We purchased the land we currently live on in 2023. Every time we visited the property before deciding where we would build our tiny home, one thing that struck us was how quiet it felt.
And I’m not just talking about the absence of traffic, but also the absence of infrastructure noise.
There was no distant hum and no sense that everything around us depended on a bigger system we didn’t control.
That was a welcome change. And the desire to be less reliant on existing infrastructure influenced many of our decisions, especially around “basics” like water.
Clean water is one of those things most people don’t think about much. You turn on the tap, water comes out, and as long as it doesn’t smell or look strange, you move on with your day.
But as I’ve discussed on my healthy living blog and on my YouTube channel, it’s not that simple. In fact, having access to truly clean municipal water is increasingly difficult in this country.
Once you recognize that, water access stops being an afterthought. It becomes something you have to be actively involved in. That’s also true if you source water from your land, as we do.
In this article, I share how we currently think about and manage water on our homestead, including why we chose not to rely on communal water, what our well setup looks like, why we still filter water that already tests clean, and where the weak spots in the system still are.
Why We Didn’t Want to Rely on Communal Water
Before moving here, we lived on city water. It worked, it was reliable, and it met federal safety standards. But over time, it also became something I felt increasingly disconnected from.
Municipal water always involves tradeoffs. Chlorine is the most obvious one, but depending on where you live, there may also be chloramines, fluoride, disinfection byproducts, and whatever the water picks up as it moves through old pipes and shared infrastructure. You can check out the Environmental Working Group’s tap water database to see how contaminated your drinking water is.
None of this is usually dramatic, and most of it falls within regulatory limits. But it’s still water that’s treated to serve an entire population, not something designed with long-term individual health in mind.
What bothered me more than any specific contaminant (we utilized a whole-house filtration system to deal with most of those) was the water’s lack of minerals, such as magnesium and calcium, which are crucial for optimal health.
To compensate for our nutrient-poor drinking water, we often purchased mineral water in glass bottles, and we supplemented with electrolyte powders – especially in the summer when we sweat a lot.
As we planned a home to support our family, animals, gardens and daily routines for years to come, we wanted access to higher-quality drinking water – which meant not relying on city or county water, and instead opting for well water.
Our Well Setup: Two Wells, Different Roles
One of the deciding factors in purchasing our property was its two 80-foot-deep wells. Having two functioning wells gives us redundancy, which you don’t fully appreciate until something goes wrong with your water supply.
Right now, one well supplies the house and the second well gives us options down the line, whether that’s livestock, irrigation, or simply having a fallback. Wells aren’t exciting, but having more than one means we’re not completely vulnerable if something goes wrong with the primary one.
The main well feeds a 1 HP pump and a 40-gallon pressure tank. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s been dependable and doesn’t use much power (in contrast to the 7.5 HP irrigation well pump in our second well).
Before finalizing everything, we had the well water tested by the Chattooga County extension of the University of Georgia. The results showed no concerning contaminants and a mineral profile that was better than I expected.
Clean Water Still Moves Through Pipes
When people hear “high-quality well water,” they often assume filtration is unnecessary. In theory, if water went straight from the aquifer to the glass, that might be true. In reality, water moves through pumps, synthetic bladders inside pressure tanks, valves, and hundreds of feet of pipe before you ever drink it.
In our case, the water line from the well to the house runs roughly 300 feet. Copper would have been ideal, but the cost for that distance didn’t make sense. As a result, we went with PEX instead.
PEX has a lot going for it. It’s durable, flexible, and widely used. But it’s still plastic. Once you’re pushing water through long runs of polymer pipe, it’s reasonable to consider at least what might end up in that water over time – especially with changes in temperature, pressure and flow.
On top of that, while our well is clean today, groundwater quality isn’t static. Agriculture, construction, or changes in land use upstream can all affect downstream water quality.
So we didn’t approach filtration as a fix for bad water. We saw it as insurance.
Why We Installed a Whole House Filtration System
We installed a Radiant Life Series 6 whole-house water filtration system, similar to the Series 4 that we used in our previous home when we were on city water.
The difference is that the Series 6 is specifically designed for well water because it can filter out contaminants not typically found in city water, such as hydrogen sulfide and sediment.
Even though our well water tested clean, the Series 6 gives peace of mind knowing it will remove contaminants that ideally shouldn’t be there but could be under the wrong conditions.
That includes microplastics from the line, endocrine-disrupting chemicals leached from the pressure tank’s bladder, and a wide range of chemical contaminants.
