Chattahoochee national forest.. very Beautiful Country for sure:thumbsup:
wouldn't mind moving up that way when I retire, of course I'd have to get me a 4x4 tractor

 

[dmccarty]

Beautiful area ....

The ride coming out of there was pretty impressive ..... very narrow windy road hanging on the side of a mountain .... probably chiseled/basted out of it .... very high and steep drop-offs and no guardrails as I recall ..... glad I drive a small truck

I had family that used to live in Franklin years ago. Wish they were still there. Very pretty area. Semi's used to go down US64. Now there are signs to try to keep the semis off that road. My mother and aunt were hit by a semi that was going down the mountain from Highlands. Thankfully he was going slow otherwise they would have gone off the side of the mountain.

Tried to take a few days off this spring to drive up that way to see the waterfalls but that plan did not work out.

I remember people in FLA stopping on the side of the road to fill up jugs with sulpher water. Someone would poke a metal or PVC pipe into the spring and people would fill on up. I would be shocked if those pipes are still in place today.

Our land has a couple of springs. One spring would stay wet most of the year unless we had a very bad drought. Another spring flows seems to flow year round. There used to be a still down there. You can see the trench that was dug to run off liquid as well as the rocks that held the still. I found the top of an old clay jug on that spot as well as an old kerosene can.

Later,
Dan

 

[clemsonfor]

Beautiful area ..... year before last I picked up a load in Walhalla, SC at the Timken plant going up to Michigan ...... took Highway 28 out, up thru Mountain Rest, SC and Pine Mountain, GA ...... on thru Highlands, NC and then US 64 over to Franklin, TN and on up US 441 to US 23/74 to I-40 ......

Incredible scenery ..... really thought that Highlands was quite the place ..... little community nestled up in the mountains ...... would really like to take the wife there at some point ....

The ride coming out of there was pretty impressive ..... very narrow windy road hanging on the side of a mountain .... probably chiseled/basted out of it .... very high and steep drop-offs and no guardrails as I recall ..... glad I drive a small truck

I know exactly where your talking about. When at clemson i was around Whalla, and moutain rest a lot. A good friend of mine lives outside of moutain rest. This last weekend i was off us23/441 outside Sylva, NC. I think u mean Franklin, NC which 441 to 23 or whatever goes through before you get to i-40.

 

[clemsonfor]

I'm in Rabun Co (where 'Deliverence' was filmed)...the name "coleman" is not uncommon but I'm not familiar with a "Cole Mountain"

A good Friend of Mine lives in Long Creek, SC. Just across the line from Clayton, GA area. I spent lots of time in college hiunting those hills there around the chatooga river and Long Creek (town).

As a forester your name intrigues me. Like the /pine. Many may not catch that. But you sound as if you have lived there for quite some time why is your name a pine that is not native to the area, and if planted is very susseptible to the ice. Why not VaPine or ShtLeafPine? Just curious?

-Nate

 

[Rob-D]

I have a spring and a deep well (175' @ 20+ gpm)

I'm planning on putting the spring into use because i don't like the pumps and so forth from the well. The spring is gravity fed but not high enough above the house to gain pressure so a small pump will be required.

In either case I'll use filtration systems. Today you can't trust ground water anymore between pesticide runoff from local farmers to dead animals. I run two filters into UV.

I generally like spring water more than well water but it does depend on your conditions.

Sounds like you have a great spring at over 80'. Can you utilize it for hydro power or is the run too low?

 

[/pine]

you sound as if you have lived there for quite some time why is your name a pine that is not native to the area...

Have had the property since the lae 60's...
...As for the moniker...I'm originally from West central FL where the Slash Pine is prolific...it also has a second significance as long time UNIX system/network administrator PINE (or ./pine) was one of the most popular e-mail clients before the advent of WWW/browser interfaces...

fed but not high enough above the house to gain pressure so a small pump will be required

I have one neighbor who's home is not high enough above their spring to provide adequite pressure...so...they use a pump to move the water up the hill to a storage tankk that is high enough above the house for adequite pressure.

Today you can't trust ground water anymore between pesticide runoff from local farmers to dead animals

There is nothing but woods and national forest above our springs so there is no worries about man made contaminants...
...as for natural contaminants like animal feces etc...From the source to the house the system is ecapsulated by one means or another...there is very little risk of contamination...The biggest threat is in the form of micro-organisms like "giardia"...but with the measures taken we have never had a problem...

Can you utilize it for hydro power or is the run too low?

There is really not enough volume from the springs...and the steep grade of the property makes it infeasable to create any infrastructure...

We are directly on a decent size stream (upper Talullah River) which does have the potential to harness some of the energy but again developing the infrasructure makes it impracticable...

However I once thought of making some sort of poor-man's air conditioning by letting the cold spring water run through a radiator with a fan behind it...

 

[deepNdirt]

However I once thought of making some sort of poor-man's air conditioning by letting the cold spring water run through a radiator with a fan behind it...

Yup! this works I've seen and felt the air from one :thumbsup: Place called Charley Williams back wood Restaurant/ Plantation had a air cooling system made like this,
feed from a water wheel, actually the water wheel served for many purposes
around his plantation,
/Pine .. have you a water wheel ?