Melissa at the county water and sanitation department says that we can open a short term account with them in order to get household water from that fire hydrant two miles up the road. She says that there are three water haulers out here that generally work with the coal mines providing water to people whose wells go dry, like David's have.
To do it, we go down to the county and give them $300. They loan us a wrench and a valve to screw onto the fire hydrant. We supply the hose. We then have a week or so to take as much water as we want--it costs $5 per 1000 gallons. (Our polyethylene tank holds 450 gallons.)
When we're done, we give them back their tooling, and they give us back our money, less however much we tell them we took. If we write them a check, they cash it right away and then write us a new one. They won't just hold the check.
Melissa says we can't just use our own valve and buy a wrench from Grainger (or make one). We have to use theirs, and we have to give them $300 every time we use it, and we can't keep it.
I called John at J & W Water Services, and he ballparked a delivery fee of $75 for hauling us 1000 gallons in his truck. He handles various people out where we live.
For us to haul water from town ourselves costs $4.50 per 1000 gallons, but about $15 in gasoline to go get it and come back.
If we buy a 1000 gallon tank and just park it by the warehouse, we can fill it off the roof of the warehouse and pump it up to the house. We would probably have to drain it in the winter, or bury it in hay bales with a heater inside. Perhaps we could put the tank inside the warehouse.
A thousand gallons ain't much.
