Water Consumption and Septic Usage

[JohninWV]

So, we are trying to make an offer on a piece of property this week. It is in a rural area that has no city water or sewer. We are going to put a contingency in the contract about being able to get water, but I'm curious how much I need.

My initial business plan calls for us to be able to produce as much as 3,000/cs per year. If we were at that level of production, what would be my usage (annual, weekly, etc)? I've had some help with someone on here, but I also wanted some more opinions due to an unusual circumstance at their location. I'm guessing between 12,500 gallons/week and 14,000 gallons/week. I can figure out the usage should (hopefully) we need to expand.

The cooling water will be stored to use for various purposes. I know some water will go out with the stillage, but I'm thinking there's still a lot of water to send to the septic. Maybe there is some water that can be used for irrigation???

Any help here is appreciated.

PS....The site also has no natural gas, but 3-phase electric is there. Looks like an electric boiler is in the cards as propane/oil is just too expensive.

[Ralph at Tuthilltown]

If you drill a well, be sure to get at least 8-10 gpm output and more than that is better. If you can drill two, do it. But your more important problem is disposal of stillage afterward. It can be sprayed on the land but depending upon where you are located you will be required to show that the land can absorb the nutrients and suspended organic matter you put on it every day, 7 days a week, 50 or so weeks a year. It's a lot of waste material. You will be limited to "agronomic levels" which must be determined by soil tests performed on the land by a certified lab, like Cornell Coop Extension in NY. If you have enough land it may not be a problem. But believe me, the disposal of the water you generate is more problematic than getting enough water to begin with. Check with an engineer familiar with your local code and agronomic applications.

[Denver Distiller]

What are you producing?

[JohninWV]

I would like to produce vodka, rum, and whiskey.

[Jester]

So, we are trying to make an offer on a piece of property this week. It is in a rural area that has no city water or sewer. We are going to put a contingency in the contract about being able to get water, but I'm curious how much I need.

My initial business plan calls for us to be able to produce as much as 3,000/cs per year. If we were at that level of production, what would be my usage (annual, weekly, etc)? I've had some help with someone on here, but I also wanted some more opinions due to an unusual circumstance at their location. I'm guessing between 12,500 gallons/week and 14,000 gallons/week. I can figure out the usage should (hopefully) we need to expand.

The cooling water will be stored to use for various purposes. I know some water will go out with the stillage, but I'm thinking there's still a lot of water to send to the septic. Maybe there is some water that can be used for irrigation???

Any help here is appreciated.

PS....The site also has no natural gas, but 3-phase electric is there. Looks like an electric boiler is in the cards as propane/oil is just too expensive.

JohninWV,

One thing to engineer in at this point is the recycling of all you can, if water is short, you may want to use recirculatory cooling for your process cooling. If you are going to be looking at electric heating, you may want to look into solar assisted. As for your well and the gpm's it produces, I' d try hard to find an older pounder rig to do the drilling. A rotary hammer can give you 500 or more ft in a day of well and offer a modest 3-5 gpm but try to assure you with the reservoir, But the pounded well opens the veins with the pounding and suction action generated by the drilling, a rotary hammer seals off the small tributary veins that make up your gpm's that are your on demand water. The pounded well also is usually shallower requiring a smaller pump. I used to work with a well driller when I was a teenager. I learnded a lot from him. Two wells will increase your reservoir, but they will likely share the same under ground veins.

If you can, use the natural lay of the land to use gravity feeds as much is as practical. I am a fan of gravity, it's cheap and fairly reliable... still laughing...I have a friend at an engineering consultant firm, they do a lot of alternative energy solutions. They are Green Mountain Engineering out of Boston,ma and California. I have some money and time saving designs that may help.

In great spirits,

Jester

[JohninWV]

Thanks all. Jester, thanks for the PM...let me have some time to digest this info...

JohninWV,

One thing to engineer in at this point is the recycling of all you can, if water is short, you may want to use recirculatory cooling for your process cooling. If you are going to be looking at electric heating, you may want to look into solar assisted. As for your well and the gpm's it produces, I' d try hard to find an older pounder rig to do the drilling. A rotary hammer can give you 500 or more ft in a day of well and offer a modest 3-5 gpm but try to assure you with the reservoir, But the pounded well opens the veins with the pounding and suction action generated by the drilling, a rotary hammer seals off the small tributary veins that make up your gpm's that are your on demand water. The pounded well also is usually shallower requiring a smaller pump. I used to work with a well driller when I was a teenager. I learnded a lot from him. Two wells will increase your reservoir, but they will likely share the same under ground veins.

