I posted recently that my husband and I installed a rainwater harvesting cistern.
What I didn’t explain is why we chose to go with a black tank.
I love basic black: in clothes, shoes, and kitchen countertops, among other things. But, other things I wouldn’t buy in black. Cars, for example. And I didn’t want a black tank.
No, I wanted to buy a rainwater cistern in a lighter color because I knew that black absorbs heat, and the last thing I wanted was a huge heat generator right next to our newly spray-foamed, insulated house. (In a colder climate, I would have felt differently, but in Texas, there are so many more hot days than cold ones.)
Plus, I would have preferred a lighter color from a design perspective, to help it “fade into the background” a little better. Who wants to look at a huge black thing in your yard?
It ultimately came down to functionality and maintenance. We were told by the tank company that black tanks are much better at limiting the amount of light that reaches the interior of the tank. That’s a good thing because light-loving bacteria or algae will proliferate if giving the opportunity.
We didn’t want that to happen because it’s not like you can open up the tank and scrub the interior clean, so we felt that buying black was the right option for us.
Time will tell if we made the right choice.
My experience with a “white” rainwater tank was that it gets a lot of algae in just a few weeks. This in our moderate clima in southern Germany. What is the solution?
Digging a hole and puting the tank into the earth solved the problem. No light, no algae. And once a year we empty it completely for a week or two – then the dry dirt can be revoved with a shop vac and a long pipe…
Wow. Thanks for the comment. I would have never thought that there would be an algae problem in Germany where the days are much cooler than Texas.
You could always put a terrace up! and then you can grow veggies and vines on it, double purpose!! it would give the tank good shelter as well. if you shape the terrace like so… \_*_/ with * being apx. where the water tank is. (sorry that looks slightly crude!)
What a brilliant idea! Thanks, Erika!