Owning a Home in St Thomas, USVI - Repairs - Part II - Drinking Water

Here in the Virgin Islands, most homes that are not in populated areas are on rain cisterns for water for the home. Most of the homes have a metal roof or a roof that is coated with top coat, the same paint on plastic that is found on RV roofs. From there, the rain water goes into gutters and downspouts into a holding tank, generally a section of the home's foundation contains this tank. There it is pumped from a water pump and small pressure tank to the home's plumbing. The bad news about this system is that all kinds of debris from trees, dust, critters, etc, gets into the tank which for drinking water is not good due to the chance for bacteria, choloform and girardia. There was a study done here in the Virgin Islands by the University of Florida that showed that 54% of the cisterns had giradia. If you have ever had girardia, it is not a pleasant experience. So as one can figure out, you shouldn't be driking your cistern water.




Above is how our home is set up, with the top coat roof, gutters, downspouts, water pump/tank and cistern hatch. Notice we have an all house sediment filter, but that does not kill and sanitize the bacteria.


The issue of safe drinking water causes a dilema, and the best solution is to purchase bottled water from the grocery store. Plaza Extra sells a 24 case of 500 ML bottled water for 3 cases for $12. They also have gallon bottled water for a 6 pack at $6.09. This can be costly as you are supposed to drink one or two gallons a day, not to mention hauling from the store to the car and then up the stairs and the waste of the plastic bottles, especially for here where there is no recycling and the landfill is full.



Well I saw a friend on Facebook who posted his solution to this. A reverese osmosis system with a U/V light. Yes folks, take a look at any of your bottled water like Niagara or Kirkland and see that it is Filtration, Ozone (sanitizer), and reverse osmosis technologies from Ontario, CA. I don't know about you, but I wasn't aware of a giant spring in Ontario, a suburb of Los Angeles! It is city water put the same R/O system you can buy for your home.

Scott, my friend, got his from www.freedrinkingwater.com, and had it shipped here via US Mail.

My brain started thinking, we have our first guests coming, Larry, who owns ASAP Well & Pump in Reno, NV (Otherwise known as Larry the Water Guy!). So I ordered the system with the assist pump as we have pressure below 50 PSI and the UV light. The cost came to about $575 with shipping. This is pretty good payoff of about a year with figuring there is two of us drinking one gallon a day at $1.03 a gallon over 52 weeks, my system will pay for itself in a little less than a year. Yes the costs of electric running the U/V light and water pump, and replacing the filters and light once a year, but to not have to haul water anymore, PRICELESS!

It took Larry about a half day to install this, with a trip to Home Depot as we have some funky plumbing here, but we now have FREE bottled water from our cistern!




We call our new bottled water, "Virgin Larry Water". The logo is in the works!