Catch rain water in the blue barrels at the farm and/or fill them from the well in the spinney/back in the trees. From the blue barrels the water is then transferred to the vats. There is one at your home and another at the neighbor's place. Each vat holds 400 liters of water and will start purification once the 400 liter mark is reached. The blue barrels at the farm only hold 200 liters and you only gain 100 liters each trip to the well in the spinney. So, it is laborious and time consuming to get it all started. Once a vat has finished it's purification cycle (3 days presently, I think) you get a notice first thing in the morning so you can go transfer the water to the large tower tank at the farm. That large tower tank is only for purified water. The water pressure for your home, the neighbor's and the spinney home is generated by gravity, due to the height of the tower. That is why we pump it back to the tower at the farm, for storage and the water pressure. That describes filling and transferring the contents of one vat. There are two vats to manage. This is why this part takes so long to set up initially, filling and refilling all of the containers, vats and ultimately the big tower tank...
You
can ask Alina to help with her vat and Vina to help with yours but
DON'T DO THAT! The one time I tried that Alina overfilled the main tank by about 300 liters so all that purified water was wasted.
DO NOT LET THE GIRLS HELP WITH THE VATS! All they can do is go to the vat and transfer water. If there is only enough room in the main tank for a few liters of water, they will still transfer the entire contents of your vat and waste whatever didn't fit.
On the other hand,
DO ask Lacy for help to fill the blue barrels at the farm from the spinney's well. You still need to accompany her but she cuts the time taken to refill the blue barrels in half! Then I go immediately to the farm and transfer all 200 liters to the vat that needs filled. With Lacy's help you can make two trips to the well for a full 200 liters and still have time to transfer it to the vats before dinner. Without her help, you'll take all damned day to get 200 liters and have to transfer it the next day. Without Lacy, it takes the better part of four days to fill one vat from the well, going through the blue barrels. With Lacy's help you can soak up 200 liters in a single day, get it transferred to one of the vats and still have daylight left to check your chicken coop for eggs or even cook some fish for Vina and get a hot BJ for desert! When I said 4 days, I meant 4 full days where all you do is tote water. Two days with Lacy's help and the vat is full and it's cycle started.
Once both vats are filled and purifying, I don't fill the blue barrels again due to possible rainfall making my job easier by filling the blue barrels for me.
But, if no rain, just find Lacy at home again in the spinney for refill duty. She's a big help but the other two girls will most likely just waste your precious water. Check your phone regularly for updates on water, food, wood, fuel and other levels as well as your skill progression and some other progress as well... Click the button in the bottom row on your phone that looks like a TV or PC monitor on the icon. Bottom row, third from the left... You'll see this...
With my current numbers in that image, I can either wait another day to see if it rains again. We got 100 liters during the night and could get more tomorrow but I could also just go see Lacy in the morning, fill up the House vat to 400L and still make it back in time to fuck Lacy when she comes over in the afternoon to visit our pool.
I may just wait since Arana's vat is filled and fully purified and we still have over 800L in the main tank. I only point that out because those are the things you need to look at on a regular basis, daily. Do we have enough food or should I gather mushrooms, eggs and go fishing? Do we have enough water or do I need to fill something? Do we have enough fuel or do I need to go fuel scavenging with Aidra? There will also be scavenging runs with Emily coming up which will hopefully provide more dry food, pantry staples, salt, pepper, butter, canned goods, dried pasta, fruit/vegetable seeds to plant, shampoo, soap, feminine hygiene items for the ladies, shavers, shaving cream, bathroom tissue, paper towels, cleaning supplies, bleach, Dawn dish soap and all manner of other household items most folks take for granted until they don't have them...
One other thing of note, you will notice the status "Built and Irrigated" next to garden above in the image. All the renovation projects walk you through themselves, you just add the wood or clay/stone whatever materials, like the irrigation for the garden, just search the old brick building at the farm. There's plumbing in there that magically appears when needed.
Just follow the steps given when the time comes to do that. Otherwise, grow and catch food, scrounge for supplies and keep your water containers FULL. Hope this helps you, my friend.
Adventure ever on, Phat