Bugman

[Guest bugman]

Wondering if anyone has info on domestic / potable water storage.

I have a well and a wind mill powered pump on good water. I want to be able to store water and tap into my household water line and separate from the local water company.

I want to be able to maintain pressure from gravity and would like to find "Stand Pipe" system or elevated tank to be able to provide water and pressure.

Any info waould be most appreciated.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi bugman

I'm totally ignerant on the issue, but am curious.

Does your windmill generate electricity that powers the pump, or is it some sort of direct drive?

Wonder if the tower stored too much water, would you need to keep chlorine in the water to keep it from growing a science project of microbes up in the tank? Would the tank water be real hot coming out of the tap in summer, and possibly risk freezing in winter cold snaps?

Old grandad had wellwater in his farmhouse 60 years ago. Electric pump, but everything was in a little doghouse over the well. I don't recall a big tank. I don't think his system stored a lot of water aboveground, but I don't recall that the pump would kick on every time you would open the tap. Maybe it maintained pressure with compressed air so it didn't have to run every time you open a spigot?

Just wondering if maybe an electric pump system of some kind, and use the windmill to charge a battery bank so you can get cold fresh water from below ground on demand?

As said, am ignerant of the tech. Just curious.

Edited June 24, 2010 by Lester Weevils

[Guest bugman]

Hey Lester,

The mill opertes a cam that drives a connecting rod to the pump. It pumps about 7gpm in a 10 mph wind but only pumps when there is wind. Thta's the reason I'm looking for a storage method, something similar to what the small utility districts use (the big tanks you see sitting out in the country). Right now it just dumps into a stock tank but then runs out on the ground so I keep it furled most of the time.

Someone out there is bound to know more about this tna I do, so keep an eye out and maybe we can all learn something.

Bugman

[Trekbike]

I'm confused about your real end goal. Please clarify.

Are you looking to still have water when there is no wind?

Or

Are you looking for a gravity system to provide water with no power source (either wind or electric)?

I haven't ran any calculations but it is doubtful you will be able to have enough pressure from just gravity using the elevation alone. A couple of things to remember;

• if you're talking about wanting to tie into your house plumbing, it will even be harder to have enough pressure just from gravity due to the extra line restrictions.
  
• you may not have enough pressure generated by the windmill pump to get the water into a highly elevated tank.
  
• the large utility storage tanks still have to have pumps to help push the water into the public water system. (It's not gravity pressue alone.)
  

I'm thinking your best bet is to add an electric pump in parallel to the windmill pump to supply the water. You can wire the electric pump to kick in when there is no output from the windmill pump.

It's best to keep the water below ground to keep it from getting hot or frozen depending on the season.

Edited June 25, 2010 by Trekbike

[Trekbike]

I went back and ran some calculations to figure out some pressures you might be able to generate.

Assuming you had the following

10’ elevated tank (amount of water in the tank doesn’t matter)

2†ID pipe

Height x 0.43 x area of pipe = pressure

10 x 0.43 x 3.1416 x 1" squared = 13.5 psi

You probably need at least 50psi for household pressure. Given you will be limited on how high you can go and the pipe dia you can use as a typical homeowner, you can maybe get the following.

15’ elevated tank

4†ID pipe

15 x 0.43 x 3.1416 x 2" squared = 81psi

As a reminder then you have to start figuring in line losses etc. Another problem I see if you can get past the pressure, is the supply volume and peak demand.

Expanding on my comments on the public utility tower last night, the public utility uses pumps to supply most of the water usage load and pressure. The tower is there to help in peak demand times to supplement the pump.

I found the better explanation on a website.

A water tower's tank is normally quite large. A normal in-ground swimming pool in someone's backyard might hold something like 20,000 or 30,000 gallons (that's a lot of water!), and a typical water tower might hold 50 times that amount! Typically, a water tower's tank is sized to hold about a day's worth of water for the community served by the tower. If the pumps fail (for example, during a power failure), the water tower holds enough water to keep things flowing for about a day.

One of the big advantages of a water tower is that it lets a municipality size its pumps for average rather than peak demand. That can save a community a lot of money.

Say that the water consumption for a pumping station averages 500 gallons of water per minute (or 720,000 gallons over the course of a day). There will be times during the day when water consumption is much greater than 500 gallons per minute. For example, in the morning, lots of people wake up at about the same time (say 7:00 a.m.) to go to work. They go to the bathroom, take a shower, brush their teeth, etc. Water demand might peak at 2,000 gallons per minute at 7 a.m. -- there is a big cost difference between a 500-gallon-per-minute pump and a 2,000-gallon-per-minute pump. Because of the water tower, the municipality can purchase a 500-gallon-per-minute pump and let the water tower handle the peak demand. At night, when demand normally falls to practically zero, the pump can make up the difference and refill the water tower.

Let me know some more details and I’ll see if I can help.