Home made water tank.

[ozwinner]

Welcome back Viewer.

With all this talk about water tanks and water conservation, I have a hankering to make a water tank for our garden use out of core fill concrete blocks.

What I need to know off any engineers out there is, will it be strong enough?

Heres what I am thinking of doing.

100mm Concrete base (with rio) with starter bars to suit the 490x190x190mm hollow blocks, and water proofer in the mortar.. .
Hollow blocks with 12mm rio every course, and 90 degree bends at the corners.
Core fill with concrete with water proofer in the concrete.
Paint the inside with bituminous paint.

The tank could be 4M long by 1.5M wide by 1.8M high..
I could also have include cross walls inside to add added strength if needed.

For the lid I could just use form ply seeing as how its waterproof.

What do ya reckon?

Al

[abitfishy]

Makes it sound a lot easier to buy a plastic tank and install it yourself.

[Big Shed]

Makes it sound a lot easier to buy a plastic tank and install it yourself.

Maybe not if you are a bricklayer...............

[abitfishy]

Whatever turns you on. If brick is your thing I guess its the way to go. Just hope you never need to move the thing Al.

[watson]

G'day AL,
on a brickoligist course I did, I asked the instructor the same question. He was enthusiastic about the idea and made lots of suggestions such as:

external piers every metre on the long walls
and metal cross ties between opposite piers.
He said that an internal wall would be necessary with an opening in the bottom.

He also suggested that I investigate making it circular instead of rectangular.
I never got around to it, and bought a concrete tank instead.

Regards,
Noel

[ozwinner]

Circular would be good, but I have a nice rectangular useless spot in the garden.
If we ever move to some acreage as we intend to do, I will build all the tanks from blocks buried in the ground.

I worked on one many years ago in Beaufort and it was the size of an Olympic pool, and it was buried too.

Al

[outback]

Please be aware my thoughts come from someone who knows ####all about this.

I think your base needs to be 150mm, and I would plaster the interior for waterproofing instead of the bitumenousstuff. I just think it would last better. We have a few square concrete tanks with atrough attached, designed for stock watering near here. All are about 4M square. Most of thet anks could probably be recommisioned as they look Ok, but the troughs were poured after, so have big gaps between them and the tank.

I know the area is a rectangle, but would a square help distribute the presure better than a rectangle?

[echnidna]

I had a place years ago that had a circular water tank done with normal bricks. It held water ok.
It was rendered inside over chicken wire.
Dunno of it had any reo in the courses

[SPIRIT]

l would be worried about empandtion with heat ect over short time cracks will start thats why they were dug into the ground also
l have seen one also in the ground cant you dig yours in a bit

[Harry72]

What if you used one of them plastic liners, not being exposed to sun light they'd last forever.
How would you do the water outlet in the bessa/brick?

[journeyman Mick]

Al,
don't you mean 390 x 190 x 190 blocks? You'd need to talk to an engineer of course, but my gut feeling is that you'd need 16mm or larger Y bar, at least in the bottom half. I'd also recomend you use a silasec and cement mix painted on the inside to waterproof over which you can also paint a bituminous coating. I reckon you'll need a 250 x 250 slab edge thickening with a couple of Y bars in it. Definitely worth checking with an engineer to save an expensive (and embaressing) failure.

Mick

[ozwinner]

Al,
don't you mean 390 x 190 x 190 blocks? You'd need to talk to an engineer of course, but my gut feeling is that you'd need 16mm or larger Y bar, at least in the bottom half. I'd also recomend you use a silasec and cement mix painted on the inside to waterproof over which you can also paint a bituminous coating. I reckon you'll need a 250 x 250 slab edge thickening with a couple of Y bars in it. Definitely worth checking with an engineer to save an expensive (and embaressing) failure.

Mick

Yep 390mm blocks, I was thinking they finish off at 400mm, so they sort of grew...

Al

[pawnhead]

How would you do the water outlet in the bessa/brick?

Just a pipe from the bottom, straight up over the top, and back down the outside to a tap. When it's full of water, it's a permanent siphon. If the siphon ever runs dry from an empty tank, just use your mains tap, and a hose, to charge it up again.

[SilentButDeadly]

I know everyone likes a challenge but....

Given the space you have (4m x 1.5 m) then I could fit three round 600 gallon (2700L) poly tanks in roughly that space (each less than 1.5m in diameter) AND you'd get more volume in them than you will in your brick tank...

[Big Shed]

I know everyone likes a challenge but....

Given the space you have (4m x 1.5 m) then I could fit three round 600 gallon (2700L) poly tanks in roughly that space (each less than 1.5m in diameter) AND you'd get more volume in them than you will in your brick tank...

4*1.5*1.8 = 10.8, ie 10800 litres in the proposed brick tank, 3*2700 = 9100 litres in 3 round tanks