cistern fill

[boo coo tracks]

Tearing down part of old house, that has a concrete cistern with 3ft concrete top. What should I use for fill?? It is complete built with concrete so should be no problem with ground water contamatetion.(sp)
TIA
Tracks

 

[Torque1st]

Flowable fill, available from the local concrete company.

 

[Buford T. Justice]

I am filling mine with pea gravel in about a month. 16' deep and 10' wide at the bottom. I actually went down in mine last summer & beat a hole in the bottom so its like a gigantic sump right now. That was aweful. You know how thick those old cisterns are? My gosh...

 

[larry_g]

A bit depends on what the furture use of the site might be, and what the local governing boards may have to say. We had to go through a formal proceedure to decommision a well. Papers had to filed woth the county and decommisioning done by a well driller. Another reason to check is what follows may not like the concrete in the ground. We broke one of our chisel plows last spring when opening some new ground and we hit a concrete cistern that was some 8' diameter and ~2' down. We have owned this land for better than 50 years and never knew that there was ever a dwelling there. After digging the thing out we found quite a bit of stuff in the area and figured that many years ago there was a house there that probably burned.
lg
no neat sig line

 

[Mattlt]

A cistern is not a well...

Cisterns are generally 8-12 feet deep, maybe 6-10 feet across at the base, usually all concrete, possibly brick with some kind of cement veneer to keep the water from leaking out. You generally don't need to worry about any kind of ground water contamination with a cistern. Dig down a few feet, remove the top concrete portion of the cistern, and fill in what remains with whatever you've got (rock, clay, gravel, dirt). Top it off with the surrounding soil.

Wells are a different story. They need to be capped by a certified person.

 

[Stuart in MN]

Depending on what you're doing with the site, it may be advisable to punch some holes in the cistern so ground water will drain out.

 

[Grumpy365]

I am filling mine with pea gravel in about a month. 16' deep and 10' wide at the bottom. I actually went down in mine last summer & beat a hole in the bottom so its like a gigantic sump right now. That was aweful. You know how thick those old cisterns are? My gosh...

That sounds awful. And I would hope you had a "hole watch" to call the ambulance if something goes wrong.

The last one I was around was full of Bats.

 

[larry_g]

A cistern is not a well...



Wells are a different story. They need to be capped by a certified person.

I know the difference 'tween a well and a cistern. What I don't know is the local ordinances that Tracks has to answer to. He may be subject to some local law that says what he has to do. In our case an abandoned cistern that was better than 50 years old and probably closer to 100 years old caused us a day and a half of downtime and better than $400 for the part. Hence my question to think what may happen to that property in the future. That concrete will last a few generations.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[KingConstruction]

Give your health dept. a call they should be able to tell you if you need to do anything to decommision it and also be able to recommend something to fill it in

 

[boo coo tracks]

Tearing down part of old house, that has a concrete cistern with 3ft concrete top. What should I use for fill?? It is complete built with concrete so should be no problem with ground water contamatetion.(sp)
TIA
Tracks

Thanks for all good advise!!! I think I will leave it as a cistern & fill with pea gravel. Then try to crush top to below ground level. I like one of posters have owned for over forty years & didn't know of its existance.
Tracks

 

[Friartuck]

Why not continue to use it as a cistern, for at least ground irrigation purposes? Water, the next commodity to have to pay $$$.

 

[boo coo tracks]

Duh!!!! I never thought of that.
Thanks
Tracks