water tower or not

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maaka
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water tower or not

Post by maaka » October 23, 2019, 3:09 pm

this one is doing my head in..we live out in the wops where it is still the 1970's. the power are water are menapusal and go off most nights..our rice fields are rolling heather this year due to lack of rain, so moi had a bore drilled thinking I would be a god unto myself and would be wallowing in it..then I thought I would need a Stalag 13 like machine gun tower to house the tank, so as to have storage and pressure and height to fill our standby house tank...now the price had been muted, and the missus is in my ear, because she wants a car before any ruddy water tower...but now I am wondering which way to jump..do I need a tower, how does the sometimes muddy water settle the sediment before going in my house tank, do I need a filter, I tell ya, what started off as a simple idea now give me sleepless night and a sore ear..



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sometimewoodworker
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Re: water tower or not

Post by sometimewoodworker » October 23, 2019, 3:37 pm

A little more information would be useful.

What are you trying to accomplish?

Our house has moderate water pressure at all times when the power is off and great pressure when it is on. The water appears to be clear but has a very small amount of suspended dirt.

Our house water tank is at about 3 metres above the outlets with a pump near it. Our house water pipes are 1” up to the outlet.

We have big reserve storage tanks (about 6 weeks supply) at ground level that can be pumped up to the House tank if the village water is cut off
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Khun Paul
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Re: water tower or not

Post by Khun Paul » October 23, 2019, 5:10 pm

Well I have the Stainless steel tanks and the wonderful fact about those is that the water is taken out some three to four inches above the bottom and any sediment falls down . If you pump water to your house when the pressure is down, then you do not need a tower , just gravity feed your house tank from other tanks .
I do it works fine just fill one tank the rest automatically fill up .

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Re: water tower or not

Post by glalt » October 23, 2019, 7:33 pm

Double post
Last edited by glalt on October 23, 2019, 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: water tower or not

Post by glalt » October 23, 2019, 8:04 pm

glalt wrote:
October 23, 2019, 7:33 pm
A bit off topic but here's my story. In our village the water goes off nearly everyday. My wife had a 3 meter high tower put up with a 500 liter tank on top. After I moved up here, I told her it wasn't high enough. She told me that any higher the village water wouldn't be able to fill it. The shower was a little weak but OK. Winter came along and no way was I going to be happy with a cold shower. I went and bought a shower heater. There wasn't enough water pressure to make the pressure switch in the heater. From there it was back to town to buy a water pump. I got everything plumbed and tested it. Off went all the lights. I then discovered the a single fuse ran the entire house. Back to town to buy a breaker box. No way was I going to pull cables through the attic. She found a guy to do that. He worked a day and a half crawling through spider webs and dust stringing cables. I gave him 500 baht and caught hell from my wife for giving him too much. I told her that I wouldn't even climb up there for 500 baht. At least I had a working hot water shower. Since then the 500 liter tank came down and I put an 1.800 liter tank on the ground. No more running out of water. A mechanical float valve keeps the tank full. The tank on the tower had no float valve and the water had to be turned off when the tank overflowed.

Having a higher tower built was too expensive and created more problems. I would have needed another tank on the ground and another pump to pump water up the tower. That plan was discarded. Since then I have added another 3,000 liters of water storage. My garage/workshop has a bathroom and it has its own water system and shower heater.

My last problem has not been solved. The electric grid here stinks. My solar system battery bank will run the water pump but not the shower heater. I considered an LPG shower heater but don't really trust them. I decided on a tank type water heater. It would store enough hot water for a couple showers but I have had no luck finding one with a good thermostat that will go low enough and I don't want to fool around with mixer valves. I want one that will go as low as 30 C. I don't like really hot water and a body temperature shower is comfortable.

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maaka
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Re: water tower or not

Post by maaka » October 23, 2019, 8:21 pm

what am I trying to acheive..good question..a endless supply of water for house and fields..
we have 2000lt spare tank as it is, which collects rain water, but go also be filled from the village supply, but there are times, now every night where ther is no village water, and as we use our spare tank, if rain was not to happen, we run the chance of running out at some stage in the future...a bore was backup, but rigged to fill the house tank and water our gardens and fields, if enough water....thats how I see it

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Re: water tower or not

Post by glalt » October 23, 2019, 10:10 pm

Talking about bore holes, my wife planted a lot of rice this year. A friend of mine always called where we live the high desert. This year he was right. We have not had near enough rain. My wife's uncle has a drilling rig and he told her he needed some work. He told her he would drill her a guaranteed good well for 25,000 baht. I told her that by the time she has a well drilled, buys a submersible pump and a big enough generator to power it, it would cost her more money than her crop would bring.. Her uncle told her that a surface pump powered by our tak tak would do the job. I doubted that but told her it was up to her since she was paying for it. I was wrong. It must be a good bore hole because the tak tak powered pump has been pumping 24 hours a day and has not lost suction. she complains about buying the diesel fuel but her rice looks pretty good. Whether she makes any money is another question.

