I guess a lot of my question is once the tank is filled what do I need in between the tank and a garden hose for example to build any kind of pressure?
I know my well at my home has a pump down deep in the ground but I don't understand how there's pressure in my system in the house, does that pump also provide that pressure?
I have a pressure washer with a pump on it, I'm assuming that sort of pump is needed to run a garden hose?
I'm also needing suggestions on how to keep the water somewhat clean that is going to be inside the tank so that I can shower with it.
I don't want algae growing in there.
Maybe just a little bleach in there every once in awhile would do the trick?
It sounds like you have your water storage worked out, Now you need a source of pressurized water to feed to your camper and to things like garden hoses and your gas-powered high pressure washer.
That's simple; I've done it several times. You need a pressure tank, a pump, and a controller that only runs the pump as needed to pressurize the water in the tank.
The pressure tank is easiest - it's just a steel tank with an air-inflated rubber bladder inside. The pump forces water into the tank where it is stored under pressure. 50 PSI is about all you can expect to get. As you use water, the pressure drops quickly and the controller causes the pump comes on to pressurize more water into the tank.
I'd suggest you start with as big a tank as you find affordable - a 20 gallon at Home Depot is about $140. That's a common size for small houses.
Then you need a pump to transfer water from your storage tank to the pressure tank. This is the hard part. You want a pump that will run quietly, and will put out 50 psi and flow at least 10 gallons/minute. You'll want to compare several. Take a look at the pump curve if the spec shows that. Basically you will find that at 110 volts, that much flow at that much pressure will take about 3/4 hp or larger. Larger is better if your generator can handle the pump load.
The problem is that these transfer pumps are noisy and expensive. Once you drill a well, you can use a well pump - although they are even more expensive. But I've noticed that submersible well pumps can often be found used, and are easily rebuilt. Really good quality pumps, and so next time I do what you are doing I think I'll simply see if I can somehow use the smallest size submersible well pump. It ought to work by either putting it right into the storage tank if there is an access port on top.... or else by feeding some sort of intermediate 50 gallon barrel tank between the big storage tank and my pressure tank and putting the well pump in there.
The last thing you need is a pressure switch to switch the electricity on/off to the pump as required. This is the easy part. It's a $20 well switch and they typically come set to turn on their internal relay at 20 psi and off at 40 psi - but get the kind with an adjustable psi range. It simply mounts to the top of the pressure tank.
Most people fill the tank with water and then add a little bleach. You may or may not care to do that. Some algae and bacteria may be preferable. The percentage of bleach is VERY important - you can find the percentage online dozens of places. The keyword is "shock chlorination". Many people with shallow wells do this shock chlorination with bleach several times a year to keep bacteria down. THe problem here is that you have a plastic storage tank. It is handles alcohol, It should be OK with low levels of chlorine but chlorine as in bleach will eventually degrade many things. Believe it or not, a common municiple alternative to chlorination is to filter the water through a sand bed with lots of bacteria (and maybe even some algae) and let those benign critters eat up the more hazardous organics. No chlorination required!
Yet another alternative is to get a $200 pressure driven Reverse Osmosis setup (Home Depot again) and use that for your drinking water. RO wastes about 3x as much water as it filters, but if you turn it off after it makes a couple gallons for drinking, it isn't too inefficient.
good luck,
rScotty
BTW, did you figure out how much PSI that a tank of water 40 feet up would develop? What do you think??
