Well Pressure Tanks and Fire Cisterns

Not all homes have a connection to the municipality water system. Your home, if it’s rural enough, could run on a well. There are still a lot of homes that use well water instead of city water. There are issues when it comes to fires.

When getting the water for a fire, the well pump needs to constantly run. This can lead to draining the well and burning out the motor on the pump. It’s a costly repair. Even without a fire, you can run the risk of damaging the pump. In a fire, you have the issue of the electricity being cut, which means you need to look out for other ways to manage the fire.

Avoid Too Much Sprinkler Use

You want to keep your garden looking beautiful. This can also help to reduce the risk of fire spreading as the grass and soil have water content to slow things down. However, to do this, you may end up running the sprinkler system all the time. This is a bad idea.

You’re putting pressure on the pump. At the same time, you’re dEdward you still homeraining the well at a larger-than-necessary rate. You’re also wasting energy. There are other ways to keep your grass green and flowers growing.

How Much Water Will You Have?

Your well will hold about 15 gallons of water. This is much less than a hot water tank, and it doesn’t go very far. You’ll want to upgrade your well if you can, and there are 85-gallon tanks out there.

Another consideration is the cut of power. This will prevent you from being able to get the water out of the well, and you’ll need a standby generator to help. You could also install a fire cistern.

A fire cistern will hold between 1800 and 2400 gallons of water. This is enough to tackle the majority of house fires, and you make wildfires a little easier to tackle for fire crews. If they know you have a fire cistern, they can come to you for help if the fire is in the local area.

Setting Up Your Fire Cistern

You’ll need to build a fire cistern around 50ft to 75ft from the house. If it’s any closer, the fire department won’t be able to get to it easily. You will need a building permit for it, but the majority of municipalities will approve it due to the need for fire safety.

Opt for the fire cistern to be near your turnaround, making it easier for fire crews to use it. This also makes it harder to use it for your own sprinkler system.

Your cistern is going to be around 7ft wide, 10ft long, and 8ft deep. This will hold around 1800 gallons of water, and it’s going to cost around $2500. This isn’t something to do yourself. There’s a lot of heavy machinery needed.