Pressure from water tanks – pumps or tank stands?

Whether water tanks are used for storing municipal water, borehole water or rainwater as part of a rainwater harvesting system, pressure is usually required.  The choice is usually between pumps and raising the water tanks to an elevated position to make use of gravity  – i.e. installing the water tank on a tank stand or water tower.  Which should you choose?
Water tanks and water tank stands go hand in hand for good reason.  If your water supply can be sent to a water tank on a tank stand, the stored water can be drawn using gravity to create pressure.  The amount of pressure that gravity generates will depend on the height of the tank stand – the higher the tank stand, the more pressure that will be generated.  This system works well whether the electricity is on or whether there is a power outage, it makes no difference.

Pumps, including submersible pumps and booster pumps can be used to generate the required pressure from stored water in a water tank without the use of tank stands.  However, power outages, faulty pumps and theft of pumps will result in zero pressure and no water in the building – not an ideal situation, especially in South Africa where electricity supply outages are common in some areas.  Off-grid homesteads will also not have the benefit of Mains electricity to run pressure pumps continually.  Another possible downside of installing pumps instead of water tank stands, is the electricity usage (and increase electricity bill) although these pumps do not consume vast amounts of power.

Sometimes it may be necessary to install both water tank stands as well as booster pumps.  An example is a situation where the tank stand height is not quite sufficient to provide enough pressure for certain appliances in a building; a booster pump can be installed to activate whenever extra pressure is required.

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In South Africa, we recommend water tank stands supplied by JoJo Tanks.  JoJo steel water tank stands and silo tank stands are designed and built by a registered structural engineer contracted to provide JoJo Tanks with top quality tank stands (engineer’s certificates and design drawings available on request).  We also recommend other products made by JoJo Tanks, including water tanks, rainwater tanks, silo tanks, septic tanks, underground tanks, chemical tanks and other high quality products (click on the links below for more info).

JoJo Tanks South Africa offer a wide range of products such as plastic water tanks and chemical tanks to suit every household, business or agricultural need, including silo tanks and silo tank stands as well as other high quality JoJo Tanks products.  See JoJo Tanks’ VERTICAL TANKS, HORIZONTAL TANKS (transporter tanks), STEEL TANK STANDS and OTHER JOJO PRODUCTS and see JoJo Tanks’ NEW 6000 LITRE UNDERGROUND TANKS. Also see our FAQ and WATER TANK PRICES.