Boy, do I hate to sound stupid..but I read the thread about water storage and need to know if you connect a holding tank to your gutters,does the rain water ever back up or are the tanks that huge that it would never happen? I have fears of making tight connections and then having water all over my roof because the tank is full and it backs up.I'm thinking of especially rainy seasons VS height of Summer.

-- Lesley Chasko (martchas@gateway.net), April 30, 2000

Answers

Lesley, check out the web sites that someone contributed to that thread. My husband checked all of them out, plus a few more, and I think they will answer your questions. But just off the top of my head, I think there would be an overflow of some kind. There is a diverter system so the first dirty water doesn't go in the tank, too.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 30, 2000.

There's a bunch of ways you can do it but the the simpler ones all involve some kind of overflow system. If the tank is going to be elevated you could also cascade the overflow to a lower tank but the connections would have to be tite and a valve on the bottom of the lower tank.

-- john leake (natlivent@pcpros.net), May 01, 2000.

leslie, i have a pretty neat system... i send the water first through a sand/gravel filter into a smaller barrel with a sump pump in it. the sump pump, in addition to having it's own built in switch,is also connected to a float switch in my cistern that will only allow the sump pump to send water to the cistern if it needs it. excess rainwater that goes to the barrel is diverted away and never gets to the cystern. if you want any more details, just ask...

john

-- john houser (farmrjon@juno.com), May 04, 2000.

Lesley, I have a plastic tank like the ones used to haul water on a pick up truck, 425 gal. I think. I have an open overflow at the top of the tank to allow the extra water to flow away. The tank sits on a wood deck, that is on top of four steel drums. All this on the front pourch next to the wringer washer. The tank is fed by about 600 sq. feet of roof. It seems like about 1" or a little more of rain will run it over. As a result of this we have 400+ gallons of rain water on the front pourch almost all of the time. It is good gor most everything, however we do not drink it...ED

-- Ed Copp (edcopp@yahoo.com), May 05, 2000.