Cistern – What to do?

Cistern – What to do?

I posted previously that we discovered that we had a cistern under a mound of ivy and brush. I mentioned that I had heard that we had a cistern, but I thought it was in a different place. Well, guess what? There was a cistern in that place. Yep, we have two cisterns.

The Discovery

We were redoing a large patio. In the process of digging up the old pavers we discovered what looked like a manhole cover. We cleared the area around it and were able to open it with a crowbar. This one is about 12’ deep and appears to be a lot larger around than the first one. It is full of water, so it is hard to tell exactly how large.

So, what now?

I did some research to find out what others have done. Some talked about filling them with dirt or other solid material and rendering them useless. One guy wanted to build an access from his basement to his empty cistern and build a wine room. Interesting idea, but I want to use mine. I like to try to be “green” when I can and I look at these thousands of gallons of rain water as a resource. I learned pretty quick that you don’t want to drink the water from the cistern or even use it to water vegetable and/or fruit plants. However, it can be used to water the lawn. I estimate that about 30% of our overall water usage is for watering our lawn, so this seems like a great idea. After talking with irrigation companies, landscape companies, companies that specialize in well pumps even a few plumbers I did not find anyone who could help me get this water out of the cistern and use it to water the lawn. I was not looking for anything fancy because I don’t know for sure that the cisterns are filling back up with water at this point. I finally got fed up and just went to Lowes and bought a small 1 HP pump that runs on electricity.

Using Cistern Water to Water the Lawn

It works great! I used the one cistern to water my lawn for a couple of weeks and the water lever barely went down at all. So, when the lawn needs water I pull out the pump, connect the hoses and water away.

The Challenge

The first cistern is in an inconspicuous location behind the house.  The lid is also lightweight, so access is a lot easier. The second one is in the middle of a paver patio that is between the house and garage. Not to mention, the lid weighs about 100 lbs. So, popping off every time I want to water is not an option.

 

 

 

The Solution

I admit that the solution that we came up with is not ideal. However, it works! I was not 100% sure what I was going to do as we were laying the pavers. To be safe, I went ahead a laid down 15’ of PVC between the cistern and a flower bed. The biggest challenge was how to connect the cistern water to the PVC. I thought about drilling a hole in the metal lid or drilling into the bricks around the cistern. Those options seemed like too big of a pain. We noticed that there was a slight gap in the lip around the top of the cistern. I ended up chipping out a little of the brick and making that gap a little larger and then running a heavy duty 12’ hose from the PVC to the bottom of the cistern. I chose to use the hose as opposed to more PVC because the hose’s flexibility. The hose could flex into the gap and could travel at any angle as opposed to having to be much more specific with PVC.

I also put a plastic filter on the end of the hose that went into the cistern to prevent any larger rocks or other debris from going into the hose. On the flower bed end of the PVC I put a 90 degree elbow, an additional two feet of PVC and angled it straight up. I added a standard male hose connector to both ends of the PVC.  

Hoses don’t typically come in 12’ lengths, so I ended up buying a 50’ hose and cutting it. I was able to add standard connectors to the ends of the custom length of hose. I used the majority of the left over hose to connect to the flowerbed end of the PVC and run that length of hose directly to the pump.

In The End

I am able to use the cistern to water my lawn. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a pain to pull out the pump, prime the pump, connect one end of the pump to the cistern, plug the other end of the pump to a hose/sprinkler and plug the pump into a power source. At the end of the day I gladly do it.

Cistern

I have found so many things in our yard that I have quit being surprised. I found a set of log splitters, a couple of shovels, lots of kid’s toys, pruning shears, unidentifiable machine parts and more. I had heard that we had a cistern, but thought it was in a very different part of the property. I didn’t know what a cistern was and honestly did not really care.

We had a couple different places in our yard that looked like mounds of ivy. You know there is something under that mound, but you are kind of afraid of what you will find. We have seen snakes on our property and the previous owners talked about a problem they had with mice, so that is where my mind goes when I start poking around these mounds. Anyway, there was one ivy mound near the front of our yard that turned out to be a large tree stump that we had ground down. We poked around another mound that was close to the back of the house and found that there was a half oak barrel somewhere under the overgrowth. The barrel was pretty rotted, so I was able to pull it out in pieces. As I got closer to the bottom I noticed that the barrel was sitting on a concrete slab. At this point the barrel had fallen apart and I was left with a pile of dirt and ivy. As I shoveled the dirt away my shovel scrapped something metal. It turned out to be a piece of rusted metal that was about 3’ X 2’. I started to move it a little and heard small splashes. I knew right away what it was.

It is full of water, so it is hard to tell how large it is. I dropped a line in the water and can tell that it is about 12’ deep. We have done some research into pumps and plan to use it for irrigation. We will keep you posted on what we end up doing and how it works.

One more thing, it got us to thinking and looking around a little more. There are two faucets in the basement that don’t have a sink under them. You can tell that they did at one point in time, but it is gone now. I wonder if those faucets were/are connected to the cistern?

UPDATE - 

Well, the faucets in the basement don't hook up to anything. They are just pipes to nowhere! However,  look at the latest image. If what we found was the cistern for the house, what the heck is this?!?! This appears to be a cistern as well. All of our research shows that this is more what a cistern should look like, so we are a bit confused at this point. We have not been able to get the lid off at this point to see if it is full of water or not. Are they both cisterns? If so, are they attached? We will keep digging and let you know what we find.

New at This!

We recently moved into a "new" (haha, its 112 yrs old) house six months ago, far from home. As our house has many projects to be done and so many of our friends and family have said, "can't wait to see what you will do with it" we decided to start a way to 1) keep track of our own progress, and 2) have a way to show our friends and family who live states away what we are up to in our new home town. So here we go! I am new to this 'blog' thing, so bare with me while I figure it out! Hope you enjoy!

Here is the first "before & after" the shutters. They were a deep forest green color and just didn't contrast quite enough from the mushroom color of our house. So we risked life and limb pulling them ALL down, all 36 of them, and began the painstaking process of cleaning, sanding, priming, painting, and rehanging these guys. But now that its done, we LOVE how it turned out. Nice added contrast we think!

before & after (left to right)