5000 Gallon Plastic Vertical Water Storage Tank in Green

The site test: a tall green tank, a flat pad and the wind before the first fill

Start with the ground, because on this shell the ground is the whole argument. A 102 inch base is eight feet six inches across and it carries every one of the 41,700 pounds a full tank weighs, through a rotationally molded floor that bears on the entire surface it touches and on nothing else. That is not a figure of speech: a low corner, a soft spot, or a hollow scoured out under the middle becomes the new bearing point, and the wall above it takes a load it was never molded to take. Engineer the slab or the compacted base to the framework in the concrete pad sizing guide, pour it wider than the tank rather than out to its edge, level it, and crown the surrounding grade so the overflow and the rain run away from the base instead of under it. Then look up. At 159 inches this tank stands thirteen feet three inches, which puts the manway above the reach of anyone on the ground and puts the whole shell in the wind. Empty, at 675 pounds, it is a sail: the banding or cabling goes to structure or to anchors set with the pad, it goes on before the first gallon, and it gets checked after the first windy week and again at the end of the first full summer, because polyethylene grows in the sun and a strap that was tight in spring is slack in August. Under a roof, measure before you order; a thirteen foot tank does not fit under an eight foot eave and the manway needs clear air above it to be opened at all, so fixed access with a rail, or a fill brought down to a coupling at working level, is part of the installation rather than an afterthought. Last, check that 5,000 gallons is the right number for the duty instead of the number that was available: run your real daily draw and your refill interval through the tank sizing calculator, and take the reserve you should never dip into, plus the freeboard water wants as it warms, from the tank sizing guide.

Three silhouettes at 5,000 gallons, and the one that asks for the least floor

Four shells on this sheet hold 5,000 gallons and they are not the same purchase. The pair at 119 x 116 in put the volume on a base nine feet eleven inches across and stand better than three feet shorter, which is the sensible buy when a roof, a sightline or an ordinance caps the height and the yard has floor to spare; both are listed at 805 lb, green as SII-32370 and black as SII-32368. This tank goes the other way: the same 5,000 gallons on a 102 inch circle, which is a foot and a half less base in every direction, at the cost of thirteen feet three inches of height and a strapping job that has to be done properly. Its own black counterpart, SII-32382, carries identical dimensions at 876 lb where this one is listed at 675 lb, and the sheet gives both numbers; green is what people take when the tank has to disappear into a tree line and keep daylight off the water. Either side of it on the same slim base, SII-32327 holds 4,100 gallons at 130 in for a lower profile, and SII-32384 holds 5,100 gallons at the same 159 in and 876 lb when the extra hundred gallons is worth more than the weight. A near relation built in Arkansas on this same 102 inch base sits outside this sheet's own list and is worth a look before you commit: the green 5,000 with a threaded bulkhead outlet carries the height, weight and fittings its own sheet publishes, and this page asserts none of them.

Need a different size? Every tank in the table is in stock programs; ask for a quote on the one that fits, or call 866-418-1777.

The 2 inch bolted outlet at the base, and the 24 inch manway over it

• Outlet: a 2 inch polypropylene stainless steel bolted fitting at the base, as the sheet lists it. A bolted fitting is served by keeping the bolting reachable, so leave a wrench path all the way around it, keep it out of a buried valve box, and re-check the bolting after the first full fill and again after the first freeze and thaw. Write the size and the material on the site plan, because the replacement is ordered by those two words.
• Head at that outlet: with 159 inches of shell above it, a full tank stands thirteen feet three inches over the fitting, which is real suction head and the reason to buy this silhouette. Keep it by mounting the pump below the outlet on its own base with a short, straight, slightly falling run into the suction port. A pump lifted level with the tank throws the head away and loses prime on the tail of every draw.
• Prime and protection: a cleanable strainer ahead of the pump, a check valve where the line lifts, and a low level float or run-dry cut-out that stops the pump with water still standing over the fitting. On a slim shell the last inches of level go quickly, so make the protection automatic rather than procedural.
• Inlet: a 1-1/2 inch polypropylene female NPT bulkhead fitting, which is where a tanker hose or a pressurised fill line lands. Use it rather than dropping a delivery into the manway from thirteen feet up.
• Access: a 24 inch threaded vented manway on the crown, the larger of the two manway sizes in this family, which is what makes a tank of this height genuinely cleanable when sediment has to come out. Keep it closed against dust, birds and light, and keep the vent clear at all times; a blocked vent with a pump drawing will pull a polyethylene wall inward.

Everything downstream of the outlet gets designed as if the tank moves, because it does. The first joint off a base fitting is flexible, always, so that thermal movement and pump starts land on a connector instead of on the polyethylene; the first valve rides on its own support off the pad rather than hanging on the fitting; and no rigid pipe is set in concrete right up to the wall. Where the site freezes, trace or insulate the valve and the exposed run and leave the body of the tank to ice from the top down, since a plastic valve full of ice is scrap while a tank with a crust on the surface is still a tank. Keep a spare outlet gasket on the shelf rather than on a purchase order. And read the level from a gauge at ground level instead of from the lid; on a tank this tall nobody should be climbing to answer a question an instrument can answer.

Irrigation supply, a rural reserve and one stage of a reuse train

A slim 5,000 in green gets bought where the water matters and the floor is short: irrigation and drip supply at a nursery, orchard or market garden; hauled water taken off a truck at a property with no well; stock and trough supply on a ranch that would rather run one pad than four; construction water for dust control and compaction; wash-down and equipment rinse water on a yard; and standing water held on a rural property against a dry season. On that last duty, be honest about the difference between 5,000 gallons in a tank and a designed fire reserve, because sizing, draw rate, connection and freeze protection are engineered as a system rather than assumed, and the fire-water reservoir design guide is where that argument gets made properly. Where this tank is one stage in a system that collects, holds and re-uses water rather than a standalone vessel, the industrial water reuse tank topology article places a vessel this size in the sequence and says what has to be true upstream and downstream of it.

Merced, California, an oversize load at class 500

The SII-WG83 is molded at Merced, California and moves at class 500 as the sheet lists it, shipping at 102 inches by 102 inches by 159 inches, which is an oversize load rather than ordinary freight. Thirteen feet three inches of tank lying on a deck is a height and width problem at the same time, so the route is part of the purchase: check the gate, the turn, the tree line and the overhead lines, and confirm where a truck can stop and who is unloading before it is booked. The freight cost estimator prices the lane to your ZIP, and the listed price is before freight. Take it off with slings under the body and a machine that can stand it up on the finished pad, never a hook through the manway and never by dragging it on its base, and get the bands or cables on before that machine leaves the site, because 675 pounds of empty tank standing thirteen feet tall overnight is the one risk this shell does not forgive. Then accept it properly rather than filling it and hoping: fill to the manway with clean water, hold it, and read the base, the pad edge, the bolted outlet and the inlet bulkhead right through the hold. The method, the hold time and what a settling pad actually looks like are set out in the hydrostatic test methodology guide. That first fill is the cheapest hour this installation will ever get. Keep the first delivery's paperwork with the tank; strength and date on day one is the baseline for every batch after.