Anyone build their own water tower?

[SouthernThunder]

Ive made up my mind to build a 40' tower to hold a large water storage tank so that I don't have to mess with all the pressure tanks and pumps etc. Although I'm sure this way is probably a lot harder, I wanted to build a tower anyway to have a good view of the woods around me so I figured I'd stick a tank on top of it. I am considering using recycled utility poles. They seem strong, weather resitant, and realy cheap. (Only drawback is they are a serious health hazard... :waa: ) Anyone ever built a tower?

[moonwolf]

40 ft. high?! Holy Crap. I don't know, but the worry about 'health hazard' is the danger of a huge weight of water up there might crash down.
You would want bullet proof pilings with no ground settling or movement to throw the tank off balance way up there.
First consideration is how big the holding tank is going to be and what has to be built to safely support that. There may also be zoning or highway restriction to such a structure, depending on where your location is.

[moopups]

Whoa! Time out!! Recycled utility poles are recycled because they are not trusted to support the electrical lines anymore. They are rotted enought to take them out of service, do I need say more? How much would the crane cost to put the tank so high? What would be the cost of pumping water so high? If it ain't fixed, don't broke it!!! errr.....or somethin' like that.

[fordy]

..............ST , I've thought about this idea myself . First thing I would Do is contact the Nearest School of Engineering close to you and get the Name of the Head Ph.D of the Mechanical Eng. dept . Then , solicit their\his help and see if he would ask a Senior engineering Student to calculate the Load for say a 5 thousand gallon tank at say 30 feet and then tell you what SIZE steel you will Need to construct the Support tower . I think you may be surprised at the SIZE of the support structure that it is going to take , fordy..

[HarleysMom]

I have a 2500 gal water tank on a 20 tower that was built from used steel pipe. Just using gravity feed to the house and yard and good enough pressure for everything. I have a neighbor that has a smaller water tank on a tower built with smaller diameter pipe and it leans when the winds are strong, and looks like it will fall over.

[SouthernThunder]

Thanks for the replies folks. I was thinking 1000 gallon tank. I don't see any problems pumping water another 40 feet up. A good well pump will do 150 and I'm nowhere near that depth. I was told that utility companies do not reuse poles that need to be relocated or removed even if they are in good shape. They want 50 cents a foot. Maybe steel would be a better choice.

Zoning is not a problem. I can do what ever I want out here. Highway? What highway?

Fordy, thats a good idea especially since I have an excellent college about 20 minutes from me. Now that I think about it, it seems like they did a project like this some time ago for a ranch in the area. If I can get them to come up with some plans for me that would be all I want from them.

I have set up a few towers in the 20' range and never even thought about using a crane! Pickup truck, some good nylon chord and a sturdy tree is all you need.

HarleysMom, what size pipe is that?

[Little Quacker in OR]

You guys just slay me! I love this forum! Never know what is going to pop up! LOL

Our water tank was on a shelf of rock up on the hillside and the struts were only aout 12 feet high. I think the rack was railroad ties. A bit different than FOUR STORIES!


LQ

[gccrook]

Don't know anything about building a tower, but I lived some time in South America, and it is common there to have 1000 liter tanks on top of the house or on a tower, usually built with bricks. Our tank was on the house, probably only 15 - 20 feet high (ranch style). Worked OK as far as I remember. The tanks were made from some sort of fiber cement stuff.

[HarleysMom]

[QUOTE]what size pipe is that?[QUOTE]

I went out in the dark to measure it, , and I think it is a 4" or 5" diameter heavy pipe that is used for well drilling. I know it is a heavy and thick walled pipe. I got the tower from my well driller who just wanted to get rid of it from his yard.

I onced hooked up the electricity to a 500 gallon tank/well house on top of a hill with the farm house down below. They simply drilled a well on top of the hill, installed a pump and a tank inside a small building. I installed a float switch and a heater coil inside the plastic tank. It was gravity flow only down to the house. I'm not sure what size of pipe they ran underground from the well to the farm house. However, I think the weight of water is something like 8.? per gallon of water. So a 1000 gallon tank filled to 80 percent capacity would weigh over 6400 pounds!