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We've been in our cabin for 3 winters now and started to notice that our water from the storage tank upstairs was tasting a little funny. Now, this is one of those lovely injection molded HDPE 200 gallon water storage tanks with the 6" vented top gang and and threaded output tap near the bottom and it's our primary water source in the cabin. We haul our water from the village well, which is deep and tested at least twice a year, and then we filter it again for drinking/cooking to remove the extra iron (common in this area).
So, anyway, back to the tank. It has molded feet that are below the output tap, so water sort of accumulates down there. And, since our water has high mineral iron as well as iron-producing bacteria, it also has a lovely orangey-brown sediment down there. Since the water was tasting weird, we decided to completely drain and mop out the tank.
First problem: we can't fully drain the tank since the last bit is below the tap. Even if we both grab a corner of the opposite end and tip the tank, there's still about 5-7 gallons left in the bottom.
Solution: use a hand pump to siphon out the majority of the remainder. This causes it's own problems because it won't actually siphon since the water level is at floor level and so is the receiving vessel. So it's a lot of hand pumping. We could have used our DC water pump straight off the house batteries, but all our hoses are 25' long... we'll have to get shorter hoses for future cleaning!
Second problem: the top gang is only 6". You really can't get in there to wipe out the bottom of the tank. And the nifty hand pump we have is fora 2" barrel bung, so we had to hold the sucker in place the whole time we were pumping.
Solution 1 (Fail): use the string mop... wasn't absorbent enough and it just smeared the iron sediment gunk around the bottom
Solution 2 (Fail): use the sponge mop... was really absorbent and it actually did a good job of scrubbing the irony sediment. Unfortunately, it was too long to tilt out of the gang without collapsing it and collapsing it squeezed all the much right back into the tank. The only other option was taking the head off the handle inside the tank and taking them out separately... problem is that there isn't a lot of room to stick your arm in there to hold the mop head while you unscrew the handle and then maneuver the head around vertical to come out the hole. Yes, dropped the sucker and then had to chase it around the bottom with the handle until we could get it hooked enough to fish it out.
Solution 3 (Success): wrap a bath towel around the mop handle on the short side so the length was hanging down, and then duct tape the crap out of it to keep it on the handle. This was absorbent enough to suck up the remaining water, scrubby enough to get the iron gunk off the bottom, and narrow enough that we could pull it through the gang without squeezing any of the muck back into the tank. Wring, rinse, wring, repeat until the tank was reasonably clean again.
Now all we have to do is make a couple of trips in to the well to refill it.
So, yeah, just a cautionary tale for those of you who want to store water long term in barrels or tanks that don't have a total clean out drain on the very bottom nor a large enough top opening to get completely inside for cleaning. Even clean treated water can get sediment on the bottom, especially where the water has a high mineral count... tablets and bleach don't help with that!
Did you elevate your tank and put a total clean out plug at the bottom of it so the next time it is easier?
BTW, I use a 3/4 inch pipe and duct tape a washcloth to it to clean out my fuel jugs. Occasionally I need to switch from gas to diesel and don't want to cross contaminate...
Thanks for the info. I have looked at large storage containers for hurricane season. I figured one large container is better than a whole bunch of small. I will now check to make sure I can clean the sucker out before I buy.
If you have a tub, fill it up before a hurricane hits. Use it for non-potable reasons. Like flushing the toilet. I kind of always liked 1 gal.jugs - because you just never know where you are going to end up. Plus I freeze some, unless I have enough empty 2 liter bottle at the time. The reason, what happens if your house is totally destroyed and you end up having to go to another area without potable water? At least with gal. jugs you can easily move them. A 200 gal container... Not so much. And if you have a generator and are on well water, you will still have water. If you are on city/county water, you still have the hot water heater tank if city water fails. I have never lost city or county water - I have lost power for 1 month though.
As far as pressure washing the inside - I don't know how you get the angles you needed to hit the inside of the tank... MissingAll4Seasons should be able to chime in on why that would or wouldn't work.
Did you elevate your tank and put a total clean out plug at the bottom of it so the next time it is easier?
BTW, I use a 3/4 inch pipe and duct tape a washcloth to it to clean out my fuel jugs. Occasionally I need to switch from gas to diesel and don't want to cross contaminate...
Our sidewall is sloped due to the gambrel, so in order to lift the tank up, we'd have to move it out more into the loft floor... might be doable. But to put a drain plug in the bottom, we'd have to drill out our own holes in the two feet (lowest points) and pray they don't leak... too bad the manufacturer didn't think about that!
Pressure washer. Blast the sediment into solution and drain.
Three problems: 1) we need water to use a pressure washer, if we're cleaning the water tank then it's empty (unless we haul "wasted" water in a barrel); 2) there is no bottom drain so using water to clean the tank means we still have to get the iron muck water back out; 3) power washer requires power so that's additional fuel cost.
If you have a tub, fill it up before a hurricane hits. Use it for non-potable reasons. Like flushing the toilet. I kind of always liked 1 gal.jugs - because you just never know where you are going to end up. Plus I freeze some, unless I have enough empty 2 liter bottle at the time. The reason, what happens if your house is totally destroyed and you end up having to go to another area without potable water? At least with gal. jugs you can easily move them. A 200 gal container... Not so much. And if you have a generator and are on well water, you will still have water. If you are on city/county water, you still have the hot water heater tank if city water fails. I have never lost city or county water - I have lost power for 1 month though.
As far as pressure washing the inside - I don't know how you get the angles you needed to hit the inside of the tank... MissingAll4Seasons should be able to chime in on why that would or wouldn't work.
Yup, I just did. If you're off-grid and the tank is your primary water supply, it's a major PITA to use a pressure washer for anything. If you're just temporarily storing emergency water, then a pressure washer would work great once municipal power and water was restored. Jugs and barrels are still light enough to tip upside down after you power wash them, although 55 gallon barrels are a bit bulky and awkward to do that with. A 200 gallon tank is heavy and extremely awkward even when it's empty, and if it's inside you wouldn't want to be trying to tip it over to drain it if you could help it.
And, yeah, water is nearly 8 lbs a gallon. Even a 5 gallon jug gets difficult to tote if you've got a hill or stairs. A 55 gallon barrel ain't going anywhere without a hoist or dolly, unless you roll it since it's almost a 1/4-ton. And a 200 gallon tank is pretty much stationary unless it's on a trailer because it's pushing a full ton.
Having maybe a ton on yer loft must be a little stressful on living under it; must be a mighty well built and planned structure.
Well built structure We've got 2x12 joist 16" on center running on the main floor and the loft floor and our beams are 6X12.
With a ton of water plus nearly a ton of house batteries in the loft, and a half-ton wood stove and over a ton of food in the pantry (when it's full), we definitely didn't skimp on the floors
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We've got 2x12 joist 16" on center running on the main floor and the loft floor and our beams are 6X12.
