School me on cisterns please!

[Terri in WV]

I'm having plumbing problems with the new house I bought. There have been several leaks, with the water bills being $1000+ each time. I found this out when I went to turn the water on and was also told there's a leak now.

So...had a plumer out today to give an estimate on plumbing the house so that I wouldn't have to worry about future leaks. Let's just say that I can not afford to finance him through the winter.

Anyway, the property has a cistern and a well, besides the town water supply. The well pump does not work. I was told that the former owners used the cistern for years and that it has a natural spring for supply.

It sits on the hill behind the house, so would be gravity fed. I was also told that it would need cleaned out and a lid put on.

My thinking is to have the leak fixed, get the cistern up and running, and tie it back into the house. That way I wouldn't have to pay a water bill and if(when) another leak sprung, the most it would do is drain the cistern. It would buy me time on the plumbing redo and get me into the house. This would surely have to be a lot cheaper than the plumbing now.

Does this sound like a logical approach? What would be a ball park figure to do this? Would a general contractor do it? Help!!!!!

[big rockpile]

In order to clean it out it has to be empty so while pumping it out you are going to have to divert water coming from the spring. Once pumped out have to climb in and shovel all the muck out and rinse it out best you can.

Then rig up Shallow Well Pump and Pressure Tank.

Anything you do you will have to fix leaks. Water will cause other problems than just high water bill.

Anything if you don't repair yourself isn't going to be cheap.

Me myself if replumbing a House I like Pex Pipe.

big rockpile

[FarmboyBill]

A True cistern cant have a spring running in it, as it is a tank made to catch runoff from the house or barn.
A Well CAN have a spring running into it however.

[FarmboyBill]

We cleaned ours out when I was a teenager, one of them that is. Maybe we did both, I don't remember, BUT the one I remember had leaked out, and dad cleaned out the mud on the bottom. MAN that stuff stunk. It was just plastered walls. Dad cleaned it and we lifted out the buckets of mud. he then plastered the crack and that was that.

[FarmboyBill]

Id say it was a nasty crack lol.

[jwal10]

What ever pressure you would have from the cistern can be made the same using town water. Just put a pressure regulator on the waterline right outside the house. This keeps the water pressure in the house low, the water everywhere else the same. A regulator is less than $150.00. I have my cabin set at 30 lbs, you will have to get use to low water pressure at the showerhead and it takes a lot longer to fill things. If you have a leak it leaks less water in the same amount of time.

There may be high pressure now causing the leaks....James

[jwal10]

Originally Posted by FarmboyBill

A True cistern cant have a spring running in it, as it is a tank made to catch runoff from the house or barn.
A Well CAN have a spring running into it however.

A spring above a cistern could run into the cistern....James

[Terri in WV]

Yes, I know that leaks cause other problems and need to be fixed. I just don't trust the plumbing to have a repair done and still be hooked up to town water right now. And I sure can't afford what he quoted me! $8,900 for the house and another $7,000 for the supply line from the house to the meter.

Why would a shallow well pump and pressure tank be needed?

Bill, I don't know anything about cisterns, never been around one. That's why I need schooling. I was just relaying what I've been told about it and trying to figure out a way to get into the house without having to sell a kidney.

[elkhound]

terri some people put a shallow ell pump and pressure tank in to feed the home where cistern/holding tank doesnt have enough gravity drop to provide pressure.

[elkhound]

Originally Posted by Terri in WV

Yes, I know that leaks cause other problems and need to be fixed. I just don't trust the plumbing to have a repair done and still be hooked up to town water right now. And I sure can't afford what he quoted me! $8,900 for the house and another $7,000 for the supply line from the house to the meter.

you gotta be kidding me...ugghhhh

[elkhound]

terri theres tons of ways to hook up and rig and make cisterns/springs/wells etc. work


heres a start to see a few various set-ups


https://www.youtube.com/user/engineer775

[Terri in WV]

Originally Posted by elkhound

you gotta be kidding me...ugghhhh

I wish!

[jwal10]

Clean the cistern and have the water tested before you go further. For right now get a pressure reading on the waterline, gauge on an outside faucet. If over 60 it needs a pressure regulator. Quick and cheap. What kind of pipe do you have in the house, how old? Are you having leaks from the meter to the house too?

