Cistern
 

The new place I am moving into has county water, has a deep well.
The county water runs about $50 per month and is by far the hardest water I have ever encountered.
The well on the property, pumps pretty much the same water, really hard. Also the well is deep, I figure it would take between 1 and 2 MwH per year to pump all out water.
So I am considering rain water catching.
It would provide soft water, then I figured if the rain water is too funky tasting with out minerals I could always pump in some well water.
Obviously I will be filtering and treating the water with UV and a little choline.

We are in the same boat. The house we just got has city water and it’s hard.. the house originally had a cistern that is still in tact under the sun room. It’s dry and the pump is still there.. it’s on my list of things to do to get the down spouts hooked back up and get it running again. Our water bill has averaged about 35 a month so far.

35 to 50 really isn't that bad, but when you factor in a good water softener system will run up to $2k installed, might as well go all most all natural.

Our city water/sewer bill runs $60-$65/mo. Little of the charges are actually related to the volume used, most are related to the meter service charge, and taxes.

Keep in mind, if your toilet waste disposal is not on site, the water authority is likely levying some of their charges toward waste disposal, as a ratio of the volume of water metered. They won't appreciate processing waste for water they didn't supply, just as they don't appreciate people dumping rainwater into the sanitary sewers.

I have a septic tank. I'm like 3 miles from city limits.

Yep I’m septic also..

This is me inching my way off grid.
First I have decided not to get natural gas, then I am cutting way back on electric usage, get the well going and harvest my own rain water, further reduce electrical use with gshp.
Get under 20kwh per day, cut off the service drop.
The only one I don't know that I can do is off grid power.

Because it's mandated for a certificate of occupancy? or because you're not sure you can generate and store enough to UV sterilize, use GSHP heating, and still stay under 20kWh per day?

Get some used Volt battery packs, and a nice array... Off-Grid is going to be the next "tiny-house" phenomenon, when people realize how much power the utilities have to "tax" the homeowner.

Total power going to UV should only be a several dozen kwh per year.
I didn't say I was going to use gshp for heating, I will likely use what ever I can get my hands on that will burn, wood, wood pellets, coal, some propane, it doesn't really matter.
If I was going to go off grid I would use good old fashioned lead acid forklift batteries.

The roof line runs north to south on most of the roof so I'm limited in the number of panels I can easily attach to the roof.
I won't really know for sure how much power I will need until I get the well and water up and going. Because when it doesn't rain I'm going to be pumping a lot more.

I totally agree. That's not so bad