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I am thinking about buying or making a frame to keep my catchment cover out of the water. Right now my cover is draped over the tank with water bottles tied to it to keep it from falling into the pool. I have seen from afar the frames that hold up the center of the cover but I don't know what they are made of, also don't know if they attach to the edge of the pool or if they stand on the ground outside the pool. I was wondering if its possible to make something out of PVC that would work as well as the ones they sell. I would appreciate any information on the subject names of businesses or people to call or the average cost of a frame.Mahalo
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I have seen people use large beach balls.
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I saw a picture somewhere.. of a pvc frame.. I assume the thicker stuff, the ends that met the tank were just 90 elbows that sat on the rim. The center piece that connects it all is the tricky part. Perhaps a bunch of elbows zip tied/ cemented together would be doable.
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Donnie - I've used the beach ball technique. It works and is a cheap option. I used one of those exercise/fitness balls though as they're much more durable. The only issue I had, a minor one, was if the water level was low, the ball would float anywhere in the tank, so when it filled again it was rarely in the middle of the tank. The use of a large stick would take care of that though.
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Thank you for your comments, I like it idea of the balls, I think it will work well for me. Mahalo
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The frames you speak of are 1" 10-foot galvanized steel electrical conduit. Five of them attach in the center with a receiver you buy at one of the water catchment supply stores. The ensemble sits on top of your tank, and your cover goes over it.
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I bought three 10' x 20' shade clothes from Ace Hardware and criss-crossed them over the center of my 15' diameter tank to get full coverage as well as getting extra thick coverage over most of the tank. The nature of the cloth I got from Ace is that it is quite stretchy like a new sock when the elastic is still good. I am able to pull it down tight and it seals over the edge of the tank perfectly and is stretched taught across the top. It hardly sags at all. I have a 2' x 2' x 1" piece of styro-foam floating in the center of the tank that holds up my floating pump suction. Sometimes when it is raining, the tank is full, and the cover is heavy I can see the outline of the foam square under the cover but I never see any ponding. The foam square is tethered so that it stays in the center of the tank with monofilament fishing line and stainless steel counter-weights. The tethers need to be long enough so that they still operate when the tank is almost empty so basically each tether is long enough to run from the lip of the tank down to the bottom and across to the float in the center. The weight goes where it will hang near the bottom of the tank when the water is that low. For a tank 7' tall and 7' radius that is in the middle of a 14' tether.
I honestly think this is a better cover set up than with the frame. It is literally bug-proof. It holds itself up well enough, the measure of that being whether there is ponding when the tank is full and the cover is wet and heavy.
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Terracore has it right on the description. Any beach balls etc are not going to last long in our high UV. You could get the central metal 'wheel' and use PVC but I expect it would sag after a year or two. Try waterworks. Doubt they cost as much as it would eventually run trying to reinvent that particular wheel... to keep out slugs, run a strap around the top perimeter, clinching the cover tight to the metal.
Good Luck~
Melissa Fletcher
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"Make yurts, not war" Bill Coperthwaite, 1973
Melissa Fletcher
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"Make yurts, not war" Bill Coperthwaite, 1973
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I've made and used a PVC pipe "X" (with perpendicular legs) using 1" pipe and a four-way fitting at the center. I put "T" fittings at the end of the legs for feet where the pipe meets the tank rim. I'd cut across the top of the T so that there would be a "C" shape channel or mouth in the T which would act as a grip on the rim of the tank at the ends of the legs. I cut the X so that the legs would be a bit longer than the tank diameter so that I could string and tension monofilament from the ends of the T feet parallel to the pipe to bow the PVC legs up so that the cover would be held proud of the water on the bowed X-shape frame. One advantage (other than cost) of this scheme is that PVC won't rust like the metal commercial frames.
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Another cheap option i'v been considering..is to place a five gallon bucket, loaded with sterilized rocks and a post in the middle with a tennis ball on the end,in the middle of the tank.. I'm not to worried about leaching from plastic and what not, with a 12000 gallon tank.( you get more chemicals from eating hamburger helper than a little bit of plastic.)
