In line water storage tank or pressure tank question

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joshuani

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Hello, was hoping for some advice. I live in AZ in a rural area on a community well. Some times the well goes out for a few hours. I want to install a 20-30 gallon tank in my garage to have as a back up for a short time when and if the well goes out for maintenance or unpredicted breakdowns. The well is about a mile away and is owned by a local water company. Can I install one of those pressure tanks I see near private wells in my garage? I know those are mainly used to keep a private well's pump from running all the time but will it work for my purpose of having some spare water if the well goes out?
 
And now my thoughts on it.

Yes, this will give you a reserve of waters. You would need to install a check valve on the main before the tank, so that it won't push back into the main when the community well goes down.

The biggest challenge that I can see is knowing when the supply goes down, so you don't use all of your reserve doing laundry or showering, and then suddenly find yourself out of water anyway.

I would go pretty big with your bladder tank, so you will have enough water for a few smaller tasks.
 
Phishfood, thank you so much for your help. Good to know about the check valve too.
 
You will need about an 80 gallon size pressure tank to hold 25 gallons of water. If the pressure in the house is already low when the water stops coming, there won't be anything in the bladder tank either.

A cistern type storage tank using a booster pump before the pressure tank is the only sure way to have water stored when they shut off the supply.

You can also just keep a few 5 gallon jugs in a closet for when all else fails.
 
The biggest challenge that I can see is knowing when the supply goes down, so you don't use all of your reserve doing laundry or showering, and then suddenly find yourself out of water anyway.
Along with the check valve you could put a ball valve in line to keep the tank full until needed. Like the other guys said you will need a large bladder tank. The largest one sold is the Zilmet ZHP-451 which holds 52.8 gallons at 50 lbs. It's a monster.

I like the cistern idea better too. You could trap 500 gallons in a tank no bigger than 4' X 4' X 4.5' and with a small jet or submersible pump have 500 gallons to use.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. The house is new and was plumbed with two 1" copper lines coming out of the wall in the garage designed specifically for a pressure tank or something similar. It was plumbed in by the plumber because he was aware of the crappy well issues the neighborhood is on. It's in a space next to the water softener and water heater. The space is about 20" x 20". I was hoping to just put in a tank that is already pressurized without having to install a pump for it. Wasn't sure if those tanks had enough pressure to keep the flow going. The water pressure is pretty good right now without the added tank its just hit or miss on whether or not we will have water at all every now and then. Only happens about 3x a year.
 
Pressure tanks are not already pressurized with water, and can't "supply" pressure to keep the flow going. They only store what pressure and volume they receive from a pump. You wouldn't know the neighborhood water was even off until the pressure tank was empty, then there is nothing to refill it.

If you let the pressure tank with an inlet check valve fill from the neighborhood water supply then close a ball valve, you will have a few gallons to use when you open the ball valve. But the water in the pressure tank may have been sitting in there so long it will be green when it comes out of the faucet.

A cistern type storage tank would stay topped off from the neighborhood water supply. So when the water supply goes off, you will still have a cistern full of water. But water will not magically flow into the house. You will need a booster pump with a pressure tank to bring water from the cistern to the house.
 
First of all understand that tanks don't make pressure, they simply store water at the same pressure as your plumbing. That loop in your garage is designed for a water softener.

A tank that would fit into a 20" X 20" space would hold around 9 gallons of water maximum. With a properly setup bladder tank, you could use the 9 gallons (assuming it was topped off when the well quit) then the pressure would go to zero abruptly. This is how bladder tanks work.
 
The water softener is already installed where they plumbed in the loop. Next to the softener they plumbed in the rough in for the "pressure tank". Just relaying what the plumber said he did. Guess I better get a plumber out here to figure it out, I just thought it was a simple task since they roughed it in already. Thanks again everyone.
 

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