Anyone living in a yurt full time with children?

[Bob Rowlands]

I'll be danged. Good thinking Steve. I've looked at that exact flex pipe on residential jobsites for decades. 100% of landscape crews around here daylight the house gutters with that pipe. It never dawned on me to use it on a yurt. offgridnewbiesuk, there you go. Thanks Steve.

[OffGridnewbiesuk]

Thanks so much for your replies! I'll reply to all here;

Its a Mongolian yurt with a canvas and waterproof roof which the rain water just runs off, I don't know how to attach the guttering on the eaves...but that is such a great pipe. Thanks for the heads up..maybe it would be better at the base.
The canvas flaps pointed to direct into the rain barrels below might be more up our street, a low tech solution! It rains so much here in the Uk. We also have a stream on the land which is high in the winter but really dries up in the summer.
That water purifier sounds perfect..does it actually make any water drinkable? we need to go up there and test the stream water, I think you guys are mostly in the USA but could you tell me how you would test the water from a stream?
I would lug in drinking water for us definitely, its not worth taking a risk and we are not remote.
Thanks, Rosie

[Surely Yurts - Steve]

Originally Posted by OffGridnewbiesuk

..........That water purifier sounds perfect..does it actually make any water drinkable? we need to go up there and test the stream water, I think you guys are mostly in the USA but could you tell me how you would test the water from a stream?
I would lug in drinking water for us definitely, its not worth taking a risk and we are not remote.
Thanks, Rosie

Here in the states we have cooperative agricultural extensions at universities in all 50 states. We would contact our local agricultural cooperative program and get the information needed. Then it's as simple as sending in the samples and having it tested.

They will send back results for soil and water for very little money or sometimes free as a part of the educational/agricultural endowments.

You could buy a home testing kit but it's unlikely to have the accuracy and detail you would get from a co-op ext.

-Cheers

[Bob Rowlands]

Our well water had to meet purity standards before the certificate of occupancy was issued on our home in March 2000. As I recall, it flunked. That made me pretty edgy to say the least. I had to add additional bleach down the well, let sit, and run the well another 24 hours or so to purify clear and retest. Seems to me I added at least two gallons of bleach, but we have a 5" well that is about 287' deep. Then it passed and we were in. We also have alot of iron in our water and had a purification system installed to alleviate that problem.

If you are using surface water for drinking it surely would flunk any purity test unless you are in a very isolated pristine area, away from farmland and city. Even with the fantastic rocky mountain water the city of CO SPGS has, it is still treated for purity. Very high standards.

The electrician on my home collected run off from the home he built up high in the rocky mountains. He collected that water in a cistern. That water was grey water ONLY and did NOT pass through his residential plumbing system. It went to the clothes washer, and exterior watering of garden etc. None of this really addresses your situation but it might give you an overview of water quality standards here in the U.S.