How to Maintain and Optimize Your Water Cistern: Pro Tips for Clean, Reliable Spring Water

Welcome back to Basecamp WNC! Today, we're doing some maintenance work on the water cistern here at my place. I’m starting at the spring head, also known as the spring box. According to local stories, this setup was built back in the 1960s for a teacher who lived in the area. The structure is made from laid-up cement blocks with a cement floor and a 1.5-inch Pollock pipe feeding water through. Behind the dark-painted door is the water system that I’ll be walking you through shortly.

The last time I cleaned this out, it was filled with a good amount of dirt that had washed down over time. I do a thorough cleaning every couple of years. I was hoping to strike gold in the dirt, but it turns out all I found was more dirt! The creek here is one of the headwaters that feeds the French Broad River in Western North Carolina. We’re quite high up, so there’s no pollution—just clean, natural spring water flowing through.

I tried filming inside the spring head for a closer look, but it was too dark. I’ll explain more about the cement block construction and why we sometimes have a sediment buildup. For now, we’re catching the sediment in a filter bag, which I recently emptied. It had collected about two and a half inches of dirt, so it’s been doing its job well. I’m testing out a new filter bag and adjusting the water flow toward the bottom of the cistern to trap more sediment. I’ll also be installing a 20-micron sediment filter from Ace Hardware on the outflow pipe to see how much it collects.

Over time, the cistern gathers a bit of sediment—nothing major, but it’s worth a good clean-up every couple of years. A fallen tree once covered part of the spring area, and while it’s mostly rotted now, it still affects the flow a little. The spring head flows at over ten gallons a minute, so I’m careful not to disrupt it too much. We’ll get back to this project in the summer when it’s a bit warmer.

Stay tuned as I walk you through the new filter bag setup and the 20-micron filter installation. We’ll connect it and see how it performs with the older water retention systems from the 1960s.

Now, we’re at the first water cistern. As I mentioned earlier, this system dates back to the 60s. It’s fed by a 1.5-inch pipe, which then overflows into a secondary cistern, and finally connects to the newer cisterns I installed. It’s not up to modern code, but it works reliably. The pump’s power line is held up by two steel fence posts—a temporary fix that became permanent, as often happens on a homestead.

This system has been functioning well for two years. With the spring head pumping out over ten gallons a minute, I don’t plan on changing it unless something breaks. I’ll show you how I handle sediment build-up in the spring box.
Back in the 60s, this precast concrete cistern was considered state-of-the-art. Water flows through a filter bag that captures the sediment. The sediment filter we’re adding is a straightforward 20-micron filter from Ace Hardware. We’ll see if it helps keep the water even cleaner.
To set up the filter, I used a piece of 3/4-inch PVC pipe with drilled holes and capped one end. It fits over the pipe and stands upright inside the spring box. I’ll show you how I put it all together.

Looking at the spring box again, the water enters through a solid pipe with small holes drilled into it. The new filter idea uses a 3/4 to 1-inch reducer and a 20-micron filter. This design should trap more particles than the original holes alone. If your water has any unusual taste or odor, it’s worth inspecting your spring head for possible issues.

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