Booster pump and tank

[Gerrie]

Hi guys

I have a problem with very unreliable municipal water at my holiday place that falls under Ugu muncipality (basically bankrupt or collapsed) on the KZN south coast. It seems they are in the same predicament as Eskom and have no answers or solutions to the water outages in this area. Water can be off for sometimes 2 weeks at a time and no garantree it will stay on in future. They basically load shed water and only pump water to certain areas on certain days, due to only one pump in operation. My neighbours suggested I invest in a tank that is kept full when there is water and pump it to the house when there is no water from municipality.  Most people in the area are doing this but I don't know how this works. Can anybody with knowledge of these systems please explain the working behind this or point me to a web site with info. Will be appreciated. 

[Wilfred]

There are, go to browse, forums, then check out “water heating & pumping” some good ideas there. It is also the next thing I am looking into.

It is on this forum.

seems I can’t share links, search for this

rainwater-home-supply-assembly, pump, tanks etc

Edited December 21, 2019 by Wilfred

[GVC]

This problem is starting to get out of hand. We went camping in St Lucia earlier in the year and found that the municipality were only pumping water for something like 4hrs a day. Although there were water tanks all over, it was a schlep trying to find out which of the 3 ablution facilities had water each day.

[PJJ]

11 hours ago, Gerrie said:

My neighbours suggested I invest in a tank that is kept full when there is water and pump it to the house when there is no water from municipality.

This is exactly what I have setup at my house as well, in "normal" conditions we have water from 5AM-7PM but a water shortage combined with bad upkeep of the water system has led to us also going days without water, the only reason I ever realized it was off for so long was because I had builders mixing cement and they emptied out my tank.

It seems to be better now and back to "normal" but you would never be able to live in my area without a tank and pressure pump.

[Gerrie]

12 hours ago, GVC said:

This problem is starting to get out of hand.

Yeh, I have canceled a few trips to my holiday home since March this year because every-time I wanted to go there, there were no water. So now this is at a point where I am considering a borehole with a tank and filter system to try and solve this problem what will be next? No fuel?

[Wilfred]

I am also looking into this, getting at least a 5000 liter tank for backup, want to basically have the municipality water circulate everyday and just have this for backup if and when the water is gone.

Problem is, you have no idea or warning if the water is not coming to your house like an inverter telling you the grid is gone. Unfortunately 5000 liter of water will only last my household 2 days if they don’t work sparingly, could extend that to 4-5 days if we know the water is cutoff.

I am looking into capturing rainwater only for garden use. Basically store now and use later in the week.

Also looking into capturing “grey water” (from basin’s, bath tubs and/or shower) to use for the toilets. I really don’t want to store grey water, it must immediately go, but to figure out how many grey water we might produce is another story.

Then the other option is a 2000 liter tank for swimming pool backwash water recycling, back to your swimming pool. A friend of mine already did the swimming pool one and the municipality “battery”, I need to visit him to see his setup as well.

[DeepBass9]

On 2019/12/22 at 7:00 AM, GVC said:

This problem is starting to get out of hand. We went camping in St Lucia earlier in the year and found that the municipality were only pumping water for something like 4hrs a day. Although there were water tanks all over, it was a schlep trying to find out which of the 3 ablution facilities had water each day.

I must have been there at the same time. That was due to low water in the estuary apparently.

[Gerrie]

23 hours ago, Wilfred said:

I am looking into capturing rainwater only for garden use. Basically store now and use later in the week.

Friends of mine in Port Edward are catching rain water and it is then used together with municipal water to their home taps with booster pump, they buy bottled water for drinking and cooking. They done this when they were without municipal water for about three weeks and are now used to the system. This area has quite high rainfall which also helps a-lot.