we got tanked last week...

Rainwater tanked!

Our rainwater tank got installed about a week and a half ago and our gutters got installed last Friday (at least the one for the garage that goes to the tank). Unfortunately, we missed the big rains that have passed through town the past few weeks (buh-bye 3,000 gallons of rainwater...), but we are ready for the next rains.

The first thing we had to do was clear a spot to lay down six inches of sand base for the tank:

We then had to have four yards of sand delivered to the house:

and then lay down a level base of sand in a 15-foot diameter:

With that done, the installers showed up and installed the tank:

The green stuff is there to protect the liner from the bolts holding the tank together.

The pipe to the right is the overflow pipe. The line of string running down is the level indicator.

It's a BIG tank: that sucker will hold 5,000 gallons of the wet stuff. It's a liner based system where the water is held by a liner:

 

Looking inside the finished tank. All that black stuff is the liner.

The white piping is for the overflow.

The lighted area is a screen and is where the water comes into the tank.

With the tank in, we could finally get the gutters installed. The gutters are the last item on the punch list with the builder and have been on hold until the tank went in. When the gutters on the house are finished, we'll be closing out (paying the last bit of the retainage) with the builder.

Here's what the gutter man improvised for the rainwater tank.

The vertical bit is vertical gutter but here is only being used to hold up the gutter extension over the tank. It looks good and looks like it will work good. We'll run a rain chain from the downspout to the tank.

Close up of the level gage. It's sitting on the ground cause that there tank is empty.

Back view of the tank. I turned the overflow pipe to be up against the tank and allow more of a path between the tank and the horno. Prolly need to paint that PVC silver...

Farther around the back is a ladder (cute!) which gains human access to the inside of the tank if needed (which is how I snapped photos of the interior). Hard to see, but to the right of the tank at the bottom is the outlet with a ball valve. That's where the water comes out when needed.

And there she is in all her glory! May the rains come soon!

I'll be giving a keynote at an upcoming American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association annual meeting in Austin and touch on our system in case you are in town and want to know more about the system or rainwater in general.