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Water Cistern Facts, by Rex X.
Cisterns have been used for water storage for thousands of years and continue to be used today. A cistern is a large water storage container that is often underground. Many of you will remember Masada where the Roman Legion had the Jews besieged. This mountain top fortress was able to hold out for as log as they did, in part, because of the large cisterns where they stored rain water. In fact without cisterns this would have been nothing other than another uninhabited mountain.
These water storage tanks can range up to thousands of gallons, or liters if you prefer. The size of your cistern should be determined by your water usage and the water source. If your water source is seasonal then a large enough capacity to get you through the dry spell would be real nice. A cistern can be above ground, below ground or partially buried. This storage is something of a midpoint in you water system sitting as it does, between the collection and distribution systems.
I grew up in a community where thousands of homes collected their water off the roof and stored it in a cistern. I have seen, used, and built many different cisterns. The first one I actually put together was an inexpensive above ground pool. We made a level spot near the eve of the roof and ran the down spouts from the gutter into the pool. While today I might question whether the plastic liner was appropriate for potable water, back then the question never came up. We drank from that pool for years and it didn’t affect me… affect me… affect me. Actually because of the price and ease of installation this type of cistern became fairly popular around the community for a couple decades. While they will last for a few years the plastic eventually deteriorates in the sun or the thin metal sides rot out so this is not a permanent solution. In a SHTF scenario your down spouts could be run to your in ground pool to collect what ever rain you do get and replenish what you have consumed. If this becomes part of your plan you might want to secure and store adequate downspout and/or pipe.
Another popular way to build a cistern is with a ten foot length of culvert. The suppliers would nest these starting with an eight foot culvert inside a larger and larger culvert till the largest was about twelve feet across. This greatly reduced shipping cost. Since the freight company cubes something like this you are essentially paying freight for only the largest culvert. The culverts need to be manufactured in such a manner as to have water tight seams. Delivered laying on its side it could be transported on the road with little problem. When placed on a low trailer the twelve foot height would fit under the power lines and the ten foot width was legal. The process is to dig a flat spot larger than the culvert to a depth that the top of the culvert will be lower than the eve of the house.
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