Check out a small book titled Ferrocement Water Tanks & Their Construction by S. B. Watt. These are for do-it-yourself tanks, & look very do-able for Mr. or Ms. Joe Average, at a very reasonable cost, compared to buying one that is ready-made.

Sue

where would someone buy this book?

$19 at Amazon.com
$19 at Barnes & Noble (bn.com)
$17.50 at half.com
Not available at Bargain Books (hamiltonbook.com), darn it!

Also available through many library systems. The content is all meat, no frills.

Sue

Belgianpup,
Thanks for the information. I'll have to check this out. I'm definately for saving $.
webe

If you have a basement corner you're not using you could build a cistern with concrete blocks and use pond liner to hold the water rather than worrying about making a waterproof wall. It's best to stop the walls about two feet short of the ceiling and to have some cross-ventilation so you don't rot the floor joists above the cistern. I have a cistern in my cellar and run the hot water system off it; the soft water seems to be much kinder to the water heater. I've finally had to replace the 50 year old heater because the tank sprang a leak, whereas my neighbours seem to go through heaters at the rate of one every five years. I know some houses used to have cisterns in the attic to gravity feed the plumbing below, but I find the thought of a couple of tons of water overhead a bit alarming.

The same folks who make septic tanks also make cisterns around here. A call to a plumbing contractor might get you some answers also, unless you're in an area that is largely served by public water.

We just put one in last week by our creek using 3' wide plastic culvert. We drilled 3/4" holes in the are we wanted to fill with water.

Mindy

We built ours. A friend with a backhoe dug a large hole (10' x 8' x 8' deep) and we lined it with chicken wire and plastered with concrete and then lined with a plastic liner. There is a "house" that sits on top of it that is about 4' high at the peak of the roof and inside this roofed structure there is a platform for the cistern pump. We water all the orchard trees and garden plants from that.

Fireraven9
The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town. - Emily Dickinson