rainwater tank to attic without pump?

scub_a

I am thinking of getting a water storage tank of 5000L. Placing it at the gable of the house and filling it from the roof water, clear of leaves etc.

Now my question is, if my mains is froozen or power is off (twice in the last week due to storm) would the weight of the water in this tank be sufficient to force the water up a garden hose to fill the water tank in the attic for toilets.

The house is a bungalow.

I'm looking for a cheap solution for this winter (and probably next winter) with hoping I could afford a more filtered, buried solution at some point in the future.

Buford T Justice

I doubt very much that it'll push the water higher than the level of whats in the tank

scub_a

Can't remember my secondary physics, but would that not be the case if pressure on both sides were equal?

If the tank were full, it would have atmospheric pressure + weight of water above the opening and I would hazzard a guess size of the actual opening impacting the equality.

So a half inch garden hose, would have a faily powerful output on a full tank?

yoshytoshy

Rain falls to ground ,wouldn't matter if it was in a tank or not.
If you were having trouble with water freezing in the house ,what makes you think the outdoor one would be any different ?

Spannerman7

no, the water will be at the same level no matter what the vol or area of the storage tank, the only way it would work is to put the tank on a tower above the level of the attic tank, now you do realise that is 5 tonne of water, it will take a long time to freeze but the pipe comming from it will freeze very quickly.
some type of hand/battery powered pump and a ground level storage would be easier, I would think you could get by on less than 100ltr/day if you had to.

scub_a

Yes, I had realised the weight issue alright.

A battery pump would be ideal, did a quick online search and found them instantly €30 and claims to pump 350 litres and hour.

The thought was to only connect the hose as required and store it in the garage. So it shouldn't freeze and the tank is roughly 2m in height so hopefully shouldn't fully freeze before a thaw sets in. Or that is what I was hoping....

scub_a

oh I ment to say thanks for the replies

yoshytoshy

scub_a wrote: »

Yes, I had realised the weight issue alright.

A battery pump would be ideal, did a quick online search and found them instantly €30 and claims to pump 350 litres and hour.

The thought was to only connect the hose as required and store it in the garage. So it shouldn't freeze and the tank is roughly 2m in height so hopefully shouldn't fully freeze before a thaw sets in. Or that is what I was hoping....

If your using a pump ,maybe just connect a hose to the feed of the pump and throw it into the tank. That way you won't have to worry about the outlet of the tank freezing.

You can syphon a hose to get water to the pump.

quickdraw2

Google "water ram pump"

or airlift pulser pump

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOn7Zu3CCxo

you may need a much bigger resevoir tank as the ratio of water / water pumped looks to be poor.

Consider Solar powered pumps, or wind power direct drive pump.

the youtube link seems to be the easiest.