Wells, rain, cisterns, filters — real brands, real prices
Live 24-hour cutaway (24 h = 48 s) — sky, soil and bedrock in one slice: follow every litre from cloud and aquifer to the tap.
Land without water is scenery. The garden wilts in a week, the animals in days, and every "autonomous" plan quietly ends at the nearest tap you don't own. Water autonomy means: when the municipal system fails, when the boil-water advisory comes, when the truck stops delivering — your sanctuary keeps drinking.
This page is the practical catalogue — the actual sources, the actual brands, the actual costs as of 2026. No affiliate links, no influence, just what works.
— The water layer of the LAND Fund
A drilled well is the honest second source for the dry weeks — a solar pump lifts it into the same cistern, and a hand pump on the same casing still works when every battery is dead. Two sources, one tank, zero monthly bill.
| Brand & Origin | Model / Range | Capacity | Material | Approx. price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸Norwesco St. Bonifacius, Minnesota | Vertical 1550 | 5 870 L | Poly (NSF 61) | $1,150 USD |
| 🇨🇦Premier Plastics Delta, BC | Below-ground cistern 1250 | 5 680 L | Poly | $1,450 USD (~C$1,980) |
| 🇨🇦Contain Water Systems Mount Forest, Ontario | Corrugated steel + liner | 13 000 L and up | Steel / liner | $5,500 USD (~C$7,500) for 30 000 L |
| 🇩🇪GRAF Teningen | Carat XL underground | 10 000 L | Poly | $4,300 USD (~€4,000) |
| 🇦🇺Pioneer Water Tanks Perth | GT23 | 23 000 L | Zincalume + liner | $6,000 USD (~A$9,200) |
| 🇺🇸Bushman USA Temecula, California · AU roots | Slimline rain tank | 2 400 L | Poly | $900 USD |
| 🇺🇸Snyder Industries Lincoln, Nebraska | Vertical 2500 | 9 460 L | Poly (NSF 61) | $1,800 USD |
| 🇺🇸WaterPrepared Utah · emergency focus | Stackable emergency tanks | 2× 605 L | Poly | $700 USD for the pair |
Poly is the cheapest litre and safe for drinking water when the resin is NSF/ANSI 61 rated. Steel with a food-grade liner shrugs off sun and decades. Underground tanks never freeze and stay algae-free — but roughly double the installed cost. Whatever you choose: dark colour against algae, a screened vent, and an overflow that drains away from the foundation.
| Brand & Origin | Model | Flow / Lift | Type | Approx. price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇩🇰Grundfos Bjerringbro | SQFlex 11 SQF-2 | 11 m³/day · lift to 120 m | Solar submersible · the off-grid standard | $2,400 USD (~kr 16,500) |
| 🇺🇸Franklin Electric Fort Wayne, Indiana | SubDrive SolarPAK | to ~80 m class | Solar submersible kit · pump + controller | $3,000 USD |
| 🇺🇸SHURflo Costa Mesa, California | 9325 | 6.4 L/min · 70 m | 24 V DC submersible · budget tier | $850 USD |
| 🇨🇳SEAFLO Xiamen | 24 V DC series | ~8 L/min class | DC diaphragm / submersible · budget tier | $250 USD (~¥1,800) |
| 🇺🇸Simple Pump Gardnerville, Nevada | Motorizable hand pump | by arm · 100 m static | Manual · shares the casing with the electric | $2,000 USD |
| 🇺🇸Bison Pumps Houlton, Maine | Standard Deep Well | by arm · deep well | Manual · stainless, frost-proof design | $2,300 USD |
| 🇮🇹DAB Pumps Mestrino | e.sybox mini³ | 5.5 bar | Pressure booster · quiet constant pressure | $1,100 USD (~€1,020) |
| 🇮🇹Pedrollo San Bonifacio | JSWm 2AX | shallow source | Surface jet · lake or shallow well | $400 USD (~€370) |
The hand pump row is not optional. It is the one machine that still works after a week of clouds with a dead battery bank. Simple Pump and Bison drop into the same well casing beside the electric pump. And size the solar pump to the well's tested yield, not the catalogue maximum — over-pumping a slow well just pulls mud.
