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  • From: Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Ferrocement water tank pix
  • Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 01:02:39 -0500

The steel rebar and expanded metal lath give it strength and the mortar gives it rigidity. The two combined make it VERY strong. Very large (130 f) ocean-going boats <http://www.ferrocement.org/> are made with this technique (the Brits built a 120 foot submarine) and their walls are not much thicker. Many homes are built with it.

This is my fifth tank and my second 10,000 gallon one. We intend to add onto the tank a ferrocement room that wraps around a third of the tank and will serve as a root cellar, storm shelter and spring house (utilizing the overflow). The tank will be bermed about 3 feet high around the rest of the circumference. Freezing has not damaged our tanks, though the coldest climates would require more extensive berming or partial burying.

The cylindrical shape itself is a principal source of strength as the outward pressure is equalized over the entire surface. The overall thickness is one to one and a half inches. The walls are not thicker at the bottom of the wall than the top of the wall. The roof is the same thickness. When empty, it rings like a bell when you whack it with a rubber mallet. If you sing in it, it echoes nicely. A really lovely and versatile material and well worth the embedded energy.

http://ferrocement.com/Page_1/english.html

http://www.ferrocement.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrocement

http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/surv/ferro.htm

http://www.green-trust.org/2003/ferrocement/default.htm

http://www.eugenesargent.com/bench1.htm

The stone gutter you refer to WAS essential to direct a large flow of water into a sinuous garden path that provided many infiltration points to prevent erosion in a very erodable landscape.

Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
Keith Johnson wrote
Peter and I recently finished laying pipe to plumb our water tank and have started to install the roof catchment parts of the system.
You can look at pix of the project at http://picasaweb.google.com/KeithDJPcA/FerrocementTankPix02
Nice work. What design factors are required to give it enough vertical and circumferential structural rigidity to keep it from bursting from hydrostatic pressure and is the concrete thicker at the base that near the top?

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/viewPhoto?uname=KeithDJPcA&aid=5141688084664055841&iid=5141688179153336402
The stone gutter in this pic is just like downtown. I used to build some of
these for landscape customers.
If you have a lot of flow this feature is essential.

--
Keith Johnson
"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47407
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also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's a
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also Bloomington Permaculture Guild




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