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Water Tank Location


mike2016

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Hi,

I've been assuming that I'd put the mains water tank in my attic along with a grey water header tank. I was just reading an old Passive House Plus magazine (issue 15 Ireland page 37) and noted one builder put the water tanks for his development in an insulated shed? at ground level so it can't burst and drain water through the house. It got me thinking....are there any pros/cons to siting the tank in the attic (water pressure?) vs at ground level provided space can be found for it. Would you put it in a shed at the back of the garden or a garage? I'm planning to use PEX but if the connection to the attic tank dislodged or failed, that's a lot of water in a timber framed house to lose....

Thoughts? 

 

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Why do you want a water tank, surely you should be looking at mains pressure for you domestic water.  Grey water (shower discharge) (why) the collection would be subterranean, you could put a header in the attic as it is for supplying toilets etc but again pressure supply from the tank.

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We're recommended by the council to have 24 hours supply in the house. Lots of leaks all over Dublin and they occasionally drop the water pressure or cut it off entirely due to supply issues. Only going to get worse unfortunately with 11,000 more houses planned beside me...

I'm planning to collect rainwater, rather than shower water and reuse it in cisterns / washing machine. Prefer a header tank rather than direct from underground storage tank to avoid cycling the pump every time I pee...! 

 

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A cold mains accumulator is the ideal solution here, or probably two of them to give you the 24hrs capacity requirement. 

They're passive, so no pumps and no electricity / electrical connection. 

I'm specifying this solution for a couple of clients with them residing in outdoor plant locations, suitably draught-proofed, and protected against frost.

One of the major benefits is they are potable ( drinking quality water ) and comply for a whole of house solution, plus you'll have an artificially reinforced cold mains with phenomenal cold water flow rates to boot, so running multiple showers / other hot & cold outlets simultaneously etc will be a great side-effect of their integration. 

Storing water outside of the heated envelope is preferential so when you open a cold tap, the water is cold. Frost mitigation for the outside plant location would be via a simple couple-of-hundred watts of tubular electric heater via a frost stat. 

A pair of 500L accumulators would get you through a 48hr period with ease if your disciplined with your water consumption in the emergency times. 

Consider a large CWS ( coffin ) tank and running the WC's off gravity, but RWH systems would need to treat the water most likely as flushing loos with it would release small amounts of aerosol spray into the immediate surroundings. Best to check on that as I'm not fluent in that type of system.   

Id spend the money on accumulators and ditch the RWH other than for watering the garden. I would think twice about the cost / complexity of bringing that water into the dwelling. 

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Fyi. You can fit tanks in an attic and mitigate against leaks. You basically get a sheet of marine ply, make some 100x18mm pine up stands all round, and GRP it to make a giant drip tray. EDPM rubber membrane may be an easier DIY method. You then just run an oversized overflow pipe 32mm minimum to atmosphere ( roof eave etc ) from the drip tray.  

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1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said:

Fyi. You can fit tanks in an attic and mitigate against leaks. You basically get a sheet of marine ply, make some 100x18mm pine up stands all round, and GRP it to make a giant drip tray. EDPM rubber membrane may be an easier DIY method. You then just run an oversized overflow pipe 32mm minimum to atmosphere ( roof eave etc ) from the drip tray.  

Now I always wondered why drip trays for say water tanks , storage tanks etc don’t exist ! . Always seemed like an obvious precaution....

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33 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of uk homes have CWS tanks in the attic which haven't leaked for 20/30/40+ years ! 

"If it ain't broke" and all that :/

I had a hot water tank leak once :-( 

drip tray with outlet would of been nice 

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