Water cistern.. homebuilt

[ubdai]

Has anyone on the forum built their own water storage cistern out of cast concrete or blocks. Or for that matter any other material.

Would prefer to hear about concrete or stone types rather than moulded plastic as the place where I wish to build it, labour and cement is cheaper than buying an imported plastic tank.

Any pitfalls or online guides that I could be shown would be appreciated.

Thanks
ubdai

[odbob]

Yes fairly simple out of concrete and I found it to be a lot cheaper and any shape or size can be created to fit the garden area, dig the hole to suit, cobble some shuttering together and pour the concrete, simple. Be careful though to ensure that the shuttering is well supported, concrete is very heavy, try pouring uniformly around the shuttering to keep the stresses equal.
We endured an earth quake not long after ours was built and suffered a minor leak, rendering sorted this

[dhaslam]

Concrete  needs an additive  to stop leaks.    May not be  necessary if you can accept some waste and the leakage doesn't cause a problem.   

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/01/hycrete.php

[billi]

hi

i use polypropylene (or spelled other way) fibres in a 1:2 sand cement mix  to built  water reservoirs

billi

[tony.]

We regularly use this companies product.

http://www.sika.co.uk/uk-home/uk-con/uk-constr-waterproofing-2.htm

no vested interest in the above company apart from a happy end user

we regularly build storage tanks to hold millions of litres of water and smaller for waste water out of concrete

so I know it works

tony