Water, Sewer & Irrigation System Design
SERVING SUMMIT, WASATCH AND SALT LAKE COUNTIES, INCLUDING PARK CITY, KAMAS, HEBER, SALT LAKE CITY & SURROUNDING AREAS
- Water rights and use summaries; change applications / State Engineer filings
- Water source, storage, and distribution design
- Digital water system modeling
- Water main extensions
- Fire flow computations
- Water service sizing
- Gravity flow sanitary sewer system planning & design; easements
- Digital sewer system modeling
- Sewer main extensions
- Sewer laterals
- Sewage lift station design
- Low pressure sanitary sewer system planning & design
- Grinder pump alternatives for building service
- Irrigation system hydraulic controls design and mapping
If A Home Comes with Water Shares Totaling 0.5 Acre-feet, is that Enough?
For starters, if the ad is worded correctly, you’d be getting shares in a water company, not a water right. This is OK, provided that the water company is a legal entity recognized by the State, and provided the water company owns the water rights to back up shares issued. As for water quantity, the typical single family home uses approximately 50 gallons per day per person in residence, not including irrigation. So for a family of four, that’s 200 gallons per day, or 73,000 gallons per year. One acre-foot is the volume represented by water sitting one foot deep over an area of one acre, or 325,829 gallons. For comparison, an american football field (excluding end zones) covers 1.10 acres, so one acre-foot of water would cover the field to a depth of 10.9 inches. So each year, your domestic water needs would amount to just 22% of this depth. That’s 0.22 acre-feet, or about 2.4 inches of depth over the football field. Therefore, from a domestic use standpoint, you’re more than covered, unless you’ll have lots more people living at home, or your plan includes a micro-brewery in your basement.
As for irrigation, that’s another matter entirely. If you are one who must have a lawn, you’ll need to show you can water at a rate of 3.0 acre-feet per acre per year (Utah climate zone 2). Assuming your lawn covers just 1/4 acre, you’ll need water shares for another 0.75 acre-feet per year (ouch) to keep up with the neighbors.
In summary, your water needs would be 0.75 acre-feet (irrigation) plus 0.22 acre-feet (domestic) for a total of 0.97 acre-feet. Under such a scenario, you’d want to secure water shares totaling 1.0 acre-feet.
As everywhere, water is life here at Canyon Engineering. The above example is a simple one where water rights, water quality, pressure, flow, evaporation, exfiltration, and fire protection considerations are not at issue. Whether you’re just doing the math for a purchase as described above, or planning a water system to serve new development, we can help.
