Can you prevent rain collection tank from freezing with insulation?

[containercabin]

I want to use a 375G tote tank to store rain water (my cabin is in upstate NY - monticello).

If I super insulate it (R-value = 48) - will it not freeze?

[rick91351]

Knowing what I know about New York temps -    Yep like a big block ice.   

You could include a heat source even a 40 or 60 watt incandescent bulb.  If they still make them.  That said I will also include a statement that it might work and it might not.

I am sure someone will go off at that suggestion.  But a friend of ours up here year round in the cold weather on another ranch uses a single 60 watt bulbs to keep his pressure tank and small well house from freezing.  Like he says do the math opposed to an electric heater and he does not need it warm just not freezing......

You might think of burying a 400 gallon cistern like Mountain Don.  His works very well by all reports.

We have a  underground tank buried here.  It is up on a hill and connected to a spring underground

http://www.tank-depot.com/Drawings%2f41328.pdf

Not that I am / we are prepers but twice a year seems we can go as long as about a week without electrical.  Wildfire or range fires take down a transmission line.  Or in the middle of winter a storm takes out a line or something happens in switching.   In the summer that is not too bad.  But sometimes its when it is minus 20 and 30 and the wind is blowing your options are sort of limited.     

[containercabin]

I guess the main difference between burring and insulating is the heat the earth puts out... I guess - no choice but to burry.... Damn it.

[rick91351]

I guess the main difference between burring and insulating is the heat the earth puts out... I guess - no choice but to burry.... Damn it.

I would think it is frost depth.   Your tote might take a while to freeze.  Then once froze however it never would really have a chance to warm up once it freezes and protected from thawing nestled in that insulation.

[Pine Cone]

Why do you care if it freezes?  Depends on how you want to use the water.  We have a 4' round stock tank and a 2x4' oval stock tank and some 55 gallon barrels that we just use to collect rain water.  They freeze in the winter.  Not a big deal.  Of course it rarely gets below 20 degrees F around here. 

Maybe have one tank that won't freeze and anothers that might?  We just use the rainwater to water plants, take showers, make cement, etc.  We bring in smaller containers for drinking water, and will have a buried round tank like Mtn. Don's later this summer for potable water. 

We do have (mostly) year round electricity if we need it, but we also let lots of things stay unheated.  The one's that might freeze just have boards or pieces of plywood on top so freezing won't rupture the tank if it does freeze.  That wouldn't work with most totes.

[containercabin]

If it freezes - I can't use it... I only need it for non drinking: shower and sinks.

But in my area it will actually stay below freezing for some time. I could have 4-6 months of frozen water....

[cbc58]

Here is what you do:  get an old cell phone and place it on top of the water tank.  Before you head up to your cabin, call that cell and say the the term "bee baum", which computers will mistake for "bomb" and the satellites and drones flying around will direct their lasers onto the container and melt it.   Viola - problem solved.

But seriously - whatever the settlers did is probably the only thing that is going to work and be cheap.. cistern likely.

[containercabin]

under ground cistern? or above?

[cbc58]

underground - or surrounded by enough material to protect from freezing would be my guess.  i would bet the military has something for this -- maybe a solar blanket or that sort of thing.

[MountainDon]

If you want to use the water in winter place underground. You can also use foam under the dirt to increase the effectiveness of the burial. You would need a horizontal layer and side sections that would extend far enougfh down to trap the earths heat in that insulated space. Is that understandable. No pictures so I hope so. Also remember that if there is a manhole extensiuon / cover like we have that is a hole in the insulation layer and will allow freezing to occur. I ran into that problem and made a work around. Details on request.

This summer one of my intended projects is to excavate some dirt above and around the cistern and install a few inches of foam baord. Also to build an insulated "hut" above the manhole extension with the insulation tied into that underground.

Keep in mind that rectangular or "loaf" style tanks must be specially designed in order to be buried and they usually specify to be left something like 25% filled as a minimum to prevent pop out. Sherical tanks don't have that limitation as a rule.

[containercabin]

Thanks for the info!

Is it also possible to do this without burying it?

Just leaving it ( a 275g tote tank) above ground and letting it freeze a bit while leaving it 2/3 empty..... ?

Also, if I do bury an underground tank - how will the plumbing work? I will need to make sure that once the rv pump shuts off - it lets the water drain back into the tank because if it stays in the pipe - it will burst over night while I sleep...

So many factors here.... What will be the best route for me?

[MountainDon]

Most likely an above ground tank, partially full can freeze and not be damaged. Our rain water stock tanks are fine. No guarantee on a tote type as I have no personal experience with them freezing.

...the rv pump shuts off - it lets the water drain back into the tank because if it stays in the pipe

I'm not sure what you are envisioning as far as how the RV pump is to be hooked up.  RV pumps do not lift water very well. Even placing the RV pump on the tank top reduces the performance. They work best when at or below tank bottom.

If the tank is buried the RV pump is useless for pumping from the underground tank.

So many factors here.... What will be the best route for me?

That's a matter of opinion and personal requirements.

