[Greenbuilding] Grain bin as water storage

[Mike Forbes]

Hi all,
thanks for the wealth of responses....
here are some of my thoughts to them....

1) i like the idea of a hole in the ground in many ways, i have the land to
do it, one drawback is that the pond would be lower than the garden so
pumping would be in order (solvable since I have an abundance of 24vdc in
the summer months).  The drawback - weeds.  We struggle here on the palouse
with keeping invasive weeds away from our land (canada thistle, mullein,
bindweed primarily) from taking over.  Anytime you scratch the ground to
bare mineral soil, poof, the weeds appear.  I have experience in pond
creation and there is no way around the fact that you disturb a lot of
earth.  But it sure is tempting with the quantity and ease of storage.  i
could easily store 50k+ gallons in a spot on my property....

2) i saw a stainless tank just as Norbert mentioned the other day in
spokane, dented and deemed unsanitary ($7500). I think with the price of
scrap right now at $50/lb it makes the tanker much more pricey....

3) the grain bin option seems a logical good bet since they can be had for
pretty good money around here in the thick of farming country.  most of the
farmers around here aren't holding grain anymore and selling at the
$10/bushel they can get on the open market.... I saw a 1500 bushel tank for
$1500 the other day and I think the equivalent size new is $7000+.

thanks again and I'll probably fire off some more questions soon.......

m