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sometimewoodworker
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Re: water tower or not

Post by sometimewoodworker » October 23, 2019, 10:14 pm

How many people? The usual guide is 100L~200L per person per day household use only.
Do you want to have a shower?
Or use a Thai shower?
Do you want to have a shower when the power is off!

A 2000 Lire tank will keep a house of 2 in water for about a week without using anything for the garden or field
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Barney
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Re: water tower or not

Post by Barney » October 23, 2019, 10:33 pm

Maaka
I think you are looking as part of your solution is to have water in the house from a tank when the power goes out, hence a tower for pressure. Doesn’t matter how much storage if you ain’t got power, right.
I have noticed in Do Home an irrigation pump system using solar.
Turn right in the front and you will see solar panels and a electrical pump set up. I did not look at it in detail.
Might be a good system to put water into your house in times of a short term fix or need.
Nothing worse than only getting one flush from the cistern. Especially if your 2nd in the morning.
If you go the tower don’t forget the huge weight of water. Reason most towers only have 500 liter tanks to save on structure and footings.


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maaka
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Re: water tower or not

Post by maaka » October 24, 2019, 6:05 am

good one guys..yes the tak tak is a good one and would suit us, as our rice is a goner this year..
we have water at 7m down the bore pipe to the bottom at 55m
yes our 2000lt house tank does us good when there is no village supply, but when its down to half full its a dribble, as we only gravity, not pump.its on a 1m tank stand, but the shower rose is at half tank height, so I was going to install a 12v solar pump in that line..we have two lines, village and tank..
yup Barney, right on Mate..I was aiming for a 1000lt tank which equates to one ton of water, so we were looking at 6x 6 legs and 1m deep foundations..and I wanted a room under the tank , as the tank which must be 3.2m off the ground in order to gravity feed the house tank..so all up it tower would be 5m / 6m high..= 3,2 x 2.4...

I guess I am a guy who looks to the future. I have my own backup power supply now, and water, its just what I do with it that gives me a headache..but we have lost a crop this year due to lack of rain, and the village supply is getting worse, so just hedging my bets..it might come to do away with the tower, and just have the surface pump, which I need to suck up the water anyway..

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kopkei
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Re: water tower or not

Post by kopkei » October 24, 2019, 7:48 am

when coming from big c (bridge) going direction sakon on the 22 ,50m past the thalaad thai siri on the left side is a guy selling solar powered pumps , he has 2 systems (big/small)showed working next to the road ,can not miss it ....
connecting a solar powered (battery supported) system is a way to always have water in case of electricity failure ...
you can set up as many water tanks as you want to have a small or big supply of water ...
a water tower from 10M high will give you a water pressure of 1bar , going lower the more far the head is ...
as info ... ;)

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Re: water tower or not

Post by noosard » October 24, 2019, 8:05 am

Pumping water to get a rice crop is not really practical the cost will eat any rice
We use to pump out of a small canal sometimes for days so a lot of water
Your bore supply would have to great to do this
But a tower for water for the house is worthwhile
Not have here but relie on town water and 3 tanks but need power for the pump for pressure
we can switch to town water but pressure is bad or water could be off as well
WE have put a good filter inline for the house it is surprising how much dirt is in the water

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Re: water tower or not

Post by sometimewoodworker » October 24, 2019, 1:38 pm

our 2000lt house tank does us good when there is no village supply, but when its down to half full its a dribble, as we only gravity, not pump.its on a 1m tank stand, but the shower rose is at half tank height, so I was going to install a 12v solar pump in that line..we have two lines, village and tank..
yup Barney, right on Mate..I was aiming for a 1000lt tank which equates to one ton of water, so we were looking at 6x 6 legs and 1m deep foundations..and I wanted a room under the tank , as the tank which must be 3.2m off the ground in order to gravity feed the house tank..
You may be a little fixated on supplying your house tank, it will at best give a very slow flow even when full.

If instead of that you make a 500 litre tank at least 3 meters above your shower head your main house supply with the current 2000 litre tank your reserve for when the village water or power is cut you will always have a reasonable (still a little low) flow.

You can feed the high tank with a cheap pump and float switch from the 2000L tank if you need to.

If the village supply is strong enough to fill the high tank you can control that with a ball valve.

