Sunday, September 16, 2012

Finally Done With the Underground Water Tank

I realize that I have been posting quite alot on this plastic water tank install. I find it to be quite fascinating. I don't know if anyone has ever done this before. I could very well be the only one on the planet. Probably not, but you never know. Top picture shows the plumbing I fitted together to join the two lines down below. The water line will be coming from the tank and hooking in onto the bottom tap.  Then flowing through the one way check valve so the pump will more easily hold its prime.
There it is all connected and going down between the tank and cistern wall. I dropped it down and the bottom line is pretty close to ground level, so that's good.
Little things such as getting down in there to do my thing took some thinking.
Time for the water. And I went in and primed the pump up and everything seems to be working fine.
I put the insulated cover back on top the cistern and installed a permanent fill and breather pipe. It is 3 inch abs for the longer piece, but it is adapted up to a 4inch as it goes into the tank.
Thought I would test my dipper stick out. 650 imperial gallons, which is just about 3 cubic meters. That's 3 metric tonne of water. I'm good for a few days.
My full limit is going to be right around this area here. 1100 Imperial gallons, which is 1320 US gallons, or 5000 liters(5 cubic meters).  This is well over a months worth of water for myself. The tank I put in the ground had such clear writing on it, but the one I did'nt use is pretty faded. I never noticed till now. Had I noticed this before, this one would have gone down.
And there it is. Ready for winter. I'm not going to put insulation on top the tank just yet. Instead I think I will monitor this thing with a thermometer as the days gradually get colder and see what happens.
Ok, let there be snow. Just kidding, I'm really not that eager for winter yet. This whole installation seemed to go pretty well. Hopefully things keep being good.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.




14 comments:

  1. Maybe you mentioned and I missed it, but will you be hauling water or do you have a water recovery system on the house. I think what you have done is great. on a side note how did the diesel generator work out. What type of fuel mileage/gal per hour will it perform at.

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    1. For now I will be hauling water from a small town about 8 miles away. It's between the nearest city and my place, so it is pretty handy. There is a well just down below from where my cistern is. It has one of those real old hand pumps. I can pump it about 19 times and I got water coming out. Someday when I'm bored I'll test that water, and maybe try to get some kind of system in operation to pump from there into the cistern. But for the time being, hauling water won't even be a chore for me. I have enough storage capacity that I can usually pick and choose warmer days in the winter, or just pick some water up when I'm going to town anyway.
      That diesel generator, I have used it a few times, mostly just to try it out more than anything. I don't think I'm going to be real happy with it. It's loud, and I think it may pose a bit of a problem with some of my touchy electronics, such as the furnace etc. As far as fuel goes, I hav'nt really calculated it, because I hav'nt used it enough to know just yet, but I did notice the gauge go down when I did use it. I don't think it will be very economical with smaller loads, but it might pay off a bit better with some bigger loads. What I would really love to get my hands on is an eu6500i honda genny. About 7 times the money though. I just might buy another honda 2000 and pair it up with the one I got.

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    2. The place we have on the River has a well that will pump a lot of water. I have a 100 gal pressure tank and we only use the well water to shower and flush toilets and wash dishs and cloths. We have bottle water to drink and make coffee & tea. We have 4- 5gal bottles that we keep filled, you can fill them for as little as 20 cents a gal in town for RO water.

      I think once you get your solar panels up and running you will not need a lot of gen time except on cloudy overcast days.The setup you have should work you.

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    3. Ya, I think you're right river hauler. I don't think I will be using too much more power than I am using in the shack system. I don't think the generator will have to be started all that much. With my system in the shack I started the generator a fair bit in the winter, but it was mostly because the batteries outside needed to be warmed up. (have them in an old deepfreeze with battery warmer wrapped around the whole battery bank). If it were not for that, I would'nt have had to start the generator nearly as much. Sounds like you won't ever have to worry too much about water.

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  2. That was the same question I had about your water source. Water is such an important consideration. - Margy

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    1. Someday I might have the well supplying my water Margy, but I'm not too sure. The water I haul from town is treated and pretty tastey, and it is'nt really to much of a hassle for me to haul it myself. I'm rigged up pretty good that way. Do you guys treat your own river water for drinking Margy? Or do you bring some in from town.

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  3. All these posts about your water tank remind me so much of our horrid ordeal of redoing our spring! lol! I think when Jack stuck it out through that is when I decided to marry him. ha! yours looks great though!

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  4. Ya, I think I can remember something about you guys wallering around in the mud and stuff fixing up some problems. Hopefully this system gives me no major problems, but I definately will NOT make any promises, that is for sure.

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  5. Congratulations, man! You did a great job on installing the water tank. There will come a time that you may have to expand the water line though, but it would only take 30 minutes to install. It can even save you from a lot of trouble in the future. An expansion tank is generally based on the number of gallons that your water heater holds.

    Richelle Loughney

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  6. Thanks Richelle. My water heater is tankless (on demand), and I don't use it to heat my house hydronically. I don't think I should need an expansion tank for that, would I?

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  7. Now that I think about it, that tank looks similar to the tank my friends in Montana had in their attic... held 400+ gallon that was piped up through the river.... they had an on-demand water heater, too. Worked well for them. They just turned on the hot water for the shower to get wet, shut it off to suds up, and then turned the water back on to rinse. The dish water they turned the heat a little higher for, then set it back for showers. On days they filled the water tank, they also did laundry, since the water was on a steady flow... um, except during the winter. Then, they had to be a bit more reserved. I saw 5-gallon buckets sitting in their house that they used for emergency use in the winter months when the creek wouldn't flow. On their water tank, they had a filter on the incoming of the tank, and a filter on the outgoing of the tank. They were also at the top of the mountain at the beginning of the water supply, so not too much pollution to be concerned about. They'd figured it out over time and had a great set-up. I'm sure you'll figure yours out too!

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    1. Sounds like an interesting setup your friends had in Montana. They pump the water up and then I think they just gravity feed it to the taps, (maybe they had a 12 volt pump to supply the taps). That is sort of the same as my system only different. I haul water and gravity feed it into the big underground tank from the truck, then from there I pump it into two pressure tanks in the basement for use in the house. Once pressurised in the tanks my water will go up from the basement to the upper floors without the use of a pump, until so much water is used that the pressure drops to low. The larger size of my two pressure tanks allows me to get at least a good days worth of water usage without pumping. I usually pump it up once per day when the sun is shining bright.
      When I was using my RV to shower in, I used the same method of showering as your friends in Montana because of the smaller storage RV tank size. It was big enough to have probably 3 or 4 or maybe more showers like that. It was good. Your friends in Montana maybe had to haul water in the winter too. I just had another look at those photos you sent me. It is interesting to see how others do things. It would be an interesting place to visit.

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  8. Yeah, they had a pump on the creek's end to pump it up the hill and into the tank, and then, yes... there was a pump up in the attic w/the tank for when they turned a faucet on. They would pull the pump out of the creek after they finished filling the tank. No, they didn't haul any water like the way you're talking... and in the winter, if need be, they hauled it from the creek only in those 5-gallon buckets. They were 25 miles away from town at the top of a mountain, and made due with that they had. :) Very frugal / simple lifestyle. And calm!! I loved it there. They've moved back here, now... the place is for sale.

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