Home & Garden Best Posts in Thread: Water Pressure Systems

Ok, concur, pressure here is RELATIVELY STABLE (Daro), it's a rental, landlord covering half, and water shut off middle of night but never in the other 11 months we're here, so risk-cost / reward of lower cost of tank on ground won out... Sorry about the fish, how about piranhah??

 

There is where we are in disagreement. Picture this. In my scenario you want your tank as high as it can be and still fill from the municipal water, but if you do it your way you must lower your tank or it will only fill when the municpal water is at the max pressure. Feed from a short way up from the bottom of your storage tank with a check valve and then the tank will fill part way, even if the municipal pressure is not maxed. I hope that is clear. I can tell you it works as that is the way my system used to be. If it was fed from the top I would have had to lower the whole tank and lose the advantage of the extra gravity pressure on those nice days when the municipal water is being good to me.

I do admit it will make little difference if the municipal water pressure is relatively steady. In my case the municipal water would get shut off for 1 or 2 days at a time and would have fluctuating pressure when it came back so I was often operating with half a tank full. But it was sure nice when the tank filled

EDIT: Its also nice doing it that way because I needed no shut off mechanism. When the tank filled to the maximum pressure put out by the municipality then it automatically stopped filling. On those rare days when the municipal pressure was really high I had to turn it off manually if I saw water coming out the overflow. That was a seldom occurrence and the cost of water in that baragay was negligible so not worth worrying about the little bit that spilled. In fact I had a fresh fish pond I fed from to the overflow. Worked good except it was too shallow with no net to cover it and the birds would get my fish.

 

For the system, i have a couple thoughts.. First, Dave, the Water Holding Tank, or Storage Tank, normally fills from water pouring in the top. If that is correct, there would be NO siphoning back into the City water, so what is the need for a check valve ???? Also our Bestank Storage tank comes with a simple float shutoff integral in the tank.

Also, why would you need a check valve (one-way) from the storage tank to the pump INLET, the OUTLET of the pump IS the pressure tank, which would preclude water draining that way ?? I'm thinking the only one-way needed is in the bypass line to the old supply line to the house, to which the now pressurized water connects downstream..

We sprung a bit extra for the 132 L (35 gal) pressure tank, which should alleviate most problems of pump recycling. Checked a couple sources, and our 600 L storage tank should be ok (Dumaguete water). Pump is 3/4 hp. As our house is one story with a mezzanine, we are told we do not need to elevate the tanks.