11-05-2014, 01:55 PM
quote:
Originally posted by imagtek
Be sure to run a pipe from the catchment water inlet (almost) to the bottom of your tank. That way, the freshest water in the tank will be at the bottom where your inlet is and the tank will naturally 'flush' itself when it rains via your overflow. If you do not do this, you are drinking stagnant water and the fresh rainwater simply runs out your overflow. I did this on my system and it works like a champ, even during downpours. The people who installed my system said this would never work and refused to install the pipe, so I had to do it myself. They had no background in engineering or hydraulic systems, I do. Or did, before I retired.
It works. After a heavy rain, you are drinking fresh water that is visibly clearer if you look in the tank.
---------------------------
You can't fix Samsara.
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I'm just trying to understand the science of this.
If the water dumps downwards into the top of one side of the tank, and the overflow goes out the top of the other side of the tank, the water being dumped into the tank is already flowing downwards, (because of gravity) isn't the fresh water being directed towards the bottom of the tank by design? If that is true, the fresher water continues its journey towards the bottom of the tank, forcing the older water towards the surface, where the overflow kicks it out of the tank on the other side?
Unless I'm missing something, the only thing missing in both examples is a length of pipe? Having a pipe going to the bottom could cause some back pressure meaning it takes longer for your gutters to drain, allowing more contaminants to get in, causing the reverse result of what you are saying?