Eathquake and water tanks

Just a query for those in CH and surrounding areas How did you water tank hold up through all the shocks did the concrete ones have weepage or did plastic split? We were talking about this in our smoko room and we wondered what was best!

We have a concrete water tank and that was fine. Our neighbour has a plastic one, and that was also fine. However, the September earthquake (the biggest we felt out here) did damage our bore pump and our other neighbour's septic tank. When driving in the Darfield area not long after September, I did notice one or two of those small water tanks high up on legs had fallen over.

Our 25K liter plastic tank is still standing, after numerous shakes, and doesn't seem to have shifted at all from its little pad of sand. I have been wondering this myself, actually, especially just how much can a plastic tank take? I have heard that if they aren't filled to the top, sloshing water can actually cause them to tip over.

We have two fibre glass tanks and they are fine.

Our plastic tank (25k) is fine, but one of the better sized aftershocks knocked out our pump and also the automatic filling system.

No problems here but I have just seen one up the road that the steel frame was buggered so it had to come down. EQC replaced with plastic and a new pump.

Interesting in that how many of you have your tanks insured and in an earthquake, how would that insurance cover work? This is all about the insurance speak "an act of God" and does that cover your submersible pump as well. Seriously - I am interested.

DiDi;374724 wrote: Interesting in that how many of you have your tanks insured and in an earthquake, how would that insurance cover work? This is all about the insurance speak "an act of God" and does that cover your submersible pump as well. Seriously - I am interested.

Without looking up the exact wording (I did at the time but it has evaporated from my brain), domestic water supply is covered by EQC. So our bore pump (the one at the bottom of the well) supplying our house was repaired (we had it repaired, paid then applied to EQC with receipts and a report from the pump repair company because we couldn't wait for weeks with no water while our application was processed). If it had been for irrigation, EQC would not cover it.

Act of God wasn't mentioned in the EQC cover from what I remember. In fact I'm not sure they use that term these days (there was a movie on TV recently, Billy Connoly, based on a true story where act of god was challenged. He sued god (the church). Great movie!)

Our neighbours big 20000 litre tank exploded into about 1000 pieces- but their lid was screwed on. Ours (the same sort of tank) was fine although the top was found some distance away as it was not screwed on. Our concrete tank on a stand is still standing although the five bay old brick pump shed right next to it is totally collapsed. Another tank stand on another house on the farm collapsed.

Personally i would go with a big plastic on the ground jobbie. Ours held up to being only a few km's from the Sept epicentre - it was the pressure pump and well shed that collapsed so the roof has been propped up and we snuck in there with an extension cord from the house.......still living like that and driving over the said extension cord about 15-20 times a day for the last 10 months - but that is a different story.

our plastic tanks were fine, our header tank in the roofspace deposited its contents through the ceiling in september and june however as it did not have a tight fitting lid, but the tank itself is fine.

Hi All,
Could someone tell me the dimensions of a 20,000 litre water tank.ie dia and height?
Kind regards

Hi All,
Further to my previous enquiry can anyone advise on pump model and typical cost?
Our new site is level ground and won't provide any gravity capability.
Kind regards

Took a few reads to really 'see' your name. So glad you have been able to move on and have control over your life again.
Cant answer the dimensions of the tank, as for the other....it depends. How big is your property, do you intend irrigating, if so how much? How far will you need to push the water? Do you have single or 3 phase power? Do you have water consent? Take a list of the answers to one or more irrigation places.

25000 L tanks are about 3 m in height and 3.5 m in diameter.

Hi all,
Hawkspur...just what I wanted.We are laying out our wee piece (1 acre) of land to see where things are going at present...have yet to re-build our house.
Valmai.......good de-coding of my nom-de-plume!!
We don't know whether we get 3 phase or only single phase power.We won't be irrigating in any large scale sense but as I see things at the moment I would imagine that we are looking a fairly selective trickle irrigation.
Would still appreciate suitable pump details and cost though.
Thanks for your responses
kind regards