Tweet
As part of an ongoing upgrade to our water system, we changed out one of our water storage tanks.
I always get a laugh out of newbies when they throw out the thought that they are going to "do it once and do it right!" Really? And without EXPERIENCE you will know it's "right" how??
Egg Zach Lee...
Also, our best intentions are often hindered by the real world considerations of:
*Availability of a product
* COST of a product
* Adaptability of a certain product to our specific location, circumstances, use, etc.
* Our lack of real experience- or long term experience- with a certain item.
So when I first set up this part of my water storage system back in 1999 ALL of the criteria above applied to me also. I needed a product for water storage that was readily available, it needed to be reasonably priced, it had to fit a very specific size and it had to be installed at a very specific stage in the building process or it would not fit afterwards. And finally, we were transitioning suburbanites at the time (hence in 1999 no real long term experience with homesteading systems).
Opting for a white plastic water tank, like you can find at Tractor Supply, AG stores, etc. is what we used for 210 gallons of our water storage.
We have a hill on the property close enough that when the tank was placed on the hill, it would provide some semblance of water pressure to the main house, to gardens, etc. It worked fine, although not ideal. Problems we had-
* The tank did not have an overflow. Only one inlet into the tank and then one larger screw top opening that really wasn't useful for anything. It was too small for true cleaning and too large for plumbing hookups. We could have cut an overflow, but the tank was inside a building and we wanted to avoid the chance of flooding the building.
* The tank was NOT a pressure tank, hence could not be left "inline" in our water system.
* The tank was next to impossible to clean.
Here's how it looked after a few years with our hard water. A view inside the tank-
So the "order of operation" of this was originally to run the genset, which powered our deep well. Water was pumped up the hill to the tank. Someone had to babysit the tank to make sure it did not overflow and flood the building.
Second part coming up-
I always get a laugh out of newbies when they throw out the thought that they are going to "do it once and do it right!" Really? And without EXPERIENCE you will know it's "right" how??
Egg Zach Lee...
Also, our best intentions are often hindered by the real world considerations of:
*Availability of a product
* COST of a product
* Adaptability of a certain product to our specific location, circumstances, use, etc.
* Our lack of real experience- or long term experience- with a certain item.
So when I first set up this part of my water storage system back in 1999 ALL of the criteria above applied to me also. I needed a product for water storage that was readily available, it needed to be reasonably priced, it had to fit a very specific size and it had to be installed at a very specific stage in the building process or it would not fit afterwards. And finally, we were transitioning suburbanites at the time (hence in 1999 no real long term experience with homesteading systems).
Opting for a white plastic water tank, like you can find at Tractor Supply, AG stores, etc. is what we used for 210 gallons of our water storage.
We have a hill on the property close enough that when the tank was placed on the hill, it would provide some semblance of water pressure to the main house, to gardens, etc. It worked fine, although not ideal. Problems we had-
* The tank did not have an overflow. Only one inlet into the tank and then one larger screw top opening that really wasn't useful for anything. It was too small for true cleaning and too large for plumbing hookups. We could have cut an overflow, but the tank was inside a building and we wanted to avoid the chance of flooding the building.
* The tank was NOT a pressure tank, hence could not be left "inline" in our water system.
* The tank was next to impossible to clean.
Here's how it looked after a few years with our hard water. A view inside the tank-
So the "order of operation" of this was originally to run the genset, which powered our deep well. Water was pumped up the hill to the tank. Someone had to babysit the tank to make sure it did not overflow and flood the building.
Second part coming up-
Comment