Water storage in winter

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DrJenner

DrJenner

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Sep 21, 2021
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PNW, USA
We purchased property this month, but can't get a well dug until April-June next year.
Thinking of above ground water storage, but with snow and freezing temps, not sure how this would work out. Does anyone know any work-arounds for this?
 
We just had a similar thread a couple weeks ago. There were some really good ideas, things that have worked for others. I'll see if I can find it.

First, what are you storing water in? 55gal drums? 250gal tanks? Bigger? smaller?

Do you have electricity on the property?
 
Thank you so much! I'm not sure how big of a tank, and we plan on doing solar as we are about 1/2 mile off the road, it will cost more to get electricity back there than for the solar system.
We purchased 48 acres, and will be living in our RV for a few years so indoor storage won't be super feasible until we get the shop built (but we are coming upon winter soon)
 
We had a surprise negative 13 winter last winter, our first winter on our farm. Our milkhouse is a block building, and we had stored 6 each 55 gallon containers of water in there, which did fine. And 30 or so filled 5 gallon containers. I lost 25 of the 5 gallon containers. Just moved the remaining 5 gallon in the basement. Then of course, the price of water containers went up like crazy. Our basement doesn't freeze, so we're now keeping water storage down there.
 
Well, you can't really plan exactly how you will keep the water from freezing until you know the containers shape, size and number.

Other consideration... is your land hilly? and how rocky? If it's hilly and you can dig... you can use the constant temperature of soil to insulate water tanks.

Do you have access to hay? old sheets of tin? pine straw? timbers?
 
We have water stored in 55 gal barrels and 275 gal caged totes.
All sit where they get maximum sun. None have ever frozen here even though it gets down to zero. But we are in AZ where we get a lot of sun which helps a lot. None are insulated and all are above ground and the big totes actually sit a foot off the ground.
 
DrJenner said:
Thank you so much! I'm not sure how big of a tank, and we plan on doing solar as we are about 1/2 mile off the road, it will cost more to get electricity back there than for the solar system.
We purchased 48 acres, and will be living in our RV for a few years so indoor storage won't be super feasible until we get the shop built (but we are coming upon winter soon)
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Other than suggesting a large storage tank inside an air tight building painted black with windows facing south I don't know what else to suggest for the water storage.
BUT, on my toyhauler trailer I was living in the water tank was under the floor, exposed to open air. I bought a 12 volt water tank heater that glues to the bottom of the tank and then wrapped the entire tank up to the underside of the floor with the silver bubble wrap designed for insulation. I used spray contact cement and glued the wrap directly to the tank and then glued extra pieces over the seams and folds at the corners. I never had a problem with freezing and the cold water actually stayed above 50* or so because that was the OFF setting of the thermostat for the heating blanket. I have solar on the trailer so the batteries always stayed charged.
Something similar to this.
https://www.rvupgradestore.com/Ultra-Heat-Tank-Heater-40-60-Gal-p/69-7825.htmI guess you could get a larger version of this heat blanket, or maybe even a few, and use them to keep your water storage tank from freezing if you had solar power with a battery bank and an air tight building.
 
We lived off grid in our RV for a few years here. It gets in the low 20's. We did have our water line freeze a few times but it was just laying on the ground. A layer of leaves mostly fixed that. We were fortunate to have a small spring about 40 ft up on our hill. Our neighbors bought a large green tank that holds something like 1500 gallons. There is a service that comes and fills it. With a large property you can always repurpose it when you get your well. I can tell you hauling water is a PITA. As a kid we had a 500 gallon tank on a trailer. The only thing you can be certain of is running out when it is least convenient.
 
I think I should elaborate a little. In our case we used the elevation of the tank to gravity feed and fill our RV holding tank. Then we were able to use the 12v system in the Rv for showering, dishes etc. For drinking water we used a Berkey light filter. We went with plastic I was concerned about knocking it over. That never happened by the way. We used it for 2 people and it worked well. Mostly we just topped it off before bed.
I have more tips but need to get ready for work. Good luck.
 
Guess it depends on where one lives and how cold it gets. After reading comments on the thread I started a while back, I decided not to take a chance on barrel damage and drained them. Come spring when I set them up again as they will be outside, I will lay them elevated on their side so I can use a spigot and eliminate the need for a pump and will be all gravity fill / empty. Thinking about building an insulated box over them, as I only have two barrels with a heat element for the cold days to prevent freezing. That's about as far as my thinking has got me. I do keep 5 five gallon containers in the house though, and use a berkey filter for purification.
 
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Jay said:
Guess it depends on where one lives and how cold it gets. After reading comments on the thread I started a while back, I decided not to take a chance on barrel damage and drained them. Come spring when I set them up again as they will be outside, I will lay them elevated on their side so I can use a spigot and eliminate the need for a pump and will be all gravity fill / empty. Thinking about building an insulated box over them, as I only have two barrels with a heat element for the cold days to prevent freezing. That's about as far as my thinking has got me. I do keep 5 five gallon containers in the house though, and use a berkey filter for purification.
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I like the insulated box idea!
 
