have you built a cistern?

[LBrown59]

I have some friends that live over oil shale. The water is half oil and undrinkable. They tap into springs for drinking water and use septic tanks for cisterns.
*Pretty much the standard way to go in south eastern Ohio.

*I am in South Eastern Ohio.{Washington Co.}
When i moved here in 1966 the common deal/set up was
Drilled Wells for drinking water and septic tanks for sewage .
In 1971 I added a more modern Septic System to handle sewage.
Some where about 1978 a public water system was built and I switched from wells to public water.
Now days it's City water or a public water supply Co. or a drilled well .
Cisterns as a drinking water source are rare and spring water is evel less deserable. .

I think those folks are just describing using a tank that is NORMALLY used as a septic tank for a cistern.

That's the way it comes over to me.

 

[F2036]

Thanks for the replys,
I have a deep well, it only pumps about 2.5 gal a minute, but has never run dry. I use it only for outside watering, garden, yard, cows etc. I'm trying to get a supply tank figured out so I can do things a little faster and easier.
Thats where I think a cistern and shallow well pump would come in handy.

 

[MillWeld]

We installed a 500 gal plastic septic tank as a cistern to collect rainwater from all the gutters for watering the garden. (Maybe cistern is the wrong term but that's what they are called locally). I put a footvalve in the tank and a small pump and pressure tank nearby in the crawlspace so we can pump it thru a garden hose. The pump is a little small so it is not working adequately yet so we are not using it BUT that is a minor problem.

Sediment accumulates in the bottom from debris that passes thru the gutter screen and that stuff STINKS. The last time I unscrewed the access port I was knocked back from the hydrogen sulfide smell. Birds poop on the roof and it gets washed in and adds to the problem. There is no easy way to pump the sediment out. I wish I had extended the input to the tank all the way to the bottom to stir it up during a rain so some of it would wash out. The 6" outflow pipe is 30 feet long and mosquitoes fly in and out of it. (I plan to make a pinch valve out of an inner tube inserted over the outlet side to block them.)

To protect the footvalve from sucking up the debris I have inserted it in a perforated black plastic drain pipe and wrapped it with filter cloth. It's the fabric that is designed to prevent sediment from entering underground perforated pipes. I also have another filter between that and the pressure tank.

When we really need water for the garden during a drought I will be glad we have our system but it is not w/o problems.

If anyone has ideas for the problems mentioned I would like to hear them.
Bob

 

[ptgdigger]

Chlorine shocking the tank like a swimming pool will kill any bacteria creating odors and make the water temporarily unattractive to mosquitoes. You would probably want to do this in an "offseason" when you're not using the water on plants everyday.

Ray

 

[GLyford]

Sediment accumulates in the bottom from debris that passes thru the gutter screen and that stuff STINKS. The last time I unscrewed the access port I was knocked back from the hydrogen sulfide smell. Birds poop on the roof and it gets washed in and adds to the problem.

There's a type of diverter valve out there that takes the first few minutes of any storm and dumps it overboard, but I can't find a reference link right now.

How about feeding all your inputs into a barrel to act as a settling unit, and have the overflow from that flow into your regular tank? If the input and output are both up high, it should keep most of the heavier sediment from going further. Have it accessible for regular cleanouts, and you manage that piece of it. I agree on the bleach shock, too. Start small, with no sunlight on the tank you probably don't have algae the same as a pool.

 

[smiley]

If you search "rainwater diverter" you'll get a whole bunch of hits. One of the simplest but clumsiest I've ever seen was in Florida and I believe they were commercially made years ago. It was a upside down Y pipe on the downspout, with a spring loaded flapper valve in it. The first dirty rainwater was diverted through the Y into a bucket hanging on a lever that actuated the flapper. when the bucket was full it pulled the flapper open and allowed the water to go down the other side to the storage tank or cistern. There was a small hole in the bottom of the bucket that allowed it to slowly empty which let the spring loaded flapper to close and be ready for the next rainstorm. Simple and effective.
Smiley

 

[NormL]

25 years ago I used a 1600 gallon concrete septic style tank without the septic plumbing. Place I'm on now I put in a 1000 gallon plastic similar to the post above but with only one man hole. They were both buried with about 24" of cover. I like the plastic tank better. Went with the smaller capacity so the water doesn't sit so long.

Kim

Just a cautionary note about plastic and/or fiberglass tanks. They are lightweight in comparison to concrete and usually cheaper to buy. But! Keep in mind the height of your water table! We had our tanks installed in late November early December of 2007. Our cistern is 1500 gallons (Canadian) and of concrete construction. Our holding tank is plastic. We opted for that because we wanted the largest economically feasible size we could get. The mistake we made was not installing weeping tile around the tank with a sump pit off to the side to collect and drain off the ground water around the tank. The summer of 2010 was the kind of year where folk begin to Google Noah for plans to build an Ark! Our 2000 gallon holding tank began to float when I foolishly had it emptied completely right about this time last Fall.:ashamed: There just was not enough weight from the 24" of overburden to counter some 20,000 pounds of lift. Needless to say, it had to come right out. Fortunately the tank was barely damaged and we were able to rebury it, this time putting in the required drain tile and sump pit. The concrete tank was heavy enough that with the overburden of 24", it stayed securely anchored even though it was not full. This has been a costly lesson for us and I hope that telling you all about it will prevent a similar occurrence.

 

[sandman2234]

Believe it or not, even concrete tanks will float, as my neighbor put his concrete septic tank in and didn't fill it with water. The first rain we got was a ground soaker, steady rain and up came the tank. It didn't come completely out of the ground, just about a foot and then tipped over a little. Judging from the sediment in the tank I think Mother Nature must have figured out a way to get some water into the tank which kept it from floating more.
David from jax

 

[kevinwak]

I have a 3300 gallon concrete cistern that we get a tandem potable water truck to deliver to once a month. We use it for all household uses including drinking. We have awesome water this way. Very clean and tasty.

 

[NormL]

Believe it or not, even concrete tanks will float, as my neighbor put his concrete septic tank in and didn't fill it with water. The first rain we got was a ground soaker, steady rain and up came the tank. It didn't come completely out of the ground, just about a foot and then tipped over a little. Judging from the sediment in the tank I think Mother Nature must have figured out a way to get some water into the tank which kept it from floating more.
David from jax

Yes indeed, David, I have been told the same thing but thankfully it has not happened to us here. It would not surprise me to discover that there are some concrete tanks lighter than others. My guess would be that some could be built with thinner walls. That's all it would take to tip the balance. Also, the larger the volume capacity together with a wider and longer but not deeper profile, the more prone to flotation problems. Bottom line is do it right the first time and make sure that sump-pump is working.:thumbsup: