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Aljibe/Tinaco advice


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Is your structure able to hold up so much weight?  Remember that one liter of water weighs 1 kilogram. Or a gallon of water weighs 8.345 pounds

The tinaco I saw holds 1500 liters, There are some somewhat larger and smaller. But 1500 liters times two is 3000 liters and weighs 3000 Kilos or just over 6,614 pounds. So before considering doing this I would check things out with a structural expert. I would hate to have the two tinacos filled only to  have them fall through the roof :)

 

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I don't think it's a smart idea in Mexico to rely on the city water being reliably sent down the lines or the city water pressure being sufficient to pump up to the roof, if you can help it. It's much better to have an aljibe and your own pump to pump it to the tinako, if neccesary.  You say the aljibe is taking up space in your yard- can you not just have a hole dug where it's now sitting and install an underground aljibe?  

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I'm about to build a house with wonderful vistas Lakeside, and the only obstruction to a perfect view is a neighbors' roof tinaco sitting on a booster frame, as is so commonly found.  I absolutely respect his situation, but would gladly fund an alternative system that would lower the profile of this obstruction, yet maintain and hopefully improve his domestic water system, possibly including introducing some very basic solar electric components if necessary to add pressure.

There are 'low profile' tinacos available, but again system pressure is a function of height and pipe size.  Can anyone provide any quick comments or online pointers specific to this situation?  Thanks.

 

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2 hours ago, utilitus said:

I'm about to build a house with wonderful vistas Lakeside, and the only obstruction to a perfect view is a neighbors' roof tinaco sitting on a booster frame, as is so commonly found.  I absolutely respect his situation, but would gladly fund an alternative system that would lower the profile of this obstruction, yet maintain and hopefully improve his domestic water system, possibly including introducing some very basic solar electric components if necessary to add pressure.

There are 'low profile' tinacos available, but again system pressure is a function of height and pipe size.  Can anyone provide any quick comments or online pointers specific to this situation?  Thanks.

 

You could remove the tinaco and install an hidroneumatico (a pressure system that takes the water directly from the water deposit) that way no tinaco is needed and the system pressure is constant.

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2 hours ago, utilitus said:

I'm about to build a house with wonderful vistas Lakeside, and the only obstruction to a perfect view is a neighbors' roof tinaco sitting on a booster frame, as is so commonly found.  I absolutely respect his situation, but would gladly fund an alternative system that would lower the profile of this obstruction, yet maintain and hopefully improve his domestic water system, possibly including introducing some very basic solar electric components if necessary to add pressure.

There are 'low profile' tinacos available, but again system pressure is a function of height and pipe size.  Can anyone provide any quick comments or online pointers specific to this situation?  Thanks.

 

The only alternative to a gravity pressure roof tinaco is a pump pressurized system which will draw water from the ajibe.. The downside is that they won't have any water during an electrical outage unless you also install a battery backup system.

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, Lezlie said:

My aljibe was built above ground in 1973. I want to remove it because it takes up too much space in my tiny yard. Can I have 2 tinacos on my roof and live without an aljibe?

Yes you can but you'll probably have to pump it up there.  Definitely you will want easy access to your roof for service.  Put them in series and plan on cleaning the first one more frequently.

 

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We had to have a pump between our house and the water line in the street in Mazatlan because there often wasn't enough pressure to get water into the house, let alone our tinaco..worked great and we put in a 5000 liter tinaco  at ground level with a pressurized system and a 1500 liter tinaco on the roof for gravity feed as a back up in case the electricity went out.

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18 minutes ago, ea93105 said:

The downside is that they won't have any water during an electrical outage unless you also install a battery backup system.

Right - here in the redwoods up the hill from Mendocino any older house such as mine has or will have had a 24 foot tall water tower topped with a large redwood tank, water fed by a well and pumped up by a windmill.  We took down the tank, still have the parts, disassembled  like a huge barrel. 

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6 hours ago, Willie said:

We had to have a pump between our house and the water line in the street in Mazatlan because there often wasn't enough pressure to get water into the house, let alone our tinaco..worked great and we put in a 5000 liter tinaco  at ground level with a pressurized system and a 1500 liter tinaco on the roof for gravity feed as a back up in case the electricity went out.

Yep, pressurized systems definitely benefit from a tinako/gravity feed switch-over ability in case the power goes out. One of my neighbors didn't do that and when there's no power, they have to scoop water out of their pool in buckets. The other neighbor augmented with a back-up tinako that she just has to turn a valve to switch over to. She drains that tinako every couple months by using it to water the garden so it doesn't get funky, then refills it. Trying to live a totally first world life-style in a place with 3rd world infrastructure doesn't work out so well.

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If my oversized Ajiba is filled with water, even when the water pressure pump fails I have plenty of water pressure in my home. How can that be, you say, is your aljiba is under the ground? Yes it is. However I live on a steep hill and my under ground Aljiba is farther up the hill. And if the Aljiba is filled to the top, it is the equivalent of three stories higher than the bathroom sink on the second floor of my home . So my under ground Alijba is so high up under ground on the hill behind me that it would be much higher than a tinaco were I to place one on the roof of my home,  So, no I don't need a tinaco.

Do I need a water pressure pump? Not really, but I like a little more pressure, so that the sink, toilet, washing machine, you name it, fill up a little faster. So I have a pressure pump placed near my aljiba.

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I have a similar situation, Johanssen, except it isn't from my aljibe, but from my tinako. I get more water pressure than most people with only gravity feed (I have no pressure pump) because I arranged my aljibe and tinako the opposite of the way most people do. My aljibe is actually a 700 litre tinako under the floor of my bodega, and my tinako is 2 and a half stories up from that and is 2500 litres (the roof was built to support that tinako). So with that volume of water in the tinako, I get pretty good pressure simply from gravity feed. Nothing like a pressure pump, but also not the soft stream that most folk get with only a 500-1000 litre tinako.

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2 hours ago, mudgirl said:

I have a similar situation, Johanssen, except it isn't from my aljibe, but from my tinako. I get more water pressure than most people with only gravity feed (I have no pressure pump) because I arranged my aljibe and tinako the opposite of the way most people do. My aljibe is actually a 700 litre tinako under the floor of my bodega, and my tinako is 2 and a half stories up from that and is 2500 litres (the roof was built to support that tinako). So with that volume of water in the tinako, I get pretty good pressure simply from gravity feed. Nothing like a pressure pump, but also not the soft stream that most folk get with only a 500-1000 litre tinako.

it is spelled tinaco

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2 hours ago, johanson said:

If my oversized Ajiba is filled with water, even when the water pressure pump fails I have plenty of water pressure in my home. How can that be, you say, is your aljiba is under the ground? Yes it is. However I live on a steep hill and my under ground Aljiba is farther up the hill. And if the Aljiba is filled to the top, it is the equivalent of three stories higher than the bathroom sink on the second floor of my home . So my under ground Alijba is so high up under ground on the hill behind me that it would be much higher than a tinaco were I to place one on the roof of my home,  So, no I don't need a tinaco.

Do I need a water pressure pump? Not really, but I like a little more pressure, so that the sink, toilet, washing machine, you name it, fill up a little faster. So I have a pressure pump placed near my aljiba.

it is spelled aljibe

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