Peanut said:
Well, you can't really plan exactly how you will keep the water from freezing until you know the containers shape, size and number.

Other consideration... is your land hilly? and how rocky? If it's hilly and you can dig... you can use the constant temperature of soil to insulate water tanks.

Do you have access to hay? old sheets of tin? pine straw? timbers?
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Area does have some hills, also rock outcropping and is timbered. Wetlands nearby I can get hay, or straw. could probably get tin from a local scrapyard I would guess.
Avg is 42 days of snow a year, coldest day around 20 deg F, however they have had some record below zero temps as well. With our luck it would happen this winter. lol
 
Our neighbor on our east side has a pump house with a 1,500 gallon tank in it, filled with a submersible pump using float switches in the tank to control the level, the bottom outlet feeds a 1/2 horsepower pump which is plumbed to a pressure tank which then provides the water to the house, it's a great setup because the pump house is fully insulated and there is plenty of room to store garden tools and hoses. It wouldn't be all that hard to set up a 12 volt pump run on solar charged batteries for a backup system. If you are fortunate to live on the side of a mountain, as we are, then a gravity system is really nice, not long after we moved to this property we hand poured a 1,100 gallon concrete cistern at the top of our property, it's half way buried in the ground to keep the outlet pipes from freezing and as well with the increase in winter spring inflow it's never frozen in the top of the tank. I am also adding a 1,100 gallon black poly tank along side of the concrete tank, spring outflow was way down this summer and I want more stored water on hand.
 
Camalot said:
Water sure stacks a lot easier in the winter.
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Actually @DrJenner that's some food for thought. If you were to build a small "ice house" on a good foundation, it could store your water for winter and later once you have other structures and features (well) in place, you could use it as a fruit room or root cellar. Being a smaller structure, it wouldn't be huge cost and it could have permanent use. I guess the frugalist in me doesn't like to spend $$$ on temporary fixes. I'd rather do something even if it costs a skosh more if it can be permanent.
 
viking said:
Our neighbor on our east side has a pump house with a 1,500 gallon tank in it, filled with a submersible pump using float switches in the tank to control the level, the bottom outlet feeds a 1/2 horsepower pump which is plumbed to a pressure tank which then provides the water to the house, it's a great setup because the pump house is fully insulated and there is plenty of room to store garden tools and hoses. It wouldn't be all that hard to set up a 12 volt pump run on solar charged batteries for a backup system. If you are fortunate to live on the side of a mountain, as we are, then a gravity system is really nice, not long after we moved to this property we hand poured a 1,100 gallon concrete cistern at the top of our property, it's half way buried in the ground to keep the outlet pipes from freezing and as well with the increase in winter spring inflow it's never frozen in the top of the tank. I am also adding a 1,100 gallon black poly tank along side of the concrete tank, spring outflow was way down this summer and I want more stored water on hand.
Click to expand...
We were thinking in the same direction :)
 
viking said:
Our neighbor on our east side has a pump house with a 1,500 gallon tank in it, filled with a submersible pump using float switches in the tank to control the level, the bottom outlet feeds a 1/2 horsepower pump which is plumbed to a pressure tank which then provides the water to the house, it's a great setup because the pump house is fully insulated and there is plenty of room to store garden tools and hoses. It wouldn't be all that hard to set up a 12 volt pump run on solar charged batteries for a backup system. If you are fortunate to live on the side of a mountain, as we are, then a gravity system is really nice, not long after we moved to this property we hand poured a 1,100 gallon concrete cistern at the top of our property, it's half way buried in the ground to keep the outlet pipes from freezing and as well with the increase in winter spring inflow it's never frozen in the top of the tank. I am also adding a 1,100 gallon black poly tank along side of the concrete tank, spring outflow was way down this summer and I want more stored water on hand.
Click to expand...
Awesome idea, thank you! We have some outcroppings, mostly rock around us but seems we could still rig a gravity system.
 
We used one of these for 5 years. It lasted just fine. The beauty is it fits in the back of a pick up truck if needed. I don't mean to be negative but I don't think 55 gallons is nearly enough. We had to fill our 30 gallon Rv tank at least once a week. With gardening, animals etc it goes pretty quick. Hopefully you have or will have a septic system soon. We got that in first. One reason was that locked in our conditional use permit to build a home. It is only good here for 3 years until you get a septic then there was no expiration.

https://www.ibctanks.com/275gallon-rebottled
 
Personally I would dig a pit to put your container in that was deep enough that the top of your container is below the frost line. Then I would put a cover over it and put small square bakes of hay over the cover and also put them around the pit to a distance of six feet out. The problem then becomes one of accessing the pit.

I dug a well pit 8 feet deep and boxed it using green treated lumber and put 6" of crushed rock at the bottom. The lid was 8" above ground and covered with tin. Our frost line is 48" and it only froze if there was a strong wind. 18 straw bales on top of it fixed that.

If your solar system can handle it, a 100 watt light bulb running 24/7 puts out enough heat to keep it above freezing in a lot of situations...
 
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