Well, the decommisioned Radio Relay Facility that you see a couple posts back turned out to be a bust. It was located exactly 15 miles down a two-lane county road. This road ran the length of a valley that had maybe less than a dozen houses in it. The nearest house would have been over a mile away. Once you drove the fifteen miles you then opened a locked gate and had a 1.1 mile drive (and 500 foot climb) to the top of a hill/mountain where the station was waiting. The station building sits on an islnad of 1.77 acres. On three sides its bordered by National Forest land on the other side by a ranchers land. The 1.1 mile road has an easement, so basically, someone elses land is your buffer zone. And, of course, The Tower…..mmmmm….recon-a-rific!
So far so good, right?
The building itself is 8″ thick concrete walls covered with 4″ of foam insulation. The windows all had steel shutters over them. The inside of the building had 14′ ceilings and approximately 1600′ square feet. Really, it would have been *perfect* except for one huge, niggling detail – no water. The place was designed as, essentially, an unmanned remote-control facility. Hence, no water. You could, I suppose, try to drill a well but you’d have to go 500′ just to get to the level of the road you came in on. Now, yes, you could put in a cistern but they were talking about a 1500 gallon number and that aint nearly enough water for someone who doesnt want to have to leave the safety, security, and phenominal sniper vantage point that is this place. So why not put in two 1500 gallon cisterns? Youre missing the point, man…..at some point you have to a) find a vehicle to haul water (at 8# per gallon), b) find a container to haul water in, c) find a source of water thats clean and cheap, and d) do this every two or four weeks.
What was taken away from this experience? A newfound respect and appeal for concrete construction. This place was , essentially, a concrete shoebox but some paint and a couple skylights would make it really quite nice. The thermal mass would have made heating/cooling a breeze.
So, this wasnt the new Rancho Ballistica. (Although I already had a snazzy name picked out for it – ‘The Box’)
I still think ‘Ice Station Zero’ would’ve been the best name. 🙂
Two comments. The water situation has nothing to do with the height of the station above the valley floor. The water-bearing strata are folded, and it’s hard to tell exactly how deep you need to go. So that still means a large sum on a flyer as to whether or not you’d get water, just for a slightly different reason.
As for water storage, our county requires 4900 gallons for a new single-family home, and I’d recommend at least that much for a remote place like that. In our case a lot of it is for fire protection, but when you figure typical water useage, you need a lot of storage. You can bury a plastic water tank like the one I bought ($2000), or build a concrete cistern of larger capacity at an unknown cost. A cistern in most places means an underground storage tank that’s filled by natural rain runoff. I have no idea of the rain/snow pattern at that location, but it looks bare enough that there probably isn’t rain year round.
Not trying to change your mind, just expanding on the issues a bit from an informational and future use point of view 😉
Believe me, when I discovered that it looked like our only option was to install a cistern I immediately thought of your experience.
Youre right, of course, there *could* be a strata of water under there…but you have to understand, this thing is built on top of a VERY rocky mountain and I wonder if a well digging rig could actually make any progress through the various rocks and boulders under there..and the likelihood of there being water versus the incredible expense of well digging is not encouraging either.
No, I think that as much as I really like the place I need to stay firm on this and say that if there is no on-site water or reasonable potential for such then its a dealbreaker.
Too bad, ’cause I really liked it.
Well rigs are designed to drill through rock. But you’d need professional advice on whether or not you’d be likely to find water. And as you said, the expense would likely be high either way. Around here, a few failed wells can eat up a whole lot of money, as several neighbors have found out. Several have gone 700 feet without finding water and two are hauling in water. My well, on the other hand, is 240 feet and has never had a problem. Knock on wood 🙂