Can someone tell me how it works if a property is on a cistern for water? I don’t know anything about them or that system.
I had a cistern at my last place in PA. How it worked was there was a spring well that pumped the water up to the cistern, where it was held until use. It was a PITA and we had a ton of trouble with it. Between the pump in the cistern burning out, then the pump in the spring well went out, THEN the line broke in several different places and several different times, and if it rained hard the water turned muddy, sometimes the water pressure was low…but that was the BEST tasting water when it was clear!
Do you know if cistern is filled by rain water or some other means?
Cisterns are an “amped up” rain barrel. Same principal.
I installed a Cistern tank system for an “off grid” cabin I lived in Colorado. The area got good rain so it did not have to be a big tank. Having no well and no money to put one in the system worked like a champ and sure beat having to haul water form a distant spring and store. This was in my “hippy” days of youth and all of the parts, pumps, filters, etc were scavenged and MacGyvered with little to no out of pocket money.
In many arid parts of the country they are required. Especially if you want to water gardens, lawns etc. In other parts they are illegal from what I understand because every drop of water is needed to go back into the aquifer.
Wikipedia gives a good explanation and examples.
We have a cistern that is filled by an artisan well. It fills kind of slowly, but in the 2.5 years we’ve been here, it has only gone dry once, after I thought it would be a good idea to do about 4-5 loads of laundry, refill the horses’ water trough, water the flowers and then take a shower, all in the same day.
I grew up with one in N. KY. Filled by rainwater from house roof, was a concrete tank built underground beneath teh garage. Loved it. It had a filter in the basement that needs to be changed periodically, but great water.
During droughts, we did buy water from the “water man,” they bring out a tanker and fill it up just like the underground gas tanks.
Thanks for the responses.
I just saw a piece of property around here that has a cistern. It has different water for irrigation that comes from a canal. I am guessing from your responses that this cistern needs to be filled by a water truck.
Our place had one that was basically a septic tank that stored rainwater off the roof. I think the pump is still under the house, it’s one of those that keeps the system constantly pressurized. The tank had a big old crack in it and they filled it as soon as the water lines came through, the neighbor turned theirs into a tornado shelter.
RV stores carry the sorts of parts needed to repair a tanked water system.
Where I used to live the older homes had wells with windmills driving the water up to a tank on stilts in a building called a tank house which fed the house by gravity.
Crone of Cottonmouth County had a rainfall collection system that wasn’t too successful IIRC, you have to set it up so the system doesn’t collect too many leaves and clog things up. She had a blog post about it.
They work fine if you have regular rainfall like in KY and don’t take hour long showers every day - a small septic tank (basic concrete or plastic underground tank) is 900 gallons IIRC.
Depending on where you are they are legal or grandfathered in, you’ll have to check that.
[QUOTE=CDE Driver;7465333]
Thanks for the responses.
I just saw a piece of property around here that has a cistern. It has different water for irrigation that comes from a canal. I am guessing from your responses that this cistern needs to be filled by a water truck.[/QUOTE]
It could be filled by a well also, a cistern generally is a buried water storage that isn’t a well.
