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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 03:06am
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Hey all,
Many months ago, I had mentioned I was thinking about using a pillow water tank for a cistern in the crawl space of my cabin. I think this one will do nicely sizewise, and it has a couple of fitting/filling options:
http://www.tank-depot.com/productdetails.aspx?part=FDT-PW525
My plan is to have a "door in the floor" of my cabin to access the crawl space and I want to have a little box in the perimeter foundation with water access to fill the pillow tank from the outside, too. I hope that will make it easy to connect up the rain barrels to empty into the pillow tank in the warm months.
I plan to have another more conventional water tank outside of the cabin, too, as a backup. But the pillow tank will be my main cistern, protected from freezing and such by the cabin and the insulation under the flooring.
What do y'all think?
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bldginsp
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 09:27am
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Hi Julie- I personally would not do this unless there was no other choice, just because I can't see that this bag will last very long. I'm looking for long term solutions so I minimize maintenance/replacement later. Also, they cost a lot $1/gallon versus $.50/gallon for midsized poly tanks. I wonder what kind of chemicals they might put in the water.
But the one big advantage might be the freeze issue, cause your outside tank probably will freeze up if not buried. My 2c.
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NorthRick
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 11:23am
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It would depend on the quality of the bag. I've used petroleum rated ones for work and they are pretty durable. What wears them out is repeated folding and abrasion during transport. That wouldn't be an issue with Julie's intended use.
UV damage is the other main way that these wear out. That won't be a problem either if stored under the cabin. I know new ones can impart a plastic taste to the water. Don't know how long that would last or whether a carbon filter would remove it.
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Salty Craig
Member
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 11:30am
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Real cool. It could double as a waterbed for company!!
Craig
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Salty Craig
Member
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 11:36am - Edited by: Salty Craig
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On the quality issue, my sailboat has a very old water bladder that still works like a charm. The biggest thing to pay attention to is the cleaning/flushing procedures. This thing will provide a long service life unless you get a thirsty mouse in there. 
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skootamattaschmidty
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 11:57am
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The other added benefit to this bag is it can be placed in your crawl space after your door in the floor is framed in. You will have a similar set up to me. I have two tanks in my crawl space that give me 150 gallons of water. I then have a line running under the floor and a quick connect on the side of my cabin that I attach a hose to and fill from there. I have a screen filter at this point to keep debris out of the tanks. I have a submersible pump in my water source that I use the generator to run to fill the tanks. Then the water in the cottage is run off a 12 v surflo pump. I was limited to the size of tank by my opening in the floor and wish I had greater capacity. A polybag such as this would have been perfect because I could have unfolded it in the crawl space.
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bldginsp
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 12:45pm
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All the above are good points. Anyone know what these are actually made of? If vinyl, they will have a lot of plasticizers in the vinyl, such as phthalates, which, so they say, mimic human hormones and cause health problems like cancer and birth defects. That's why I prefer poly because of all the plastics it has the least additives since polyethylene is flexible by nature, whereas vinyl is brittle and requires additives to make it usably flexible. Supposedly poly is relatively inert, but at the same time industry doesn't want to tell us exactly what is in it and other plastics, so it's hard to know what the safest thing is to do.
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 01:20pm
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skootamattaschmidty
Your setup sounds just about like what I have planned! With the kitchen and bathroom on one short side of the cabin, I'll have this (roughly) 6.5 X 10-foot pillow tank in the crawl space below that section with the pipes and ShurFlo pump providing water to my sinks and toilet.
bldginsp
There are fabric options and I'm seeing polyester blends mentioned for greywater and potable water. But, mostly, it says that the fabric meets NSF/ANSI 61 Standards.
I was glad to see Tank Depot selling these. I first read about them through Fol-Da-Tank and I still might give them a call to see if their direct price is competitive. They will customize some things for your needs, according to the website, and a bit of extra cost might be worth it to get exactly the fittings and such that work work best for me.
That company has long provided these tanks for firefighters, the Forest Service, and other applications and has a 50-year history, it appears.
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SE Ohio
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 01:24pm
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Should be able to get material safety data sheet (MSDS) sheet from manufacturer which should contain detailed material information. WARNING- Former plastics guy diatribe follows! It is true that some but not all vinyl plasticizers (material softener) were DOCP based, which could mimic small amounts of estrogen. Many manufacturers switched to a citrate based or other plasticizers to avoid the issue, as nobody wanted to lose export market (Europe in particular didn't want DOCP).
How much DOCP would actually leach out? Function of concentration in plastic, temperature, surface area, fluid properties, etc.
There was a UK study that found DOCP in water, hundreds of miles from the nearest PVC plant, and uphill from it at that! Turns out DOCP is very similar to the estrogen that cows secrete (think "wee"). Careful what you drink!
Sorry for the diatribe! I had a project to remove all traces of DOCP from my former employer's vinyl medical products. Once this project was complete, the bPa scare started and I had to qualify more replacement plastics, while meeting ever more stringent FDA and ISO requirements. Glad that part of my career is over!
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Julie2Oregon
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# Posted: 23 Jul 2015 02:06pm
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Good caveat, SE Ohio!
I was figuring the cistern water would be used for washing/bathing/flushing unless you think it COULD be used for cooking and drinking if I installed one of those PUR or similar type filter things on the kitchen faucet? I was planning on filling jugs with that reverse-osmosis water from the self-serve places and having a ceramic dispenser (non-electric) in my kitchen for drinking and cooking.
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ttaylor
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# Posted: 1 Jul 2021 05:24pm
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If you are hooking it up under your house, how will you attach to the bladder? Fol Da Tanks have a 4" fill opening and ive reached out to them about hooking up a permanent fill tube to it. I dont have my tank yet and I cant get an answer from them about what the thread type is on the opening. ive searched high and low with no luck as to whether or not its NPT, NST (NH), GHT, etc. It would be really nice to order the parts in advance since I am located in Alaska and it takes time for things to get up here.
I am looking to use pvc or abs piping running from outside my house into the crawl space and attaching directly to the tank fill hole.
Anybody have success doing this since this thread was created?
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