Cheap water storage

[Lowdown3]

Check your local Lowes- around here they are closing out some Norwesco black water tanks.

Got a 1600 gallon for $450. (About a $2K tank) at one store. At another store got a 500 gallon for $356. Normally about a thousand dollars.

Poly tanks but black so that helps with algae growth versus white tanks.

Also, the 300 gallon "pickup truck" size white poly tanks are over $700. now!!! They usually only have one inlet/outlet and then a small "manhole" opening.


These will supplement other water storage tanks/storage system we have in place, most of which are hardened. These will obviously be a lot more difficult to harden.

White tanks- often you will find stuff like this in them over the long term-


That tank actually came from our range property- I brought it there years ago for a project on a building that was destroyed in Hurricane Helene so I recently brought it home. Cleaned up nicely with some bleach and water flushes.

[prc-104]

I know my conditions at 7500 foot elevations are different from yours but how do you handle freezing temps below 15F ?
Any chance of freeze expansion damaging it?
Been wondering about that as a potential for a long time.
Thanks for broaching the subject.

[Lowdown3]

We have had snow a total of four times in the 26 years we've been here, oddly enough about 6-7 years apart each time.

These last two times, we have had several tanks outside, no insulation or covering that are in use for additional water storage (500 gallon black poly) near a solar well, and 3 tanks used for rain catchment, two of those around 300 gallons, one is 150 IIRC. Technically the 500 gallon is inside a building and wall (concrete) but it's an open air building. The rest are just up on blocks outside.

Have not had any freezing issues with the tanks themselves, the PVC connections can leak. I usually do a screw connector to a slip reducer upon leaving the tank, then it goes to a short hank of 3/4 PVC to a ball valve then to a spigot (for the rain catchment tanks). Usually if we have an issue with freezing, it's near the ball valve.

We use an elevated 35 gallon poly water tank for our rabbits, never had that freeze either, if there is an issue it's in the PVC running to the cages. But we are usually really good about draining that system daily in really cold weather.

How they would go in Colorado weather, I couldn't really say. There is a lot of thermal mass in 300-500 gallons of water.