Water supply for a village home

[Ray.Charles]

I have got to make some decisions on water for my soon to be completed 2-storey house in a village, with a bathroom at each level. It has two supplies. One from the village water system that has water for a few hours a day these days and it is rather dirty. The other is from a well on the property; that water is dirtier, and it also smells, not like roses.
My plans are to have a ground level holding tank, perhaps made out of concrete to collect the water from the village supply, and also the water pumped up from the well if and when the village supply would not be enough. This tank will have a drain at the bottom to clean out the sediments; with luck, some of the bacteria and the smell would be killed by the heat.
This water will then be run through some sort of a filter; don’t yet know what the choices in filters are.
The filtered water will then be pumped up to a tank placed higher than the upstairs bathroom to gravity feed all the bathroom fixtures. This tank would hold about 4,000 liter, that’s about a week’s need for water for our family of two. The week is a compromise between not having to pump water up to the tank too frequently, and not having the water sit too long in the tank.
Any advice would be much appreciated on the over-all system, and especially on the filter.

[laphanphon]

check your pm's

[maaka]

I will have a stab at this one considering I use a two tank, pump and filter system..mine collects rainwater off the roof into a 5000 litre outdoor concrete tank..its a bugger to clean because the drain hole is about 8 inches off the floor of the tank, so when cleaning I have to bucket several hundred litres by hand, a bugger of a job, so make sure you design your tank well..my outside tank has a 12volt water pump (my whole house is a solar power system running 12volt, but the amount of power means little in this case..) the pump is as close to the tank as possible to reduce the suction drag on the electric motor..I have a filter in the 1 inch plastic pipe attached to this pump..I like plastic piping as I can do it all myself, and it comes with a wide range of connections..

The outside tank pipe runs into the house and upstairs to a 250 litre header tank. this tank gives me my pressure, so it is high in the ceiling..if I had a hill outside I would put it up there..this tank also has a ball cock type of arrangement..its a plastic ball on a string, which sits on the water.the other end is attached to a mercury float switch..so when the upstairs tank gets down to 25% full, the ball ends up in midair, and trips the 12volt float switch on, which then automatically swtiches on the outside water pump...when the header tank is full the ball rises to a point that cut off the float switch, and there you have it....turn the tap on the and after 250 is gone on comes the mercury swtich, on comes the outside pump..it keeps running until the tap is off and the 250 is full....sorry if I am rambling on..

I also have another 12volt water pump which is connected just before my califont ( gas powered hot water system) ..this gives me added pressure for a special outside shower I have..shower on, pump comes on, shower off, pumps goes off..the beauty of this system is that it is self sufficent, no power bills or worries when the city power supply goes off..

For you, first off 4000 litres a week for two people is what I would consider wasting a huge amount of water..however you should remeber that one litre of water weights 1kg, so if you are going to have an upstairs tank weighing 4000kg when full, then you better make sure your house is built strong enough to take it..

I would use two filters. Cant have enough filters..One between the source (well) and village supply, and the outside tank, and one between the upstairs tank and the tap..the bigger the filter the better..

In addition , I would not rely on the heat killing any bacteria as you stated, heat and water have the reverse effect..if you want to kill any bacteria, get one of those clorine tablets they put in swimming pools, cut it in half and throw it in your 4000 tank..that will do the trick even so often....they also have a device these days which is a series of little plastic pipes laid out across the tanks floor, and using air and gavity it somehow sucks the floor of the tank clean and spits it outside..sort of a self cleaning thingy..

I think from reading your thread that pressure is something to think about if you are not using a pressurized city system..get the tank up high..plenty of filters, there are some nice big chrome jobos about, a clorine tab every 6 months, or a small amount of janola will do...

thats enough for now..if you have any more questions just give me a personal message here..
good luck

[Ray.Charles]

Thanks a lot, Maaka. Learned a lot.
I will also send you a PM.

[rick]

No experience in this area, but just a thought about sterilizing the water - how about UV? Could install a UV system like what is used with koi ponds.