| Brand & Origin | Model | Technology | Capacity | Approx. price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸Berkey United States | Big Berkey | Gravity · Black element pair | 8.5 L body | $390 USD |
| 🇬🇧British Berkefeld / Doulton Stoke-on-Trent | Stainless gravity system | Ceramic candles | 8.5 L body | $330 USD (~£260) |
| 🇨🇭Katadyn Kemptthal | 0.2 µm ceramic · field legend | 50 000 L | $400 USD (~CHF 350) | |
| 🇺🇸Sawyer Safety Harbor, Florida | Squeeze | 0.1 µm hollow fibre | ~380 000 L | $40 USD |
| 🇨🇦VIQUA Guelph, Ontario | D4 Premium | Whole-house UV | 22 L/min | $800 USD (~C$1,100) |
| 🇺🇸Aquasana Austin, Texas | Rhino | Whole-house sediment + carbon | ~3.8 M L | $2,100 USD |
Gravity + ceramic runs on nothing. No pressure, no power, no part that dies — that's why it anchors the sanctuary kitchen even when a pressurized chain exists in the basement. UV draws ~40 W and neutralizes what ceramic can't catch, but only in clear water — keep a sediment cartridge upstream. And lab-test every new source (~$150) before the first glass; treat the result, not the guess.
| Use | Daily need | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Drinking & cooking | 4–8 L / person | The non-negotiable core |
| Full domestic comfort | 60–150 L / person | Shower, dishes, laundry |
| Laundry (machine load) | 50–70 L / load | Three loads a week ≈ 25 L/day |
| Cleaning & misc | 10–20 L / household | Floors, rinsing, hand-washing |
| Chicken | 0.3–0.5 L each | A dozen hens ≈ 6 L |
| Rabbit | 0.15–0.5 L each | A hutch of eight ≈ 3 L |
| Dog & cat | 1–3 L combined | The guardians drink too |
| Goat or sheep | 4–10 L each | More in heat & lactation |
| Pig | 10–20 L each | Doubles in the heat |
| Horse or donkey | 20–40 L each | The biggest drinker in the barn |
| Dairy cow | 60–100 L each | Lactation is thirsty work |
| Vegetable garden 25 m² | 100–160 L on a July day | Drip lines cut it in half |
| Greenhouse 10 m² | 40–80 L | Misting + beds, season-long |
| Beehive | 0.2–0.5 L per hive | A shallow dish the colony shares |
| Mature fruit tree | 40–80 L / week | Deep and rare beats shallow and daily |
| Fire reserve | 1 000 L held apart | Never counted as available |
| Hot climate rule | ×1.5–2 on everything | Heat multiplies thirst — size for August, not April |
Two people, a dozen hens, two goats and the 25 m² garden: ≈ 400 L on a peak summer day. One 4 500 L cistern is eleven days of full autonomy without a drop of rain — and the well refills it in under four hours of sun.
Assumptions: peak-summer day with mid-range values from the table above; drip halves the garden and greenhouse; the hot-climate switch applies the ×1.5 rule; the cistern is sized for eleven days without rain; pump time uses the 23 L/min solar pump from the cutaway above; budget interpolated from the three profiles below — the jump between barrel money and well money IS the drill rig. The arithmetic holds at any latitude; only the rain side changes — in a dry climate the roof gives less and the well matters more. A starting estimate, not a quote — lab-test and flow-test before you drill.
Prices reflect equipment and a typical drilling job only, June 2026. US-dollar figures are shown first; for non-US manufacturers, the approximate price in the brand's home currency is shown in parentheses. The drill rig is the wild card: $30–60 USD per foot, and nobody knows the depth until the bit finds water. Budget the worst case; celebrate the surprise.
❄️ The freeze is the real design constraint. Supply lines live below the local frost line (1.2–1.8 m in the cold belt), the well head wears an insulated cap, the cistern goes underground or into heated space, and the last exposed metre gets heat tape on a thermostat. Three-season lines get drain-down valves and a fall ritual. Choose a frost-proof hand pump — the good ones drain themselves below ground between strokes.
Before you even buy the land: the neighbours' well logs, a flow test in L/min, a lab potability test and the local withdrawal rules are part of the 8-check due-diligence sweep on the LAND Buy page. And water is the layer the other three lean on — the pump takes its watts from Energy, the drip lines feed the Garden, the troughs keep the Animals alive.
💡 Know a tank, pump, or filter brand we should add? Share it on the Ideas page or mention @LOAM_token on X.
The city pumps water uphill with someone else's diesel and mails you the bill. Meanwhile the sky delivers it to your roof for free, and the rock under your feet has been filtering it for ten thousand years. A cistern, a ceramic filter, a hand pump — and no one can ever turn your tap off again.
Water is the blood of the sanctuary.
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$LOAM is a meme coin for community and culture — not a security, not an investment, and not a promise of profit. Any value is incidental and can go to zero. Nothing here is financial advice.
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