Stuff around the shop... Cisterns.

[Lassen Forge]

We have a history of our municipal water supply flatlining in the summer, so we decided to start buying IBC containers (275 gallons, or technically, 1000 liters) to make an emergency cistern for when this happens next time. Our neighbors lost their water last year for 5 months - and their concrete cistern was so silted they worked their butts off to get it usable. In 100+ degree weather, last thing I want to do is crawl into a concrete tank and find out why it's not working.....

The first 2 showed up today. I realized (1) they are narrower on one side to the other, so that might be a good thing, and (2) they're on pallets, so I can raise their elevation on a few construction bricks (bigger, taller, and wider than the red ones I grew up with) and give them a bit of gravity boost...

Biggie for me - Once set up we can get water all over the property - to the shop (!!) and kitchen and even the shower (!!!!!) off these tanks. The other thing is we will have space to put in another 1100 gallons (4000 liters+) of capacity behing our house. We can keep our garden wet, our dishes clean, and actually keep my cooling dunk pool wet for the (new) forge!!!!

I need to work on breaking the heat and sun off them to keep the algae at bay (sorry, I won't be painting them American Flag Blue!!! ) Our neighbor/semi-contractor, Bruno, has ideas, as do I. Then a pressure pump,second water line pump, and maybe even tie them into a water heater for maybe a hot water heater and... welll...

This is like building a new shop! And subscribing tot he grand theory of "Happy Spouse, Happy House!"

Now that I've seen them I am jazzed on the prospects of what we can do. And I can't wait to bring it all to fruition!

 

[WisJim]

Our munipal water ran low a couple of days ago, to the point where some parts of town had no water at all, so we are glad we have three of those IBC containers (people call them "totes" around here) and 8 food grade 55 gallon plastic barrels for rain water collection. We normally don't use that water in the house, but we were glad to have it available. They are blaming the water problem on excessive lawn watering, but that shouldn't exceed the capacity of 3 wells feeding 3 water towers, at least in my opinion.
Always good to have more than one source of water!

 

[Dagny]

Where did you get the barrels? I am by Cornell.

 

[Nobody-named-Olli]

As you might or might not know, we’re running two interconnected, buried (no algae), IBC for irrigation for far more than 10 years now. We’re using a mesh net to mechanically filter the worst debris/leaves/sand before the rain water from the roofs goes into the IBCs.

That mesh net needs maintenance, especially before torrential rain, otherwise it can’t cope with the amount of water and clogs almost immediately.

Even with that in place, I have to maintain additional mesh filters inside the connectors of our various hose nozzles/ attachments and I don’t run that water through the pressure washer - ever. As during every maintenance cycle I clean out fine sand from those filters and I can see the pressure inside the hose rise but at the tip of the nozzle its more like a dribble.

I’d recommend looking hard into serious filtering options if you really want to run that water through water heaters/appliances/shower heads. …

Hope this works out for you as planned!

Kind regards,
Olli

 

[theoldwizard1]

Great idea, but water sitting around for a long time tends to "go bad".

 

[nadogail]

Where did you get the barrels? I am by Cornell.

I have seen Food used Grade Drumbs almost free Craigslist
They often are a disposable item from food processing Pizza makers often get their sauce in them.

 

[Codyboy]

Great idea, but water sitting around for a long time tends to "go bad".

All water on earth is as old as time.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I have a tote for water. Up until this year I had it up on top of a trailer, about 16' up. That worked great for gravity feed. This year it's on the ground and I'm using a sprinkler pump to create pressure. I will have to add a filter like Olli suggests because I plan on using it for my pressure washer.

 

[steve308]

Submersible UV light and a whole house filter should be part of your system.

 

[Recoveryman]

Great idea, but water sitting around for a long time tends to "go bad".

Make it intergrated with the house water system so the supply keeps changing with the daily use until problems arise then isolate it and use. Recoveryman

 

[WisJim]

I have good friends who, when they built their new off-grid house, decided to use a rain water and cistern system. They found a stainless steel bulk milk truck tank at a salvage yard and had it buried in their yard. Rainwater from their roofs goes through a strainer system into a 500 gallon bulk tank (from a dairy farm) and then into the buried tank. The water gets additional filtration before going into the house for daily use. Their system has been in use for probably 20 years or more.

 

[GirchyGirchy]

Submersible UV light and a whole house filter should be part of your system.

You gotta make sure you can kill all the germs from whatever finds its way in!

 

[Buckaroo5]

I have seen Food used Grade Drumbs almost free Craigslist
They often are a disposable item from food processing Pizza makers often get their sauce in them.

I am very careful buying used food grade drums and totes. Be sure (at least as much as possible) that they have only been previously used to store drinking water or other food grade materials.

 

[Lassen Forge]

Second that - just because they're food grade doesn't mean thats all that was stored in them. Hell, we got a good deal on "food grade" plastic drums, and we used them for interim storage of collected highway urine bottles before disposal...

(Side note - we DID label them... )

 

[BombShelter]

Fun project but remember that the totes will be extremely heavy when full and water from a roof adds up quickly. There's 231 cubic inches in a gallon which is slightly less then 2 square feet x 1 inch of water (244 cu/in). Some roofs can generate 100's of gallons with one big storm, have an overflow plan.

We have people here put in 50 gallon barrels at their downspouts not realizing that they will fill fast during rain.

 

[WisJim]

You gotta make sure you can kill all the germs from whatever finds its way in!

Many years ago. (early 1970s) I lived in a converted chicken coop outside a small college city--the house had burned down but it was a large coop with real windows, concrete floors, a chimney, etc, and it had been remodeled to living quarters years before we moved in. Water supply was a hand pump in the yard. One winter we all 3 of us felt sort of sick and lethargic until one day a well rotted mouse corpse came up into our bucket of water. After that we recovered and felt fine, but we didn't drink much fresh water from that well for awhile.

 

[Sumboodie]

Fun project but remember that the totes will be extremely heavy when full and water from a roof adds up quickly. There's 231 cubic inches in a gallon which is slightly less then 2 square feet x 1 inch of water (244 cu/in). Some roofs can generate 100's of gallons with one big storm, have an overflow plan.

We have people here put in 50 gallon barrels at their downspouts not realizing that they will fill fast during rain.

They're only about 2000lbs full. I deal with them everyday.

 

[jollygreengiant]

They're only about 2000lbs full. I deal with them everyday.

Yeah in the grand scheme of things they aren't too bad. But if you decide to stack them that weight can add up quick. Would be a good idea to make sure they are sitting on something solid.

OP, for algae control I've painted my totes black. Works just fine.

 

[cannuck]

We irrigate our garden at farm from a 1,000 gallon white plastic tank sitting on ground. Algae is a constant problem due to UV penetrating translucent wall. We have been treating with Hydrogen Peroxide at plant healthy doses - and that kills off the green algae but not the brown. Use filtration at levels below drip line hole size but still have issues. In the rural area around YXE almost everyone is on an extremely low feed rate city water system, so need a cistern that is usually a plastic tank in basement. The lack of UV exposure lets them work.

 

[Sumboodie]

Yeah in the grand scheme of things they aren't too bad. But if you decide to stack them that weight can add up quick. Would be a good idea to make sure they are sitting on something solid.

OP, for algae control I've painted my totes black. Works just fine.

We usually only go 3 high with stacks, sometimes 4