The cistern was built with the house foundation. It's a 4" reinforced 
concrete floor,, 12" hollow concrete masonry units (concrete block) 
walls with light steel reinforcing and the voids grouted solid, and a 4" 
reinforced concrete roof. it's about 6' wide x 8' high, x 11' long. The 
top is buried 2" of earth. There is a divider wall 3' from one end, all 
incoming water (two 4" plastic pipes) comes to the small end, an 
overflow to the big side, and a submersible transfer pump to empty that 
catches most debris. A submersible well pump on the big side supplies 
the house where I can select for various parts of the house source. A 
backflow preventer is required by the local city water supplier to 
prevent cross contamination. The cost was buried in the house costs, but 
today could be maybe $15,000.

In the last week I have seen on the TV (This old house on PBS), where 
there is a movement to save the roof water and use it as a conservation 
item. 30 years ago I was just a little ahead of time. :)

James Newtons Massmind wrote:
>> As for myself, we collect all the roof water in a 8000 gallon 
>> cistern (underground tank) and use it for everything except 
>> drinking and cooking. We generally run a minimum water bill 
>> from the treated water out front.
>>     
>
> I would be very interested to hear more about your installation. What did it
> cost? How did you bury it? All that good stuff.
>
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