Need help with water storage

[Dave Sparks]

It sounds great but testing can reveal other issues. If you have enough height you may not even need a pressure tank unless you have many water users.

[Pine Cone]

This is a 325 gallon tank with manhole extension. Spherical tanks like this can be pumped dry, unlike other shapes. The typical buried loaf tank should never be left less than 25% full.

That hand pump was made to be easily removed and taken inside to prevent the valves in the unit from freezing. It's a couple minute job to switch on or off.

I would still have done the balance of the system the same way. That is a poly RV water tank under the sink, RV pressure pump that has auto shut off and supplies up to 2.8 GPM at roughly 40 PSI supplying water to the fixtures. We use an air compressor to blow the lines free and have a line to drain water back into the underground tank.

MountainDon - I'm getting ready to put in what I think may be a similar system and so I have some questions about yours.

I assume that the manhole extension just lets you bury the tank deeper and have something to mount the hand pump on.  When you take the hand pump off is there some sort of cap that seals the tank unit? 

Is the hand pump is only for occasional use (fill up a bucket or whatever) while you have some sort of electric pump that moves water from your underground tank up to the poly RV water tank under the sink, or do you do that with the hand pump as well?

My last house had a well with one of those bladder pressure pump tanks in the garage which then distributed water to the house and yard.  Is there anything like that in your system? 

Anything that you would do different in you had to do it all over again?

[MountainDon]

Yes, the manhole extension is to allow the tank to be buried more than without one. The height worked out  fine except for now that there's 30-36 inches of snow on the groiund.   

That hand pump is the only pump. I did not install an electric pump with a line direct to the cabin. That's was partly because the cabin is left vacant during the freezing weather and that there is no grid electric power to use for heating purposes. Using an electric pump and water lines simply seemed too much to bother with because of the winter. Of course if we used it more in the winter time I would have to work around that.

We do not have a bladder/expansion tank in the system. Rather we use a 12 VDC RV pump designed to be used without an expansion tank.


What would I do different?   I'd bury the tank deeper and use a taller manhole extension.

 Last weekend we experienced a freeze problem. It seems the water in the downpipe/standpipe from the pump into the tank, did not bleed down enough or fast enough and froze. All pumping the pump did was develop a really good vacuum.  Boiling water was insufficient to solve the problem. I have a fix in mind and will expand on that later in my cabin topic as I get it all sorted out.

[Pine Cone]

Thanks Don!

At least I don't have to worry about that much snow here near Puget Sound.  Hard to get more than a foot to stick around here, and this year snow was almost non-existent around here.  Had some come down, but no accumulation on the ground.

Rare for it to get below 20F here, although we did get into the teens this year, so I think a 24" manhole extension would work OK.  Originally I was thinking no extension or a 15", but the 24" should work fine around here.  No well right now on the property, but I have a neighbor who will let us run a long hose from his well so we can fill or top off the tank now and then.

[ntexastomm]

A good source of rain water harvest info I use (and it's free).

http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publications/reports/RainwaterHarvestingManual_3rdedition.pdf