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We are building in off-grid location, just finished digging a well. We hit 30 GPM at 430ft, soon we will know our water static level. The well pump will be run on solar backed by a diesel gen. We have three destinations for the water: house, horse stable, and a workshop. Two of our water destinations are at a lower ground elevation. Only the house is higher (10ft above the well) but it's the closest, about 100 ft away. My plan is to build a small "water house" near the well casing and put all 3 pressure tanks (one per dwelling) with a CSV, in the water house. Do you foresee a problem with my plan for sharing a single well pump, i.e. co-locating all pressure tanks near the well then running pipes from there to each dwelling? Alternatively, is it better to only have a single large pressure tank/csv connected to the well pump and feed all 3 dwellings off of it? Other thoughts for consideration?enter image description here

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    Does it freeze? If so, how will you prevent freezing, in your off-grid situation where heating options may be fairly resource-intensive (.vs. say burying the whole business below frost-line)
    – Ecnerwal
    Commented Jun 28 at 21:06
  • The ground freezes for sure, it’s Montana. One option is radiant heating in the „water house”. Another option is we run everything from the main house where it’s heated but we don’t plan on building the house until after the stables are built. This is why I was planning on building the water house first as it would be a fairly small project in comparison.
    – Slawomir
    Commented Jul 1 at 5:25

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More questions than answers...

Three pressure tanks is equivalent to one larger pressure tank, unless you have check valves or something else keeping pressure from going back through the pipes to the other users. And if you do that you need three pressure sensors to detect when each user's pressure is getting low.

Can your pump and well keep up with peak demands if everyone is demanding water at once, or are you going to need to enlarge those and/or set up a buffering tank?

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  • Thanks! In the first iteration of the setup I was planning to avoid the buffering tank and see how the system performs. I would isolate the pressure tanks with each having their own pressure sensors and a check valve. If one tank goes bad or needs maintenance I'd have a way to work on it without bringing down the rest. I will build the water house to accommodate a 500-1000 gal water buffer but that's plan B.
    – Slawomir
    Commented Jun 28 at 16:21

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