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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Thu Dec 04, 14 3:17 pm Post subject: Convert corrugated grain silo to water tank |
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I am blissfully assuming this is a POP, but best I ask in case anyone has experience, advice or warnings.
Chap down the road has an old grain silo spare. Its been cut into two, bottom and top half. The top has a cone-shaped lid, which would keep the crud out and I favour that, especially as the bottom half has an inspection door which I suspect will be much harder to strengthen etc. to contain a Buytl liner.
Bit hard to tell, for me, but I suppose it is possible that the bottom half is a heavier gauge of sheeting?
I see new corrugated circles sold, with Buytl liners, for rain water storage so I am assuming I can just chuck a liner in it and away I go
Silo is 18' diameter, assuming 2M-ish tall I make that 47,000L / 10,000 Gallons. In the driest 18 months over the last 10 years we would have needed 100-150 KL more water than the actual rainfall (assuming we collected 100%), (the metered water to the house would have matched that usage rate).
We have replaced original cesspit with a digester. Downpipes from house and some land drains now re-routed to the old cesspit - I am hoping that Chamber #1 will let all the silt settle out, so that the water in Chamber #2 should be clean enough to use for irrigation. Mostly we irrigating using leaky hose, I figure if I decide to use Drip Irrigation nozzles in future I'll need a fine filter.
Maybe I also need a Wisy vortex filter on the inlet?
Water from the outlet of the digester has valves to divert it to either the ditch or into old cesspit. I prefer rainwater for my plants, but if we run low in Summer I could make use of outfall from digester.
I was planning to use a submersible pump in cesspit Chamber #2 to lift the water into the new tank, and then a pump to provide pressure to the irrigation pipes (not sure of the correct term I read things like "2-stage" and see that there is a pressure vessel attached which brings the pump on automatically when a tap is opened and the pressure falls - dunno if I need that, or just a timer?
My plan was to use a water metering device, rather than a timer, to auto-stop the irrigation (so presumably need a pump that will shut off when that valve closes, rather than an electrical timer). |
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 45516 Location: yes
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Behemoth
Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 19023 Location: Leeds
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onemanband
Joined: 26 Dec 2010 Posts: 1473 Location: NCA90
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 45516 Location: yes
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dpack
Joined: 02 Jul 2005 Posts: 45516 Location: yes
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Mistress Rose
Joined: 21 Jul 2011 Posts: 15600
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kGarden
Joined: 01 Dec 2014 Posts: 178 Location: Suffolk, UK
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Posted: Fri Dec 05, 14 7:52 am Post subject: |
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onemanband wrote: |
Think about inflatable pools - they rely on being perfectly round - lean too hard and they collapse, likewise if they are put on sloping ground.
The tensile strength of the material in an inflatable pool is a fraction of the tensile strength of sheet steel. |
Makes sense, thanks. A good part of the force from the 47 tonnes must be downwards, perhaps that is why 3M is the max height I see, outward pressure is perhaps the same, at 3M, regardless of the diameter / volume
dpack wrote: |
big hole ,lorry tarp ,lid ,pump |
Hmmm ... I can dig a hole cheaper than I can buy (new) a corrugated water store, yet they are popular and commonly used (not sure I have seen any/many small pond water stores? - until we get up to decent sized farm reservoirs)
Is there an issue with the ground water pressure when I pump out the hole-in-ground? Swimming pools have an adjacent vertical drain to be pumped out in the event that the pool itself is to be emptied. I suppose a liner would just float on any ground water that pushed in under it, when water level was low, perhaps that is not a bad thing?
Also wonder if the irrigation pump is going to be less trouble fed under some pressure, rather than relying on always being primed when the water level is below it? |
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Falstaff
Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 1014
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