Infrastructure (Water)

Water Tank peeka-boo. We tucked a black 5,400 gallon water tank deep in the northwest corner of the back yard, behind Spirit Oak, so you never really notice it from the home. The City wanted to force us to hook up to city water -- which even now does not reach this far down Mora Avenue -- so they could charge us the money to pay for the pipeline's extension. After a little jangling of chains, they relented. This is a very good thing because the price of city water is astronomical ... and going higher every year as the tiny water district has to pay for state-mandated upgrades to its system. The main Calistoga reservoir for drinking water lies just to the north, at the very north end of Napa Valley, in the foothills west of Mt. St. Helena.

The original well. Why is the well pump so far away from the water tank, in the middle of the back yard? Well, when we purchased the land, the little yellow house (shed, shack) was located right here, as was this well dug in the 50's. Unable to move the well,  we decided to (at least) site the water tank as far as possible from the middle of the back yard. Fresh water is pumped underground from this well to the 5,400 gallon holding tank in the back

From the Water Tank back to the House. The 5,400 gallon tank of fresh drinking water rests on the required layers of small rock and sand. The fresh-water supply has been more than adequate for a 4 or 5-member family over the years.

Fresh well water first runs through a Culligan water softener before entering the house. The softener is located on the east side of the building.

Irrigation water. See that little white stake-looking thing between the house and the shed on the right? That's not a stake, that's the cap on  the first well we dug, around the very wet winter of 2001. We figured a second well was a good idea as a backup for drinking water, but it has been exclusively used for landscape irrigation until now.

The first  irrigation well. A huge drill crane came in, and nearly got stuck in the mud from the heavy winter rains. They dug down about 300 feet and reached water ... but it was water filled with too much boron to satisfy plants or people. According to county regulations, the pipe was encased in concrete. The water is available but pretty much un-usable so we just put a cap on it.

By the way, Laurie Woods, a legendary grape grower in the Napa Valley who also owned Freemark Abbey Winery (and who just recently died), discovered this drilling site for us. Water downing in the valley was a lifetime hobby for him. He used the "cross wire" witching technique. He loosely held two one wire in each hand and when the two crossed, voila. Somehow he could even tell how deep the water was and how drinkable it was. Amazing.

The real second well. Having struck out in our first well digging operation, we still wanted an irrigation well. After speaking with neighbors and water experts, it became clear that there is a substantial amount of fresh water just under the surface of the land to a depth of about 50 feet, where some kind of natural barrier holds it in place. Fresh water has run down the hillsides to the east (shown here) for eons and much of it stops right here on the floor. That's also why there's so much clay in the soil. If you drill through the barrier 50 feet down, you find boron-laden water and/or hot water (the same water that feeds the famous Calsitoga hot springs). That's what happened with our first well. (The Craegers, to the west, dug nearly 500 feet down and never did find cool water. They had to build a special tank to cool the water down before it enters their house).

 Merik, our neighbor to the west, confirmed the existence of the fresh water underneath us. To irrigate his grapevines, he had actually dug an irrigation well by hand the previous August (when the water table is at its lowest, and the clay soil is like rock) and struck water just over 10 feet down. That's all we needed to know. Instead of a shovel, we used a back hoe and dug down about 20 feet before we reached water. Then we sunk a 24-inch corrugated black plastic pipe (it's under the plywood in the right side of this image), attached a bladder tank (on left), ran electricity out to the contraption, turned it on and, voila, terrific, fresh irrigation water for plants, trees and grapevines.

Little water house on the prairie.. Used the last of the scrap lumber reclaimed from the old redwood water tank at the Mark West Lodge.

Irrigation outlets.. The timers for the well are just outside the well house.

Two outlets, two irrigation lines. The line closest to the house irrigates the olive trees on the two islands as well as all of the landscaping around the house and studio (let's call it the house line). The line closest to the street irrigates the vineyard.

The house irrigation line runs first to the east-most olive island and this is a hose bib connected to that line.

One arm of the house irrigation line runs under the driveway and to the street side of the studio. This is the shut off valve for that arm, right outside the trash bin niche.

The second arm of the house irrigation line runs under the driveway and then to the west side of the main house. The shut off valve for this arm is shown here (front of photo). There is a timer here too ( back of this photo).  This line irrigates everything around the house and between the studio and the house.

The vineyard irrigation line runs in a trench along here from the well house, under the driveway, and straight across to the vineyard near the studio.

Looking east toward the well house you can infer that the vineyard irrigation line runs relatively straight to this point, and then there are six north/south arms, one for each vineyard row. The vineyard typically needs some water during hot spells from May/June through harvest because of how hard and porous the clay becomes ... but the roots have already found the relatively-shallow ground water down there.

The studio has two hose bibs attached to the building ... one here near the studio entrance ...

And this second hose bib on the west side of the studio, facing the neighbors. Both bibs feed from the original well, not the irrigation well.

The main house has 3 hose bibs attached to the building, one on each side of the house (except the west side). This one is under the kitchen windows at the front of the house.

This is the hose bib on the back side of the house, between the back two entrances, and alongside the gas shut-off valve.

This is the east side hose bib inside the water softener niche.