[craigepo]

Are you wanting to keep the historic water system for a fully-working everyday water source, or is it more for nostalgia value? The reason I ask is that, as you have several springs in the area, the water table is going to be pretty close to the surface. I recently drilled a well for a new home build, and I think I paid about $6500 for a fully encased 220-foot well. The water quality and output is well beyond what I require for both human and livestock use.

My question is whether you are going to run an AC or DC system. If you are running AC, then you can drill a well and drop an electric pump therein, buy a $300 reverse osmosis system if you have well contamination issues, and purchase a hand pump to mount on top of the well for extended periods of power outage. If you're running DC, the new solar-powered well pumps are just pretty impressive.

A problem with trying to use surface water is that you need to own the entire hillside, and even then just one hiccup can wholly compromise your water supply. That's beside the fact that dry weather can really diminish your supply.

I love to tinker with this type of stuff, especially if it was built long ago, and this sounds like a fun project.