We wanted to have water we could use in the winter during the months we can not drive all the way up because on no road maintenance (no snow clearing). Both personal use as in washing and cooking and water for drinking. Temperatures stay below freezing for weeks and months at a time. Probably similar to your area of NYS.

We chose a spherical shaped underground tank because of needing liquid water in freezing temps.

The cabin water system is setup very much like an RV. Inside the cabin is a 15 gallon poly RV water tank (under kitchen counter). The RV water pump draws that water and supplies sink and shower including the water heater. Lots of shut off and bypass valves.

That water tank is filled from the underground cistern. Two methods. (A) hand lift pump mounted above the cistern. A 1.5" dia hose connects pump output to a filler through the cabin wall to the inside water tank. (B) there is a 12 VDC bilge pump in the cistern bottom. That sends water up to the cabin filler via a 1/2" dia RV type water hose. The on-off switch is outside; it could be inside. There is no auto shut off so the level in the interior water tank has to be monitored by eye. Auto shut off could be done but that adds complexity.  The bilge pump is a Rule and drains back to the water level in the underground tank all by itself. If the plumbing and hose is all sloped downhill to the cistern the hoses all drain back.

For winter drinking water we have 2 options. (A) we leave 1 gallon jugs of store bought drinking or sistilled water in the cabin shower stall in crates. They are left 3/4 full. They freeze but do not rupture although over the past few years a few have developed small pinhole leaks. We recycle the jugs in spring. (B) we have a water filtration system we can use to filter cistern water if we run out of packaged water.

I should point out we do collect rain water but that stays separate from the in ground cistern water, Rain is used for irrigation.  The underground cistern is filled from a 100 gallon tank we place in either the p=up box or one of our trailers. Water hauled from home once in a while. It lasts a long time when there is no laundry being done at the cabin and the showers are short.

Link to water cistern  You will need to scroll some...

Cistern manual hand pump

Some piping...

Cistern problem

Workaround for cistern pump freezing

Rule bilge pump   the Rule bilge pump can not be used as a pressure pump.  It suffers from the same freezing issue when the cistern is 3/4 or more full or if the temps drop down to the -20 and lower. A similar work around as used with the hand pump works. Remeber the problem of freezing only exits because I didn't fully bury or insulate the top of the tank and manhole. A completely buried tank won't have that problem but also would not be easily accessible.


Hope some of that helps.    That works okay for us. Not as handy as turning on the faucet at home, but not so difficult; my wife can understand how it works.

[UK4X4]

Insulation only slows down the transfer of heat- it does not stop it even at high values- just slows it down

enough weeks at freezing temperatures and you'll have a huge popsical

In Co we have hard winters - when I looked at possible off grid solutions one of the funny things I looked at was fresnel lenses

Used on the old reflective TV's

You'd need a steel tank though as those things generate HIGH temperatures

ie we have mostly blue skies and sun in the winter, every day the heat would warm the water to well above freezing - insulated arround 95% of the tank
with just the focused area heating the tank

Even in our trailer with the windows facing south in the pm we 22is deg C inside just from solar gain

[containercabin]

UK4x4 - interesting.....

Don - I should really look up all your - with photos posts. I feel like I learned so much and got many idea from just a few seconds of looking at your set up.

Me and you think the same btw.... (to a degree ) I was just looking at those exact same underground cistern yesterday. I almost called the manufacturer to find out where I can get one near me.

Also, I will bring and keep container drinking water for us also - just like you. This is my plan as well.

I love your idea of keeping water in the cistern and then hand/electric pumping it into a smaller tank inside cabin. That solves all the issues I had in mind. 

A few questions -

1. I see you got the manhole extension. Is that so you can clean out the cistern or does it serve more purposes?

2. Wouldn't the manhole allow cold weather to enter the tank and freeze the water?

3. I would like to use an electric pump (unless you think it will be too much of a drag on my future solar system) to transfer the water from the cistern into the indoor water tank. How do you make an air vent for the cistern so the pump can pull water out and have it replaced with air? it wouldn't work otherwise right? Because it seems to me like this air vent will might have ice freeze inside of it and prevent it from being able to pull air in....

4. What size of cistern did you go with? I am trying to estimate how much water we will use. From my calculations - a lot.... If a shower head gives you 1.25gpm and we both take a 10 min shower then this is 25 gallon.... A lot.

5. If I get a 30 gallon metal drum and fill it up with snow and let it mealt next to the stove: how much water will that give me? I am just trying to think if that is a good backup plan.

[MountainDon]

1 & 2.  Yes, the manhole is the source of cold air dropping into the tank. I wanted a place to mount the hand pump though. I had not thought of a small electric bilge pump as a solution back in the beginning.

3. I made an air vent from a sprinkler system drip irrigation bubbler emitter. It has small openings that prevent incursion of insects. Home made solution. There are photos in the links to the project site.

4.  325 gallon in the sphere. More in the extension in warm weather.   BUT rethink those shower times. I use 2 gallons for a shower. My wife can wash her hair and shower on 5 gallons tops. That's a quick get wet and turn it off, lather up with water off and then a rinse off. We have a small basin of water that allows us to wash/lather without the need to run water.

