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Author Topic: Building a Cistern/well, without flooding my fortress...  (Read 538 times)

Shard

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Building a Cistern/well, without flooding my fortress...
« on: January 02, 2014, 05:26:19 pm »

Ok guys, after drowning many many dwarves I need some help now, How do I build a proper cistern and well for my hospital? I've mostly figured out the fresh water design, bringing in water from a river and using flood gates to keep things from getting out of control, but how do I drain surface ponds into a secondary cistern, and the critical part, make a proper windmill powered pumping unit to pump the water into primary cistern? any advice?
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fractalman

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Re: Building a Cistern/well, without flooding my fortress...
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2014, 11:44:39 pm »

Make the water take a diagonal path to get rid of the pressure to prevent flooding, of course.
First, prep the initial drainage system.  get the dwarves out, and channel the first tile down in.
then, before rain hits, dig staircases through the bottom of the pond. Place a hatchcover over the stairway, and link it to a lever. The lever should be on high ground, just in case.

Windmills+pump...
Well, if you don't mind making more power than you actually need...
Dig out a 12x12 room one z-level beneath the surface.  place gear-boxes every three blocks.
Channel into the mechanisms from above, and place windmills on the opened spaces. 
Place horizontal axles to connect the powered ones together. 
Use a bunch of vertical shafts to get the power down to the level of the pump, then additional horizontal shafts and gear boxes as needed.


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