Drinking Water from a Cistern

I think a Berkley filter would clean up cistern water nicely and make it safe to drink. If the berkley can make lake water drinkable then it can make cistern water drinkable. Maybe I am wrong though.

Excellent thread, thank you all for your contributions!

Our cistern is probably 200 gallons or so, made of double-wall brick. I've never been down in it, there's probably 100 gallons of water in there right now, plus all manner of debris and whatnot. The previous owner suggested pumping it dry and cleaning it before using it, advice with which I concur (but have yet to do, free time and all that rot). It has a hole in the cast-concrete cap for a pump pipe, and we have a pitcher pump and some PVC tubing for it, but have yet to install it due to the same time constraint.

There is a filter box adjacent to the cistern, which is currently full of violets and other plants... all that dirt and whatnot has to come out. I intend to lay a base of coarse gravel, then fine gravel, then sand, and have metal screens on the inlet pipes. I will also add a cover over the top to prevent unwanted entry by seeds, bugs, etc. The inlet pipes are ceramic drain tile, which has many joints... I'll probably dig up and replace what I can with PVC.

We also don't have gutters on the entire house, just on one side of the house and on the alternate side of the garage, and neither one is currently connected to the drain tiles to the cistern, so whatever water is in there has been there a bit and hasn't been augmented by more than whatever rain filters through the open filter box.

The plan for right now is to pump it out without testing the water- it's likely contaminated beyond use for anything but the garden, so we'll send it down that way- and use the extension ladder to get down in there and scrape out the muck at the bottom. I'll scrub the walls with bleach and maybe some sort of cleaner for masonry. I need to make a new cap, as the old one was cast in two pieces and has since split into four, making it quite unstable. I also need to build a deck over it so we can have a platform from which to pump water. It will be used primarily for livestock, but we may take the suggestion made here to fill it during dry seasons from the well (which also needs to be plumbed and repaired!).

I just realized, I never answered Studhauler's question! Provided the filter on the source side (well, gutters, whatever) takes out all the physical debris, you could use a house filter system (Culligan makes a good one) with mesh, paper, and charcoal to take out the worst of the nasty bits. Chlorine, as mentioned here, will attend to the remaining micro-organisms. I think a 3-5 micron filter will catch the crypto, but if you're worried about it, boil it before you use it for drinking.

TNYardFarmer, I don't think your teeth are bad from lack of fluoride... more modern studies (Google "Fluoride bad for teeth" to get a LOT of reports from the UK, where they KNOW bad teeth!) have shown it's done more harm than good. Chances are more likely it's genetics; I'd never speak to your personal hygiene, but if you AND your sibs have bad teeth, that'd be the more likely reason, IMO.

@Studhauler, The water was refreshed every time it rained, or on the rare occasions when we had to have water trucked in.

@n9viw, Could be genetics, and for me at least a dislike of the dentist. We all brushed our teeth at least twice a day wether we wanted to or not. I know that when my oldest daughter was born we lived in an area without fluoridated water and we had to give her fluoride drops everyday. She has perfect teeth and never had a cavity.

Be very careful using bleach and cleaners in that confined space. The fumes can quickly over come a person!!!!!

Kathie

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On searching for a completely different book, I found two in our library that may help you with your filtration questions:

Cottage Water Systems, by Max Burns (http://www.amazon.com/Cottage-Water-...2911790&sr=8-1)

and

The Home Water Supply by Stu Campbell (http://www.amazon.com/Home-Water-Sup...2911790&sr=8-2)

Just drink it, your body will have a stronger immune system.

Just filter out the solids & you should be pretty good.

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Not trying to thread-hijack, but here's an EXCELLENT, well-researched and well-presented article on how cavities are NOT caused by a lack of fluoride, and how fluoride does NOT help teeth: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/fluorideharm.html

We have and use exclusively a cistern at our farm. Actually we have 2, the old hand laid stone one and in front of it a modern poured on of concrete. A spring on the hill runs into the old one which feeds into the new one which holds 1600 gallons. It stays remarkably clean looking in there. It gets a little sediment over time. A well pump keeps our lines pressured like city water. We use it as it is for everything EXCEPT drinking. For that we have a Big Berkey sitting on the kitchen counter. The Berkey is very reliable and keeps us healthy. Thats what I would recommend you get.

Right now its so dry that the spring can't keep up with our usage so we are having to haul water from a hydrant. We dump it into the cistern and its not a big problem.

Our next step is buying a 2000 gal tank to catch rainwater to supplement. It will be just high enough to gravity feed the house. There will be a valve to switch from cistern to tank and back as needed.

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For the fluoride sub tread, I grew up on well water and didn't have a cavity until I was 30. I moved out of the family home around 20-22 year old, to a city,(with fluoride in the water.) Humm? I think genetics and hygiene habits and diet has more to with cavities than fluoride. Altho I would think that fluoride would help, they must put it in tooth past for a reason. FYI, I now live less than a 1/4 from the house I grew up in.

Berkley filter looks like a slick system, but it is not for me. If I am going to do anything, it will be an inline whole house system. Some people don't do anything except a very infrequent cleaning of the cistern. I might try this approach first, since it is only a back-up system for me.

If I think the water gets to funky I will chlorinate. My wife hates the smell of chlorine, so bad she does two loads of white, her with no bleach and mine with bleach. If I chlorinate I will have to put an inline charcoal filter.

Thanks for all the great information so far.

Studhauler....mine is replenished when it rains from gutters on house, which could be a month or better at times between rains. Takes 2 inch rain to fill it when dry.

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I don't have a cistern yet. The nostalgic side of me would like to build one out of stone or brick. The scaredy-pants side of me doesn't want to crawl down in a deep narrow hole to build one. The scaredy-pants side of me will win, and I will most likely go with a reinforced plastic tank with a man hole entrance that I will never be able to crawl inside of. Something like this:
http://www.watertanks.com/products/0350-020.asp

that is what I am looking at too.

I grew up on cistrin water. We captured 3 underground springs into a concreate 'well' under our porch. It was pumped out and through 3 filters before it reached the taps. We had all kinds of mining all around us so as their 'good part' to the citizens of that area they were required to do water testing on all of the home's water supplies. Ours was always good. We never treated it with chemicals or anything. I do remember draining it once and scraping up all the sediment and cleaning it up. That was once in over 35 years.

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You do not need to climb down a deep narrow hole. You can just dig out a big cavity, build the brick or stone container while standing in the open air, brick an arched ceiling with a man port leading to the ground level, check to see if it is in working order, then back fill the soil over the cistern.

Put a dollop of coal oil in your cistern and it'll kill the wigglers. Forms a sheen on top of the water. Just don't let your cistern get too low...

Is coal oil safe to drink?

That's why you don't let the cistern get too low...

Ok, I get you, the oil sits on top of the water and pump takes water from the lower levels of the tank.