HomeGuy wrote, on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 08:53:43 -0400:

Why on earth would you need that much capacity?

Oh oh!

While I have almost a full tank of water, my well situation is
(apparently) much worse (for me) than I had thought it was!
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3919/1...b48ba502_b.jpg

I went outside just now to snap that picture of my tanks for you
(I think I miscalculated my tank size) and I realized, to my
horror, that my one "good" well was not pumping anything when I
cycled the circuit breakers out of curiosity!

So, I just shut down all the circuit breakers, and will give
the pumps a half hour or more to "rest", and then I will turn
each pump on, to time how long they last.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2936/1...2ee2fd1d_b.jpg

If you have a well system that *normally* doesn't run dry, then why
would you need so much storage capacity for potable water?

I am not the expert, but, I think the well runs dry every day
all day. I only go out there when there is a problem, but, for
example, my main well wasn't pumping anything when I just cycled
it, and my old well ran for just a few seconds (barely enough
to spin the water meter a tenth of a revolution).

And how would you keep the tanks clean enough (and the water clean
enough) to drink or cook with so much stored water?

I'm not climbing up right now, but, I *have* looked into my tanks,
and, yes, it's rusty and spidery in there. But we drink the water
all the time, and, AFAIK, there is no filter.

What exactly is this water used for? Household stuff?
Yes.
- House
- Sprinklers
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2912/1...67e6e21b_k.jpg
- Pool
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3814/1...f48b9f56_b.jpg

While I have one of the smallest houses here, my pool is almost
40K gallons, and their are almost 200 sprinkler heads, so, that's
an appreciable amount of water. When the sprinklers turned on
earlier this week, they drained the tanks, so, that's another
homeowner task I have to figure out why that happened.