For us, whole-house filtration was simpler than managing filters at individual sinks or under the counter. Everything that comes out of a tap is filtered, whether it’s drinking water, shower water, or what we use for cooking and laundry. That mattered to us because exposure isn’t limited to what you swallow. Long, hot showers are an easy way to breathe in or absorb things you’d rather avoid.
One thing we noticed immediately was how good the tap water tasted (even before we had the whole-house filter connected). It wasn’t as flat as the city water we had gotten used to. That’s because our well water is rich in minerals that not only affect its nutritional profile but also its flavor.
However, after installing the whole-house water filter, the water arguably tasted even better. I think that’s because it removed any residual compounds that might affect its taste, such as sulfur. My parents visited us recently for the first time since we moved into our new home in the fall of 2025, and they immediately pointed out how good our water tasted.
That means something considering they both live in Salzburg, Austria – an area that’s renowned for its outstanding water quality.
The Pressure Issue We Didn’t Catch in Time
If there’s one thing I wish I had caught earlier in the build, it’s the diameter of the main water line.
Our general contractor ran 3/4-inch PEX from the well to the house. At the time, it didn’t stand out as a problem.
Living with it made the limitation obvious. One faucet running was fine. But turn on a shower, a sink, and the washing machine at the same time, and you’ll notice the pressure drop.
On a 300-foot uphill run, a larger-diameter pipe would have made a noticeable difference in flow and pressure. By the time we realized it, replacing the line wasn’t realistic without tearing things up.
Improving Water Pressure After the Fact
Since replacing the line wasn’t feasible, we looked for another way to solve the problem.
To improve water pressure when multiple fixtures are running, we installed an Aquastrong Smart 45 variable speed pump.
It can boost pressure up to 80 PSI and adjusts automatically based on demand. The difference was noticeable right away, especially during showers and when more than one faucet is in use.
Is this as good as having run a larger pipe from the start? No. But it works, it’s reliable, and it avoids digging trenches or redoing infrastructure.
The Blind Spot We’re Still Addressing: Power
One thing we’re very aware of is that our water system still depends on electricity.
A well pump doesn’t care how clean the water is if there’s no power. Our pressure tank holds only 40 gallons, which is usually plenty, but it creates a situation that’s easy to overlook.
Namely, if the power goes out right before the tank refills, we’re suddenly down to whatever happens to be left in it. In the worst case, that might only be a couple of gallons.
Right now, our backup is a standby generator we can hook up to the breaker box that controls the well pump. It works, and it gives us a way to keep water flowing during outages. But it relies on gasoline, which means fuel storage and availability quietly become part of the water system.
We don’t consider that a finished solution.
In the long term, we plan to generate and store more of our own power. Solar panels are part of that, but wind may end up being just as important. We live in an extremely windy area, especially in winter when power outages are more common, and it would be wasteful not to use that resource. Battery storage will tie it together, allowing us to run the well pump without immediately firing up a generator.
We’re also adding a layer that doesn’t rely on pumps. We’re in the process of installing gutters on every roof surface we have, including the house, two sheds, two carports, and a large barn. All the roofs are metal, making them ideal for rainwater collection. That water will be routed into food-grade IBC totes, giving us a gravity-fed reserve for non-potable uses and our livestock. In a pinch and with proper filtration, we could even drink it.
Minerals, Hard Water, and Tradeoffs
Because our water is mineral-rich, we monitor scale buildup in fixtures and appliances. Hard water can shorten the lifespan of certain components if it’s ignored.
At the same time, those minerals are part of why the water tastes good and why we’re not eager to strip everything out. Cleaner isn’t always better if it means removing things the body actually uses and then trying to add them back later.
For now, we’re comfortable with the balance we’ve struck. If scale becomes a bigger issue down the line, we’ll deal with it then. We’re trying not to solve problems we don’t yet have.
What This Setup Really Gives Us
The biggest benefit of our water system isn’t taste or purity. It’s confidence.
We know where our water comes from. We know how it’s pumped, filtered, and delivered. If something changes, we’re more likely to notice it early. If something breaks, we’re not waiting on a municipal response to figure things out.
That doesn’t mean we’re off-grid or self-sufficient in some idealized way. We still rely on modern tools and infrastructure where they make sense. But water is one of those foundational systems where taking responsibility feels worth the effort.
If we were starting over, we’d change a few details, mostly the ones you only notice after living with the system for a while. Overall, though, this setup does what it’s supposed to do. It works quietly in the background, which is exactly what a water system should do.
Michael Kummer is a healthy living enthusiast, the founder of MK Supplements and the host of the Primal Shift podcast. His goal is to help people achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. He runs the Kummer Homestead with his wife Kathy and their two children.
