Water supply in rural Spain

Our water supply

Most places in Spain have mains water, which you can drink and cook with.  But where we are, in el campo, we have a well with a pump on our land.  On our first trip to Spain after we bought our house five years ago, our neighbour farmer asked if he could use the well water a few times a year to water his olive trees.  We agreed straight away, not knowing how much water was held in the well or if we’d ever fall short.  

And we’ve never regretted this arrangement, though when there is a period of time without rainfall, we always worry a little that we may not have any water left.  But the well is kept locked up and keys to the well padlock are held by our neighbour as well as us, in case access to the pump is needed when we’re not around.

Better Call Francisco

This last week we had a small crisis, because suddenly there was no more water in the taps.  We’ve learned not to panic when this happens, and the first thing to do is to press the re-set button on the pump in the well house.  Usually that does the trick, but this time … nothing!  We tried a few more (fairly random!) buttons on the pump, but nothing seemed to make a difference. 

We then realised that the water storage next to the well was also completely empty and felt a rising tide of panic, knowing that in the current heat (32 degrees day-time temperature), we wouldn’t be able to have showers or flush the toilet.  Not a very pleasant thought really…  So we decided to call our neighbour, who said something about an electrician and maňana, and so we hoped for the best.

By this time it was 8.30pm and a beautiful sultry evening, so we decided to go for a walk to take our mind off showers and loos.  It was a gorgeous sunset, and we didn’t get back to our house until it was nearly dark and we saw a car appear on our track.  It was our neighbour, together with the electrician! 

They’d already looked at the pump and removed a cylindrical item which was faulty (no idea what it was!) and they said they’d be back the following day to install a new one.  All that within the space of 75 minutes of our call with him – incredible!  They came again the next day at 4pm, in the middle of their siesta. Now, that’s living in Spain in el campo, and that’s one fantastic neighbour!

Drinking water is cheap in Spain

The water from our well is good for cooking and cleaning, but despite changing the filter frequently it is not that lovely clean transparent see-through appearance that you get from mains water.   We were told that we could drink it, but have never tried, and instead we buy drinking water from the supermarket.  We buy the water in 8 liter bottles for an astonishingly cheap price of 78 cents!  Compare that with the price of a small (250cl) bottle of water at a UK airport, for which you pay £2.50…  Something isn’t right here!

I always make sure there are plenty of big water bottles around, so we’ll never run out.  And three times a week, I decant water from the big 8l. bottles into numerous smaller plastic bottles – a bit of an industry, and there must be a better way of doing this, but it works, and we have a special water fridge to keep it all cold.  Occasionally, a bottle of wine or beer may make its way into the water fridge for a bit of variety…. 

Will the well ever run dry?

Our neighbours tell us that our well is a very deep one and is unlikely to run dry.  And certainly this year we’ve had lots of rain during March and April, so I guess we’re good for a while. Not so long ago, we signed a petition to ask the town council to install mains drinking water in our area, but no progress as yet – not surprising really, with only 30 petitioners. 

Most people in the villages are on mains water and it’s just those of us who are much further in el campo who rely on wells.  And we rely on our neighbour, because when we needed clear water to fill our jacuzzi, he cleaned out the chemicals from his trailer and filled it with mains tap water and delivered it into our hot tub.   Better Call Francisco remains our mantra!