Practical considerations for designing and installing water systems

Since water management and landscape rehydration is a topic that I’ve covered in depth over years now, I wanted to try and dig into some of the often overlooked, and sometimes less exciting considerations for water. Today I’m joined by my good friend and regular contributor to this podcast, Nick Stiener. He and I have both been working on a lot of projects for clients out in the field individually and with our growing team as well. We start out this session by giving an update of all of the new learnings, interesting projects, larger scale and collaborative work that’s been happening since we last checked in. From there we start to break down the engineering considerations and practical puzzle pieces that one needs to think about from capturing water, through to transporting it, cleaning it, and different options for administration at the point of use. In so many past episodes we’ve talked about managing water at a landscape level, by digging ponds and terraces, reducing erosion, and rehydrating soil, but for many people with smaller land bases and limited budgets, these interventions can be unrealistic or inappropriate, so in this episode we’re instead looking at how to choose a cistern or other water storage. We’re talking about piping and pumping options, and how to get water clean enough to move through the system without clogging. Nick talks about his own home system works and why he set it up the way he did. We also touch on irrigation considerations, calculations for quantities, and a whole lot more.