Vintage Windmill and Wind Generator Forum

Visited Brenham Tx Tuesday home of Blue Bell Ice Cream. While reading history of the town it seems they made the roofs of buildings to act as a cistern they were copper clad. AS the area filled up it would then go down the down spouts to cisterns on the ground so they could use it. I never knew they did such as that.

This was a very common practice for water collected off the roof and then directed by down spouts to a cistern where it could be pumped out with a cistern pump. Water was used for everything but not drinking. My parents home built in 1906 had a cement cistern that was about 6' wide that narrowed to about 3' at the top and 12' deep. The top was about 12" above ground.

I've wondered about the purity of the water in cisterns. A story I'm reading she writes about the scarcity of water and having to go to the creek to wash clothes. Holding on to there supply of drinking water I guess.

Up until 10 years ago when my grandpa passed away, my grandparents used the cistern water for everything but drinking. The rain water was "soft water" so was used for dishes and laundry. Two faucets in the kitchen, you remembered pretty quick which was well and cistern water. I remember grandpa checking and diverting rain water to keep cistern full and from running over in the summer time.

Gregg

I was at a flea market this past weekend and saw a box with old but unused faucet handles for sale. It reminded me of this thread topic

Bill, those are really neat faucets.
Another thought I had on the "roof top cisterns". Many years ago the company I worked for would have the fire department spray water on the factory roof to cool it when temps got near 100 F. If these roof top cisterns were in the south or southwest would they have used it for cooling along with collecting water?
Gregg

My grandparents ranch house in south Texas had a 12 ft deep cistern just off of the back porch to collect rainwater. My mother says that prior to their getting electricity out to the property, they would use it for cool storage. They would lower containers of milk and butter down into the cistern to keep them cool. That cistern is about three feet in diameter at the top, and at least twice that diameter at the bottom.

Yeah built like a bottle top. That is the way the ones close to me are the top looks like a regular curbed well. Except for one I found it comes in at the top but not as much as the others and the top is ground level. I like those faucet handles.

I have seen several on old houses from the late 1800s to early 1900s, normally they ran the gutter into the cistern that around here was normally brick and shaped like a bottle. I don't think I have ever seen a hand pump on one but usually the water elevator with the chain buckets were on them. Many times I have looked down a dry hole and saw a pile of rusted out buckets and chain down there. I would really like to do this at my place someday, I just hate gutters but I may make an exception.

Will you do the hole in the ground or one of the tanks you can buy for water collection?