You should not involve the house storage tanks with the field watering as the fields will need many hundreds of cubic metres of water. You can certainly feed the house tanks from your own well while using the main supply for the fields though if you are going to try that you need at least a 6” bore for a small area.

For field watering you would be much better advised to dig a large pool, our main one is around 2,000 cubic metres and that would be small for a farm
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maaka
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Re: water tower or not

Post by maaka » October 24, 2019, 3:16 pm

Thanks for that sometimewoodworker... that made me look at it from the opposite direction altogether.
still means a water tower but your focus is more on village supply to fill it, rather than well ..
ponds will need a pump too..and a tak tak to drive it....
oyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

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Re: water tower or not

Post by glalt » October 24, 2019, 4:45 pm

The area where my wife has the most rice planted has a fairly large pond. She irrigated out of the pond and when it was getting low, that's when she had the well drilled. The tak tak powered pump puts out a 4 inch stream of water. One day of pumping 24 hours puts out a great deal of water. I was amazed that the pump never lost suction. The bore hole is a 6 inch and 50 meters deep.

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Re: water tower or not

Post by sometimewoodworker » October 24, 2019, 6:26 pm

maaka wrote:
October 24, 2019, 3:16 pm
Thanks for that sometimewoodworker... that made me look at it from the opposite direction altogether.
still means a water tower but your focus is more on village supply to fill it, rather than well ..
ponds will need a pump too..and a tak tak to drive it....
oyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
The village supply is usually strong enough to fill My high level ready use tank, but sometimes the supply is cut or the pressure is low. I do not have to take any actions to keep the main tank full as it’s automatic unless we have a cut exceeding around 2 weeks. If that happens I turn on one of the 2 reserve tanks this gives us at least 2~4 weeks more before we have to arrange for a tanker to fill our reserves.

My setup is the 3 X 2.5kl ground level tanks that are filled from the village supply controlled by a ball valve, when they are full (they usually are) I turn off 2 of them as a 2nd reserve.

The pressure from the village supply is almost always enough to fill our tank that is about 4 ½ metres above floor level (3 metres above the shower head) this is controlled by a normal ball valve. In that tank there is also a float switch that powers a cheap pump down by our ground level reserve tanks. This float switch is set to a lower fill level than the ball valve so the pump flow is never stopped by the ball valve (so no pressure switch on the pump)

The only way I know that the village supply is low pressure or cut off is if I notice the sound of the pumped water filling the ready use tank. Though sometimes our neighbours have asked if we have had problems with the weeks of no village water, we hadn’t noticed, :D

We have a normal house water pump by the ready use tank that can be set to blow your socks off (4~5.5 bar) we find that 2.5 bar to 3 bar is plenty, if the power is cut we have about 0.3 bar which is enough for a gentle shower.

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Low level cheap pump
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High level house pump
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Re: water tower or not

Post by glalt » October 24, 2019, 8:37 pm

If I had it to do over, I would have climbed up the three meter high tower and put a mechanical float valve in the 500 liter tank. It is dark blue color and the water gets pretty warm when the sun is shining. With manual valves it would have been good for a shower when the power is off.

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Re: water tower or not

Post by sometimewoodworker » October 24, 2019, 11:17 pm

glalt wrote:
October 24, 2019, 8:37 pm
If I had it to do over, I would have climbed up the three meter high tower and put a mechanical float valve in the 500 liter tank. It is dark blue color and the water gets pretty warm when the sun is shining. With manual valves it would have been good for a shower when the power is off.
That's why we have the ball valve, as its in the roof we get about 30~35 degree water, maybe a quite a bit less in the cold season. If it were outside it would probably be several degrees warmer.
Jerome and Nui's new househttp://bit.ly/NJnewHouse

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Re: water tower or not

Post by mickojak » October 25, 2019, 3:40 am

Maaka,
Another idea.
Have you 500lt tank up high.
Run a small windmill to pump water from large ground tank up to 500lt tank.
Run an overflow out of 500lt tank back to large ground tank.
Windmill can then run night and day.
Only needs to be a trickle.
Youd be surprised how much water that is.
500lt tank will always be full for free.

That what im setting up for rain water collection.
Mick

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Re: water tower or not

Post by glalt » October 25, 2019, 9:54 am

Windmills? I can remember MANY years ago that my grandfather had a windmill to keep the livestock water tanks full. One reason that I remember so well is that once in a while I had to use the old hand pump to top them up. It really wasn't too bad because there were lots of grandkids to take turns. Maybe once a year or so, someone had to climb up there to grease the gears and shafts. The old windmill creaked and groaned to let you know when it needed greased.

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