Watering With Solar

So after months and months of ordering parts, rewiring the system, fitting new pipes and tweaking the design, we have finally got our water system to work. For those of you who have missed the other blog posts, we are catching water from Septa’s 46th St. station roof. With the help of their union, they refitted pipes that now run into an 1100 gallon cistern on the site of The Walnut Hill Community Farm. The cistern is then connected to a pipe system that Philly Rooted designed. The pipes run into a mechanical water pump that is hooked up to a car battery, via a power inverter, which is powered by a 15 volt solar panel. The water is then pumped up onto our site through an irrigation line.

Now, the water pressure was now as powerful as I waould have liked, but it was still an amazing feeling holding a hose that is dispensing water from a completely closed system using %100 renewable resources. It was a very exciting day at the farm. If you’re interested in how we are doing this, then please come out to the farm (4610 Market St) on Saturday June 18th at 12 PM as Nic will be giving a demo on the system for the Sustainable Saturday’s Series put on by the UCD. Hope to see you all there.

Nic and Erica