Freezing water and how to deal with it?

[General Meia]

Hi, so I have a problem with my current fortress in with winter freezes the water sources above and below ground, destroying the wells. What can I do to still be able to get water on winter? Ty?

[malthenielsen]

Try digging down till you hit the caves. There's usually water there, and I don't think it freezes during winter.

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

Dig to the cavern layers. Water there is always liquid.

Additionally, water is only for wounded dorfs.

[Gosera]

Don't need to head all the way to the cavern, you can always dig down a few z levels create a reseivour and a z level above create the well aslong as you know how fluid work and how to normal pressuer this is fine, only concern then is stagnated water which you can have a pump clean ever now or then

[Tooslow]

Originally posted by Dugtrio Bombado:

Hi, so I have a problem with my current fortress in with winter freezes the water sources above and below ground, destroying the wells. What can I do to still be able to get water on winter? Ty?

Do you have a river or just pools?

If you have a river, as Gosera said, channel it inside your fortress, maybe using a fortification as a filter (smooth stone then chisel fortifications into it - all in the smoothing sub-menu) between the inside and the outside. Use floodgates to control the flow and fill up a reservoir underground, build well/wells over the reservoir.

You used to be able to, and probably still can, mine ice then dump that into a pit where it'll melt inside, but that's pretty desperate.

[General Meia]

Ty everyone!

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Dugtrio Bombado:

Hi, so I have a problem with my current fortress in with winter freezes the water sources above and below ground, destroying the wells. What can I do to still be able to get water on winter? Ty?

Water won't freeze "under ground" but frozen water doesn't flow, so flowing water underground can't be replaced. (PS: If you're not in an ice-sheet, which I guess you aren't, else the ice would have melted in other seasons and your dorfs would be accomplished swimmers... :))

Make a big Cistern unless you really want to expose yourself to Caverns this early in the game.

https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Reservoir

Use a Drawbridge and lever as a shut-off valve/proof against most creature attacks. This allows for easy re-filling of your Cistern as long as it's not Winter, too. (Fill up, close drawbridge-valve, done til needed again.)

Pumps can purify water. But, that's not an early game thing. Aquifers naturally purify even salt water and poisoned water, so you can channel such water to natural tiles then build from those to let those tiles "filter" water in the early game. (AFAIK)

You should also use Grates, but construct the channel carrying water in such a way as the Grate is a Floor grate and leads to the z-level below it so that no Forgotten Beast or other Structure Destroyer can target it while being on the same z-level. (Check the wiki for what can/can't pass.) If they can't hit the grate from the same z-level, they can't destroy it. That's very important, since once you build the channel it is not likely you will ever access it again and doing so may be dangerous. (Though, doing so while the source is frozen over is possible, even if you get a little wet from the water left in it. :))

The Cistern needs to have a two-tile thick wall to contain it. It will create Light Aquifer tiles around it, so that extra tile of stone/whatever is needed. You can create a Cistern through multiple z-levels and instead of channeling all those out, all you need is one channeled, open, tile to allow the water to pass through up/down. For best results, center your primary Well over that one tile. Your well can be multiple z-levels up from the water level, too. Mine is five to seven, I think, with a five-z-level Cistern, 'cause build big or go home... :)

Also - Very Important - Mine a passage that goes entirely around your Cistern as well as contains the passage where water is feeding into your cistern. (Be very, very, careful at that level.) This is so that your Automatic Mining efforts do not end up borking up your Cistern and surrounding needed tiles. It's your practical safety-margin so you don't have to worry about Auto-Mining once you've done it. (They'll stop when hitting an Aquifer, but may have messed up your hard work on the way there...)

You could put multiple wells on different levels that reach to that first level of your Cistern, too. I do that for three levels over my current Cistern. My main Wellhead is right over the tile that goes all the way down to the bottom of the Cistern

Muddy Water - That's fine at first as it will clear up, eventually. But, if your bottom contains all muddied water, that's bad. Make your Cistern deep enough, in appropriate materiel, so that doesn't end up feeding your main well and it's only drawing from the clean fresh water at the top. Otherwise, Dorfs will get sick.

[Harmonica]

Setting up an ice mining system is usually fun, but you need a fair amount of labour. I just get a kick out of mining into them, and the mild tension that arises from it. I remember having to mod the workshops to get ice-block cutting working properly, but maybe that's no longer necessary (I seem to remember adding the ability to melt them into water, but it's been a long time).

Alternatively a mega project might involve pumping water into your underground reservoir for use during winter. Terraforming the rivers is also fun challenge.