Muddy wells

[awesomelord]

I try to build a well but the water cant fill up because the water keeps turning to MUD! I have lost fortresses during the winter because of this...

[Fel]

Water spreads mud on the floor, that's normal.
When making a citern for a well, you usually want to have the citern itself be 2+ z-levels so they don't take water from the level with mud.
You can remove the floor between levels with "channel" in the dig menu (or deconstruct from the same menu if it's a floor you built instead of a natural one).

When there is only 1/7 water on a tile, it will evaporate as time goes on.


By the way, dwarves don't like drinking water, they prefer brewed drinks from plants or fruits.
The only times when they will drink water are when injured or jailed (other dwarves will bring water buckets to them).

[AlP]

Originally posted by Fel:

When making a citern for a well, you usually want to have the citern itself be 2+ z-levels so they don't take water from the level with mud.

There is a newly discovered way to have a 1 z-level clean cistern. You just leave some natural or constructed ramps, and remove them after flooding the cistern. The tiles they were on will be clean.

[Fel]

Does it remain clean even after water starts moving around again when your dwarves take water?
It's too fiddly for me, having a tile channeled under each well (or the whole citern, doesn't really matter either way) is easier as far as I'm concerned, but it's good to know some people figures out a way to make a compact well for places that can't extend downwards.

[AlP]

My dwarves typically only ever use one well, even though I build quite a few. I don't think I've ever seen them go to any other but the closest.