If you’ve been around for a minute you will recognize the subject, and that’s because without water there is no life! From one of my first posts on filtering creek water to the running water setup we had at our first Alaskan cabin, and even how you might get water where ever your off-grid dreams take you. Here is the long-awaited update to our water situation.

New cabin, new water setup!

When we moved here we found someone had installed a well in front of the cabin in the distant past. While it was no longer working due to rust and dry gaskets from non-use, it made us aware that there was water available on the property if we put a little work into getting it. We pulled the old well and tried to install a Sandpoint in the same spot. Unfortunatly it seems the person who installed the well had backfilled it with gravel. We are still deciding between digging a regular old-style well or trying the sandpoint again somewhere else.

In the meantime, we found a spring on the property! Luckily it is only about 150ft from the cabin. And that is important because the creek we use to get water from is a few miles away now. We are coming into our second winter at the beach cabin, and last winter the spring only froze once. We used a metal pipe to direct the flow from the hill so it was easy to heat with a weed torch. Once flowing again, we covered the pipe back up with snow to help insulate it from cold winds too. It may be slower in winter, but its still enough to provide for all our water needs. As long as we keep our showers short at least!

Check out the video below for an explanation of our summer setup: