Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Off Grid Water Systems

I have a question for the members on the Fire that have water wells.

My question is
Is putting the water storage tank up on a stand say 20 ft up and having your point of discharge into your home some where between 25 & 35 ft in head pressure be worth the trouble of building the tower.

I fabricate and weld & I more than likely already have all of the material to build the water tower.
I have read some Calculations about water head pressures with elevated tanks. and would get somewhere in the range of 8 + psi at 20 foot.

What are your opinions about building a water tower verses just having the water tank on the ground and using a pressure pot to deliver the proper water pressure.

I am having a well drilled on my property in Arizona very soon and need some advice.

I tend to make things very hard on myself when I do things and I am getting older and I am trying to do things smarter and less hard on myself. But if you think that a tower is a good idea please let my know your thoughts.
I could go 20 ft to the bottom floor of the tower and still lift the tank with the equipment i already have.

Any Advice

1 ft of water head = 0.44 static psi. Line loss depends on the size of the line and the volume going through it. So yes, you would have about 9 psi static with a 20’ tower. I’ll take a SWAG and say you’ll lose a couple psi in line loss. 7 psi isn’t great, but it’s usable in the event of a power loss. Install a booster pump on your line and you’re set.

If the pump you are installing has the pressure needed to pump it up that high, then why not use that energy directly to the house. the only reason for a large tank would be if you don't get enough water from the well so you are using a reservoir to store for use above ground. Letting it accumulate during "off hrs"
The best is an adequate pump on a VFD. No tank needed and most efficient.

Houses in the "backcountry" used to always have a water tank. Odds are it was for the reason RUM& pointed out, filled during low use hours from a well that might get pumped low during hours of most need.

I'm looking at getting a tank here for our well, mostly for storage during drought conditions which are regular occurrences here. That and extra water for fire fighting should the folks ever need it to save our place or the neighbors. Likely it's just going on the ground and I'll figure out a pressure system for it, or have the well guy plumb it through the pressure tank. I've got a generator to cover for power outages, and should it get really bad, just having water will not be a bad thing.

Good luck with your place funshooter. Shoot me a pm if you would with where you're building. I know you've mentioned your off the main roads aways. I get down to AZ every year or two for hunting, and maybe your in an area I'm familiar with, as I've been around a good part of the state on my journeys.

For the reasons mentioned above (drought and water capacity for fire fighting) we put 4 underground water tanks (6800 gallons total) above our house. It is a drop of about 100 ft and delivers 30 psi of pressure. It works fine if we lose power, but since it was for fire fighting and we do like higher pressure for showers and such, we also installed 4 60 gallon pressure tanks and a 3 hp booster pump. If I were you (and I'm not) I would forgo the stand and go direct to a simple pressure pump.

Thank you for all of the advise.
I tend to over think and over work my self.

My place up in Arizona is on a slight hill in the center of the mountain range.
They estimate that the well will be about 350 ft deep.

My 2 neighbors have wells at around 320 ft.

Our area has lots of water under it so I hope that my place has the water.
I had a Friend come up and witch it for me and then he taught me how to witch.
It was amazing how you get drawn around by the wires if you let them guide you.

I am going to build a water house due to the freeze in the winter time and was going to build the tower over the top of the water house.
My girl is against me building it because she is afraid of heights and freaks out when she has to operate my 20'0 Auto Crane that I built a man basket for to trim our Palm Trees here in Commyfornia instead of paying someone to do it for me.

Maybe it would be best to spend my time just building the water house and plumb the system to where I need the water.
I will be digging probably 2000 feet of trenches maybe more by the time I get finished plumbing for the Critters I intend to raise and the Garden and Orchard that I would like to have.

Thanks again

another consideration would be the need to treat that water in your tank to keep it drinkable. Things want to grow in the water when held in tanks for any length of time.

Large water systems have tall water tanks but the purpose of those is more about keeping a constant head pressure with the pumps cycling on and off to meet the water level settings in the tower. Not so much for storage. In most systems that tower would go dry pretty quick if all the pumps were down at once for a while. If you were to use a storage system like tower or cistern for well water you would need to treat that water to keep it good for consumption.

If you have a two story house, just doing the plumbing so a water heater with a tank is on the second floor would allow you the size of the tank to provide that much water in a power outage type emergency. To drink, wash do dishes for a couple days. With the water cycling through there with just regular use, it would always be fresh and not need any special treatment for as long as that one tank would last in an emergency.

Jack raises several good points. When we designed our place we put our two 80 gallon water heaters upstairs for exactly the reason he mentioned. We don't worry about loss of power, since as I said above, we have gravity feed coming to the house. But there is always the concern regarding a broken pipe (which has happened once in 20 years) disrupting any water supply. We put our tanks underground (covered by 2' of dirt, a heavy duty tarp and a simple, low lean to (painted white to reflect the sun) to keep the water cooler and fresh. While we do run it through a filter and a UV light as a caution, we test the water straight from the tanks every 5 years and we have had no issues regarding its potability.

Our well is 250' deep and the run from the well to the tanks is 3,000'. A low voltage system tied to a float in the tanks has the well pump turn on when 500 gallons is used.

Right out of the bluff !!

We have multiple limestone springs

It will chill a copper worm. lol

Did this for a living for over 3 decades so I do have some knowledge. What you don't need is elaborate math, you have worked out the math for yourself. What you are asking is, is 8# pressure enough. For modern appliances, maybe. Washing machines just wont operate till the tub is full no mater if it will take 1 or 10 minutes to fill. I do not know about dish washers. Eight pounds pressure in a shower is a small trickle but you can get clean and rinsed over time.