LadyArowana
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JoceAndChris said:
London would be OK, I'm sure it's gone through a few kidneys :lol:
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London would be OK, I'm sure it's gone through a few kidneys :lol:
Lindyboo said:
It sounds more like a cistern, a glorified water butt, than a well. They were usually built of brick and waterproofed with puddled clay. They were used to store rain water from the roof drains.
I'd use it for irrigation, maybe look into a grey water system to reduce your consumption of metered mains water.
I'd be wary about getting into it, you can get fumes or gases accumulating inside any low-level confined space.
LadyArowana
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Onetap said:
Metered mains water is a luxury Joce doesn't have. She has a well and a rainwater tank, brick built internally sealed I believe.
Lindyboo
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Cistern – that’s the word I was looking for and couldn’t think of when I posted. I’ve just found it marked as a well on an old map (1905) so does anyone know if metal cisterns were being installed in those days?
It was well-whiffy when opened up. Previous incumbents had piled a rockery over it and seated a plastic bucket into the hole. It’s now got a slab over it with a couple of inches gap left for ventilation until such time as it can be made pretty.
It was well-whiffy when opened up. Previous incumbents had piled a rockery over it and seated a plastic bucket into the hole. It’s now got a slab over it with a couple of inches gap left for ventilation until such time as it can be made pretty.
Flyfisher
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Onetap said:
Good point, and it doesn't even have to be particularly confined - it's also a known risk with things like open vehicle inspection pits because the accumulation of heavy gases can displace all the oxygen.
We have a sewer pipe running through a bit of our land and it developed a leak earlier this year. The chaps who came to fix it both wore gas detectors when working in the hole that was dug to get at the pipe.
Lindyboo said:
I've never heard of it, but I am not an expert. It may have been a cess pit (which were built the same way as cisterns), or an old tank that had been recycled.
It would be worthwhile finding out what it is made of; if it's steel, it would be sensible to get a sacrificial anode, if it hasn't already perforated. I very much doubt that it would be copper; if it is, it would have a significant value as scrap.
Lindyboo
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Sacrificial anode? Sounds a bit gory. What is it?
A big lump of magnesium alloy dropped in the water with a cable connecting it to the tank. Whilst the magnesium anode corrodes, the steel doesn't; when the anode has disintegrated, you get another one. They're buried adjacent to pipelines, I don't know what you'd do with a buried tank.
Galvanized steel/wriggly tin works the same way; the steel doesn't corrode much whilst there is still some zinc coating.
If the tank is steel, it's quite probably rusted through near the water surface so I wouldn't spend anything on an anode until you've determined that it is steel and that you want to keep it.
Galvanized steel/wriggly tin works the same way; the steel doesn't corrode much whilst there is still some zinc coating.
If the tank is steel, it's quite probably rusted through near the water surface so I wouldn't spend anything on an anode until you've determined that it is steel and that you want to keep it.
Flyfisher
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Lindyboo said:
Onetap has described it well. Widely used on sea-going boats to prevent corrosion of immersed metal parts. The anode itself (usually zinc in marine applications) corrodes instead of the other metal parts, hence 'sacrificial'.
JoceAndChris
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Lindyboo's description of her cistern exactly matches what we have in our field. It's made of copper, apparently - not that I've dug it up myself but have heard a lot about it from previous residents. It was used to catch or hold water from the nearby spring and it was somehow (haven't figured this bit out yet) pumped across the field to the farmhouse on the track - this would have been a 19th C system I'd imagine - the lady I chatted with was born in the farmhouse in the 40s and spoke of her grandparents using this water. There's no spring near that farmhouse ruin so it all makes sense.
We also have a lovely big copper thing in the attic that held water (pumped up by hand - there was a wheel on the side of the house) - I haven't got a date for this but can't really see why it wouldn't be original to the house and part of the intended design for the well, so 1820 ish. They weren't necessarily as basic as we think!
Good point about the gases - we'll have to be very careful with our rainwater chamber when the time comes (the plan is to turn it into a grotto.)
It never ceases to amaze me how attractive purely functional things were - we've got a very pretty stone built kitchen drainage chamber - also underground - and then the brick barrel vaulted rainwater pit - such efforts for things which were never seen.
We also have a lovely big copper thing in the attic that held water (pumped up by hand - there was a wheel on the side of the house) - I haven't got a date for this but can't really see why it wouldn't be original to the house and part of the intended design for the well, so 1820 ish. They weren't necessarily as basic as we think!
Good point about the gases - we'll have to be very careful with our rainwater chamber when the time comes (the plan is to turn it into a grotto.)
It never ceases to amaze me how attractive purely functional things were - we've got a very pretty stone built kitchen drainage chamber - also underground - and then the brick barrel vaulted rainwater pit - such efforts for things which were never seen.
Not the best year for it this year, but last summer when our grass was parched, a circle about 4ft in diameter appeared on our lawn roughly where one of 2 wells was marked on old maps. Couldn't resist lifting the turf and having an exploratory dig. I got about a foot down and found lots of pieces of flint, so I presume the whole well was filled in with this. Or is it conceivable that it was capped below ground level and these were just on top? Always a little nervous walking over it in case! The other well on the map is roughly where the sceptic tank is so presumably that is lost for good
worms
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:shock:Jellyfire said:
I wouldn't want to share a water table with your house!
worms
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Convert your sceptic-tank-well to a long-drop and you could cut out the middle man!Jellyfire said:
