Many people use cisterns to save money on their cold water use.
How big of a cistern for roof size.
While using only one large tank can save space it may also leave your water supply vulnerable if something goes wrong.
The size of your cistern tank will be determined by where you want to use and store it.
Enter your annual rainfall average a peak monthly average for the amount you can catch in a stormy month or a.
Just a half inch of rain falling on a 1 000 square foot roof will yield 300 gallons of water.
Remember these words of wisdom when designing your roof catchment cistern.
You pay for a large cistern once and a small one forever.
While it is possible to estimate the amount of necessary materials using only the total roof area measurement as can be seen from the table depending how large the pitch of the roof the actual area of the roof can differ by up to 2 236 from the measured total area at a pitch of 24 12.
When you look at the numbers it s surprising how much water you can collect every time it rains.
This capacity should eliminate having to buy or haul water a practice that is not only inconvenient but can become somewhat costly.
Pitch is not a factor.
For example if your shed or facility has a pitched roof you could put one large tank at one end of the building to capture all water or you could place smaller half sized tanks at each end of the building.
Modern steel tanks have a long life polymer coating on the inside and a wide range of shapes and sizes are available.
This depends on the size of your roof area.
A minimum storage capacity of 5000 gallons is recommended for domestic cisterns.
The most common tank materials are plastic polyethylene concrete and coated steel.
Step 5 plan it out.
If you are looking to add a cistern tank to your home business or industrial facility determining the size of the cistern tank will be calculated based on your location tank and supply requirements.
This means the tank can be no larger than the space you have dedicated for cold water storage.
Selecting a cistern tank for your home or business.
It is one of the factors in determing your tank size.
Rainwater tank size.
Use our rainwater calculator to estimate your average annual catchment potential.
To get an idea how much water the roof of your own house might yield use the rainfall harvest calculator above.
Approximately 150m the roof of an average 4 bedroom house is approximately 200m the roof of an average 5 bedroom house is.
This calculator helps you understand how much you can capture in a year i e.
Measure the flat footprint area covered by the roof or by each roof segment.
The size of your residence and your household needs should determine the size of the rainwater.
Hooking a cistern up in this manner will require you to store the cistern near the pipes.
The best way to ensure you are going to use the right size tank is to draw.
The roof of an average 3 bedroom house is.
Besides capture you will need to determine how much water you need i e.