[Shop-talk] Connecting a remote tank to main system?

[David Scheidt]

On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Ronnie Day <ronnie.day at gmail.com> wrote:
> We're using rainwater collection at our place. The original setup is pretty
> straight forward, guttering off of a shed roof with several levels of
> initial filtering before the water goes into the tank farm with main
> filtering and treatment between the tanks and the feed line into the house.
> Recently we added an additional 300 square foot roof on the porch and I
> want to collect and get the water from the porch roof into the system.
>
> I'm thinking I should be able to collect this water in a decorative barrel
> or tank and pump it into the main line, preferably ahead of the first flush
> filters. This would involve pumping the water around 35 feet horizontally
> from the front of the house to the back and up maybe 12 to 15 feet.
>
> Shouldn't I be able to use a sump pump to accomplish this? Are there models
> rated for potable water. I'm doing on-line research but I thought I'd throw
> the question out to the group, too. However I accomplish this I plan on
> doing something similar on a large shop I'll have built not too far from
> the house. Collect the water in a smaller tank using a series of screening
> and filtering methods, then pump it into the main tanks.
>

That's well within the capabilities of a sump pump (you'd size based
on the capacity in gallons per minute required; 1 inch on 300 square
feet is a bit more than 180 gallons, so an inch an hour rain would
require a pump that could do 3 gpm, which is 1/4 hp range, I think.).
Whether you can get a sump pump that's rated for potable water, I
don't know.  But this seems like it would something that's common with
rainwater systems, so if they're common where you are, it shouldn't be
too hard to find a supply house that knows what you need.


-- 
David Scheidt
dmscheidt at gmail.com