Water Tanks

Since we're building out in the country, water, electricity and sewer are not provided by a subdivision developer. Our contractor normally builds in the city so he doesn't have experience with putting these utilities in. We've been researching these for years so we agreed to handled the installation of these systems.

Part of the water system includes tanks to hold water for the house and for fire suppression. We went with a two tank system, 1500 gallons for the house and 2500 for fire. Rob had the tanks built and they were waiting to be installed once construction began. Part of the permit requirements is that there is water for fire suppression when the lumber is on site. So as the rainy season was ending the tanks had to get set up and the large one filled and functional for fire use.

First Rob prepped the ground. He used his new tractor to bench out a flat spot. Next he used two of the metal bands from the old wine vat pool in our backyard to make curbing to contain the gravel foundation required for the tanks. He then had to move the tanks to their permanent location. We both pushed on the large tank to get it onto its side and then he rolled it next to its foundation.

Rob left the tank on its side so he could install the fire hose valve required by the CDF (California Dept. of Foresty). Installing the valve required Rob to climb into the tank several times, to cut the hole, vacuum cutting shavings and to screw on the inner part of the fitting.

Once the valve was installed, we upended both tanks and walked them into position so they were centered within the rings.

The last step was to fill the fire tank with water. There still was water running in the main creek and the draw. First Rob tried collecting water from the draw into a small tank and then pumping that to the fire tank. That was an exceedingly slow process and the amount of water coming down the draw was quickly decreasing. So he set up a really long run of hose and put the pump in the pool below the waterfall of the creek. This worked very well and only took about 45 minutes to fill the tank.

When the well pump and piping is installed water the system will allow the automatic filling of both the house and fire tanks. In the meantime we have water available if needed for a fire (god forbid).