....James

[Terri in WV]

James, apparently there's every kind of pipe that's been made. The house is 101 years old and has been added to several times.

I was assured by the realtor that the owner kept everything in working order and it looked to be the case. No, I didn't have a home inspection. Yes, I'm a fool and entirely too trusting. I've since found out that the former owner preferred bandaids rather then proper repair.

I've been trying for three months to find an attorney that will help me out with this mess. There are other issues that have popped up. I've become very well schooled in the need for home inspections. I'm thinking that I should do a new movie, "The Money Pit pt 2".

[elkhound]

so is the plumbing in home busted? or where you going to just redo it?

[Terri in WV]

Well, because there had been several leaks(all under the house or in the yard) and when I found out that there was a hodgepodge of pipes, I was just going to have it all redone to be on the safe side. I've become very skittish now.

I was hoping to repair the leak and run the cistern for now and hopefully buy some time until spring, when the pipes under the house could be replaced the right way. I don't believe this guy would just do that, because he was talking about everything having to be up to code.

[Awnry Abe]

Find out what the T's & C's are with the muni water and factor those into your decision making. The day the previous owner tapped in and went off-well, is the day he permanently did so for me and anyone else in the future that may own this place. I can elect to snuff out the account, but the water "co" keeps the tab running on the monthly minimum until the original tap-in fee is reached. Then they remember that $ for this property. If I were to decide to go off-well again and re-establish service, I would have the accumulation of those monthly minimums to pay before the water would trickle. If I had a leak and just thumbed my nose at the bill, then that too would be waiting to be paid by me or by the buyer of my property.

All that said, I am all in on your plan for going the cistern/well route. That plumbing estimate for the house doesn't alarm me if I understand it to be a total re-do. Maybe you can practice triage and get the worst of the worst done first for less. Or perhaps you could invest in some fairly inexpensive PEX tools and DIY. It isn't rocket surgery.

[joseph97297]

I had a friend who had a leaky, leaky house during the winter. He shut off the water at the main, then got him a few garden hoses and tied them into the system and used them until he had the funds and time to do a proper job. I remember crawling around under his house pulling lines and replacing everything.

He used our labor (friends) and provided us with meals and drinks while working, then once it was done, had a big cook-out as thanks.

As people have stated, it isn't rocket science, so perhaps you could section off and do the most important areas first and do the rest as funds become available.

[FarmboyBill]

James, our cisterns had what were called curbs. That is, the cistern set at least one foot above ground, and the one what was built into a concrete pad porch was around 30in high.
I guess one could put a cistern to catch water from a weak seasonal spring. I would think that it would dirty up the bottom pretty quick. Ours only caught the dirt that was blown onto the roof and into the gutters of the house. It was a good foot high in the bottoms when we cleaned it out.

[Horse Fork Farm]

Theres still a lot of WV houses on cisterns, and most of these cisterns were originally filled by springs above them, with the cistern being located in the bottom of a hillside. I'm using one as my only water source as we speak. If yours is on a hill above your house thats what you have too. Over the years and by previous owner, our small stone cistern was improved by putting a 1500 gallon concrete tank below it. So now the spring runs into the stone cistern, and the overflow pipes into the large tank. The large tank is at ground level so there is a shallow well pump set up to service our house with water. Very simple setup that works great. I'm sure we have to clean our pump out a little more often because of sediment issues. We need to install a filter.

In a really dry Summer, we can get low on water, so we bought 2 1500 gallon poly tanks and catch rainwater off our metal roofing. That could be a secondary source for you too.

Any way you go you're going to have to address the piping issue in your house, or else deal with rotting floors and walls.... not to mention black mold. Our previous house needed new pipes throuhout. We were strapped for cash bigtime and couldn't afford new pipe and fittings for it all, even though hubby was doing the work himself. We ended up running new pipe to the absolutely most necessary rooms and turned off water to the rest of the house. The necessities ended up being a line to the kitchen sink and one bathroom. The rest got fixed several months later. You can make it work many ways if you're determined to. Some water in the house is better than no water in the house! Lol... have fun, these are the times you will laugh about in 25 years. It all passes eventually.