Sunday, May 9, 2010

Home Ag: Fixin' the Cistern!

NOTICE: Second post today!

I feel very fortunate that my house came with a cistern; a now all-but forgotten source of fresh water. A cistern is a large underground storage space for water, which is generally supplied by rain collected by the house's roof.
My cistern is located on the north wall of my house, and has no clear design feature for filling it. I plan on using aboveground courrogated drain pipe to move rainwater from the eaves through the access hatch visable in the picture, and to use a sump pump to actually use this water to irrigate my crops.
In order to do this I need to run both a water pipe and an extension cord down the raised hole on the right side of the picture, and fish them out through the access hatch to attach them to a pump. Most likely this will be easier said than done, but in the end will be well worth it, as this is a source of FREE water for irrigating both my garden and my lawn!

As of right now the only function that my cistern serves is to provide a home for a single frog! Currently the cistern holds about two inches of water, and as you can see the wreckage of the old wellhead pump are still in there. Once I have a pump in there and connect the eaves to it, the frog will have to move out... Sorry, but I now officially need the stored rain water...

2 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

That was my deletion. I goofed up my comment.

Need to know... where will the frog live?!? ~Mom