5. The water content of snow can vary wildly. It may look like a lot when presented as snow but melted the volume is smaller, much smaller. I would not want to depend on melting snow as a regular source. We've done it in the case of finding things frozen (noted in the project topic).

[firefox]

A long, long time ago in boarding school in Jamaica they had showers with pull chains.
A lever valve with a chain on it. Pull on the chain, get wet. soap up, then pull on the chain and rinse off. I'm sure you could find a valve somewhere to duplicate that.
That will save you a ton of water.

[containercabin]

1 & 2.  Yes, the manhole is the source of cold air dropping into the tank. I wanted a place to mount the hand pump though. I had not thought of a small electric bilge pump as a solution back in the beginning.

3. I made an air vent from a sprinkler system drip irrigation bubbler emitter. It has small openings that prevent incursion of insects. Home made solution. There are photos in the links to the project site.

4.  325 gallon in the sphere. More in the extension in warm weather.   BUT rethink those shower times. I use 2 gallons for a shower. My wife can wash her hair and shower on 5 gallons tops. That's a quick get wet and turn it off, lather up with water off and then a rinse off. We have a small basin of water that allows us to wash/lather without the need to run water.

5. The water content of snow can vary wildly. It may look like a lot when presented as snow but melted the volume is smaller, much smaller. I would not want to depend on melting snow as a regular source. We've done it in the case of finding things frozen (noted in the project topic).

Then you recommend not getting the manhole extension?

I now understand why you chose a bilge pump after reading about them and comparing to regular aquarium pumps. Head lift. They can push much higher easily and will cost less.

Again.... I was also looking at the 325gallon. Funny. In my area the frost line is 42" so I need the top of the tank to be a little under this? That will be a deep hole.

Shower times - you have a point there. I should make sure showers are taken quickly and efficiently. How big is your indoor tank? I want to find one that will be able to fit between my bathroom steel studs (3.5" deep, 16" oc and plenty of height...).

No snow melting then. Thanks for the tip

[MountainDon]

Then you recommend not getting the manhole extension?

No cover extension would make it easier to be frost free. But then be sure all the connections are tight and leak free before tossing the dirt back in. If it was me burying this like that I'd probably drop 2 of the Rule pumps in there each hooked up separately and with their own power line as well. Might save digging if or when the pump goes bad. Just a thought knowing my dislike for doing things over at later dates.

They can push much higher easily and will cost less.

The higher the lift, the lesser the volume, though

There are specs on volume and lift on the web... forget where I saw them. Might have been Rule or perhaps on Graingers website.When the cistern is near empty it does take longer to pump a gallon. There are different models. Some are more capacity, some are for intermittent use, mine is rated at continuous use.

In my area the frost line is 42" so I need the top of the tank to be a little under this?

The water needs to be below frost depth to ensure availability. Tank top could be maybe only 3 feet   maybe less if left less than full over winter. Our shower generally does not get used in winter when we only stay a couple of nights. (probably shpuld not admit that in a public place.

How big is your indoor tank?

15 or maybe it was 12 gallons. Got it thru    http://pplmotorhomes.com/ same place as a number of other RV things.

[rick91351]

There was one place I stumbled on that had tall narrow tanks and that was a couple years ago.  I don't think it was Tank Depot.  There are a couple other Tank Jobbers on the internet....   

[jaransont3]

Reading through the replies, this is starting to found alot like the system we are planning for our cabin in Northern Minnesota.  It looks like this on paper...



Hoping to get some if it installed over the 4th of July week when we are back there.

The only thing that has change since I did the drawing is we are going to skip the shallow well and go with rainwater collection.

[containercabin]

Thank you for posting that! Very helpful!

Question - Aren't you concerned that because about half of your water will be above the frost line as well as the fact that you are not filling up the rest with soil over it - that you will get some freezing issues?

[MountainDon]

....concerned that because about half of your water will be above the frost line as well as the fact that you are not filling up the rest with soil over it....

That is the point of the insulation sheets. Depending on soil type and water content a rough rule of thumb is 1 foot of soil = 1 inch of XPS foam.  So adding foam is like burying deeper in the earth. The vertical placed foam down around the globe of the cistern is to help trap heat from deeper below the cistern.

[containercabin]

Is your cistern installed in a similar fashion Don? With the cistern about half way above the frost line?

[MountainDon]

frost line is about a third the way down.  If we leave the cistern with only a couple hundred gallons most likely it does not freeze. But if the weather turns to very cold because there isd an uncovered portion the freeze goes deeper and can freeze in the piping. Hence the desire to get out the shovel and make some changes by adding insulation panels. Too many things in the to-do list before I can get there though.    But I am about half way through.

[containercabin]

BTW Don... I am almost finished reading through your build thread... It is funny how many things we did the same and how many things I want to do and you already did. And I most say that by reading someone's building blog you really get a feeling of knowing the other person. That is how I feel hh