Municipal fed cistern system?

[1stDeuce]

My wife and I are preparing our property to start construction of our home, and out buildings, and planning for what we would like.

As we looked for property, we had accepted that we would have a cistern system, since well water is out of the question in this area, and a water tap (membership in water company) was fairly expensive.

Fortunately, the property we bought last year came with a paid tap, so we can hook up to municipal water!

I'm not a "prepper", but I do believe in having a stored cache of potable water.

Our house will be about 350' from the water meter. I am considering running smaller water line (1/2"-3/4") and simply using it to fill an underground cistern. We would then pull water from the cistern with a jet pump, and feed our home and faucets via that pump, not the municipal pressure.

We're already planning to have a grid tied solar system with battery backup, so even with no grid power, we'll have power in the house, and so we'll have water.

I think a 1000 gal cistern would be appropriate. This would provide us with a reservoir of potable water that we can draw from at any time, and a good buffer for high demand water use. It would also be easy to haul in water and fill the cistern in the event the municipal water is interrupted long term, and keeps the cost of our supply piping down.

Interested in hearing if anyone else has a similar setup, and how it's working if so.
Welcome thoughts on a variation of this setup too.
Thanks!

 

[dickfoster]

My wife and I are preparing our property to start construction of our home, and out buildings, and planning for what we would like.

As we looked for property, we had accepted that we would have a cistern system, since well water is out of the question in this area, and a water tap (membership in water company) was fairly expensive.

Fortunately, the property we bought last year came with a paid tap, so we can hook up to municipal water!

I'm not a "prepper", but I do believe in having a stored cache of potable water.

Our house will be about 350' from the water meter. I am considering running smaller water line (1/2"-3/4") and simply using it to fill an underground cistern. We would then pull water from the cistern with a jet pump, and feed our home and faucets via that pump, not the municipal pressure.

We're already planning to have a grid tied solar system with battery backup, so even with no grid power, we'll have power in the house, and so we'll have water.

I think a 1000 gal cistern would be appropriate. This would provide us with a reservoir of potable water that we can draw from at any time, and a good buffer for high demand water use. It would also be easy to haul in water and fill the cistern in the event the municipal water is interrupted long term, and keeps the cost of our supply piping down.

Interested in hearing if anyone else has a similar setup, and how it's working if so.
Welcome thoughts on a variation of this setup too.
Thanks!

I have a well and due to the drought decided to put in tanks. I put in two 2500 gal tanks to feel safe for a week or two but that would be without strict rationing. 1000 gals won't go very far unless you use it strictly for drinking and cooking and forget showers, flushing toilets, doing laundry etc. I put the tanks above ground and uphill from the house so in case there is no power and the generator is down I still have some water pressure to the house. About 10 PSI which is enough to flush toilets, take navy showers, run the dish and clothes washer etc.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Consider this: Use 1" line (not a great deal extra cost from 1/2-3/4) to feed your whole house system. Put in bypass valve system so you can fill your cistern but then use direct pressure to feed your house as long as you have water from municipality. Use your pump only in emergency which will save wear and tear on the pump plus save electricity cost.

 

[boggen]

with others, place tank up higher, for gravity feeding water back down into the house. and also upside pipe from tank that feeds house.

smaller pipes = more friction, more friction = more pressure to over come friction, more pressure used to take care of friction = less actual pressure at sinks and like.

you are more likely to find 12v on demand sprayer pump (has built in pressure switch), to might offer enough GPM with pressure for some needs. (think of a RV / motor home) have water tanks on them and use a small 12v pump that is on demand (turns on/off) as it senses pressure. for sink / shower.

there extra's that comes with cistern, and that is "cleaning it out" and needing drain, a way to get in it with something to clean it / scrub it possibly. keep the sun off of it, possibly have some sort of "auto fill valve" on it. all of what needs to be rated for possible ice'ing up in winter. to repair and replace. including accessable check valves, and various valves.

 

[1stDeuce]

1000 gals won't go very far unless you use it strictly for drinking and cooking and forget showers, flushing toilets, doing laundry etc.

Wow, you're using 2500 gallons a WEEK??? Are you irrigating crop land? That's 10,000 gallons a month... No wonder California is in a drought!

My wife and I have yet to see a water bill over ~2500 gallons in a MONTH at the houses we've rented. That was with a traditional washing machine... We're putting a front load in the new place, which will use quite a bit less water.

Putting the cistern above the house would be a great idea, but not possible on our property.

 

[1stDeuce]

Consider this: Use 1" line (not a great deal extra cost from 1/2-3/4) to feed your whole house system. Put in bypass valve system so you can fill your cistern but then use direct pressure to feed your house as long as you have water from municipality. Use your pump only in emergency which will save wear and tear on the pump plus save electricity cost.

I thought of this too. Basically making the cistern an emergency use only source. BUT that lets the water in it get pretty stale, and requires monitoring of the water, freshening at times, etc. I'm thinking if I run it as a constant source/exchange, the water in it will be much better quality at all times.

If cost isn't much different, I may run a larger hose just so if my cistern idea doesn't work out, I can fall back on direct feed. I may direct feed the garage (apartment above) and perhaps a few yard faucets too. Leave the cistern just feeding the house. ??

 

[1stDeuce]

Ryan, thanks for the thoughts. I'm not worried about the size of the feed to the cistern because it'll be able to keep up by just flowing longer from the municipal source. I'll feed the house and spigots with larger pipe of course, supplied by the pump, so plenty of flow at point of use.

I am not interested in a 12v emergency system. I'll have a whole house sized inverter that will be more than capable of running a standard 120v cistern pump. I'll also put in valving so that I can direct feed the house if needed, or shut off flow to the cistern in the event our municipal water has a "do not use" advisory.

Using municipal water directly with a float switch, I should not need to clean out the cistern at all. I won't be introducing any debris, because I won't be opening it at all, unless I have to. Not like a rainwater cistern, where junk can get in. Not much junk coming out your kitchen faucet, right?

It will be buried, so no sun or freezing worries.

 

[dickfoster]

Wow, you're using 2500 gallons a WEEK??? Are you irrigating crop land? That's 10,000 gallons a month... No wonder California is in a drought!

My wife and I have yet to see a water bill over ~2500 gallons in a MONTH at the houses we've rented. That was with a traditional washing machine... We're putting a front load in the new place, which will use quite a bit less water.

Putting the cistern above the house would be a great idea, but not possible on our property.

Well maybe not two weeks but a couple of months unless I water the landscape. The real reason I chose 5000 gals is because if you buy water around here they charge you for 4000 gallons whether or not you take it all. Another reason was for fire since you can't fight much of a fire with a well pump but a fire truck tapping into 5000 gallons might get something useful accomplished.

 

[justinramani]

This seems like an awful lot of work when you could just connect to the water main and be done with it. As stated earlier, maybe have a bypass and tanks for an emergency situation.....

 

[dmccarty]

...I put in two 2500 gal tanks to feel safe for a week or two but that would be without strict rationing. 1000 gals won't go very far unless you use it strictly for drinking and cooking and forget showers, flushing toilets, doing laundry etc....

Water usage depends on how much the appliances use and well as faucet and shower/bath flow. I figure the four of us use 200 gallons per day at most. That includes washing clothes, dishes and humans.

We were on a boat for two weeks last year and the boat had 300 galls of water storage. There were three of us on the boat and we used around 1,000 gallons in those two weeks. We did do a couple loads of clothes and the toilets used fresh water to flush. Most of the clothes washing we had done in a laundry at one port. We were not trying to conserve water so we could have done better if we had wanted to try.

Later,
Dan