If you can, use the natural lay of the land to use gravity feeds as much is as practical. I am a fan of gravity, it's cheap and fairly reliable... still laughing...I have a friend at an engineering consultant firm, they do a lot of alternative energy solutions. They are Green Mountain Engineering out of Boston,ma and California. I have some money and time saving designs that may help.

In great spirits,

Jester

[Scott @ Twenty2Vodka]

So, we are trying to make an offer on a piece of property this week. It is in a rural area that has no city water or sewer. We are going to put a contingency in the contract about being able to get water, but I'm curious how much I need.

My initial business plan calls for us to be able to produce as much as 3,000/cs per year. If we were at that level of production, what would be my usage (annual, weekly, etc)? I've had some help with someone on here, but I also wanted some more opinions due to an unusual circumstance at their location. I'm guessing between 12,500 gallons/week and 14,000 gallons/week. I can figure out the usage should (hopefully) we need to expand.

The cooling water will be stored to use for various purposes. I know some water will go out with the stillage, but I'm thinking there's still a lot of water to send to the septic. Maybe there is some water that can be used for irrigation???

Any help here is appreciated.

PS....The site also has no natural gas, but 3-phase electric is there. Looks like an electric boiler is in the cards as propane/oil is just too expensive.

How did the offer with the property go? Are you going to use this land?

As for our experience with water (a factor that actually in the end determined the final location of our distillery), every state has their own regulations as to water source and water disposal. We were going to go with a well and septic system at a previous location, however the money and regulations made it prohibitive in the end. Here in Maine, wells must meet certain distance-from-other-things requirements. Septic tanks are a common factor and must be 300 feet from the water source. There is an 8.5x11 inch two column sheet that lists other things your water source can't be near including cemeteries, other businesses, residences, cattle fields, military bases, superfund sites (duh ), and car mechanics to name a few.

As for disposal, be sure to factor in all of the trial and error of your startup when factoring in what size septic tank you need. It would be terrible if you were prohibited from operating because you needed to wash a certain tank twice to get it right and now you are out of septic-capacity. Also solids content needs to be considered, and could add extra expense if you need to pump it regularly. Finally, septic tanks can't just be put into the ground anywhere, and need soil samples conducted by a soil scientist to make sure your soil can accept and process the water you will be introducing. In our case we would have had a mound behind our building to compensate for the shallow ledge running just 4 feet under the surface. I want to say our septic tank was going to have a 1500 gallon per day capacity, but i honestly cannot remember for sure. And i believe there is additional regulation and red tape for anything over 2000 gal/day...

We also considered spraying our waste water onto a field to help alleviate the volume our septic tank would need to accommodate. At least in Maine, the allowable amount of water you can spray in 24 hours is rated in "inches per acre". i don't have exactly what that amounts to in gallons in front of me (it's around 2 inches per acre i think), however I will look it up anyone is interested. Needless to say, it represents a significant volume. Then there is always the winter to consider too and snow making equipment, while feasible, is a whole 'nother set of equipment and worries. Does WV have the freezing concern that we face in Maine ? The Department of Agriculture for WV and the local DEP or EPA office are a good place to start for spray regulations.

Sorry if the information is more generality than specific detail. I tried to incorporate our estimated septic tank volume, however we, like most others, have unusual circumstances due to our location that played a role in calculating that value. Our raw material, equipment design, soil consistency, waste estimations along with a number of other factors led us to feel that volume was right for us. Please don't build yours 1500 gal/day because we thought we needed ours that size. At the stage this industry is in, you are going to come across a lot of unusual circumstances, all which hopefully make the final product unique and worth consuming. If not, than we're back to the homogenized big player brands.

-Scott

[Rum]

PS....The site also has no natural gas, but 3-phase electric is there. Looks like an electric boiler is in the cards as propane/oil is just too expensive.

Be sure to look at the amp requirements for the boiler you are considering. I went down the electric boiler path for a bit as it opened up more potential distillery sties. I soon discovered that many of the buildings had three phase electric but not enough amperage. I ended up going with a location that has natural gas.

[JohninWV]

Re: the amperage....We are building a new building, so I think we have that covered.

We have performed a perk test and drilled a well, but haven't closed on the property. Should the deal fall through, the current owners are to reimburse us for the costs to date. The land perks very well and we have plenty of space (10 acres) for extra drainage fields should it be needed.

I need to gather more information, but it appears that we will be able to handle our waste with septic as we most likely will hold and recirculate our cooling water. So just cleaning water and general usage will need septic. We also have a solution to the solids...I think.

Good comments and questions. Thanks all!