The Norwesco 1175 gallon underground water storage cistern delivers buried water-storage capacity for rural homes, off-grid cabins, and remote sites where above-ground storage isn't practical. Molded from polyethylene, it runs long and low at 127 inches end to end, 60 inches wide, and 51 inches tall, dropping nearly 1,200 gallons of water storage into an excavation rather than standing on a pad. Filled with water, the contents weigh roughly 9,800 pounds, well under the tank's 18,619-pound rated contents capacity, so water service runs with a wide structural margin to spare.
Will it work for your install?
This cistern is dimensioned to be buried, so size your trench to the body: a 127-inch run, 60 inches wide, with a 51-inch profile that keeps burial depth manageable. A single 20-inch lid provides access for fill, cleanout, and inspection. Note what the tank does and does not include: it comes with that 20-inch lid for access, but inlet, outlet, and vent penetrations along with their bulkhead fittings and gaskets are field-installed per your plumbing layout, so plan those connections and their seals as part of the install. Run your capacity math against actual draw and refill before you commit to a hole size; the Tank Sizing Calculator and Tank Sizing Guide walk you through right-sizing a cistern to household or site demand so you don't bury a tank too small to ride through a dry stretch.
Resin headroom beyond water
This body carries a 1.9 specific-gravity resin rating, which is more than water service alone requires. Water fills it to about 9,800 pounds against an 18,619-pound rated contents capacity, so the same shell handles contents heavier than water if your service ever changes. For a buried water cistern that headroom is reassurance rather than a requirement, but it tells you the resin and wall were built to hold dense loads, not just the weight of the water inside.
The mistake to avoid
The biggest underground-tank mistake is treating it like an above-ground tank. This is a buried cistern, and its long-term integrity depends on correct bedding, uniform backfill, and following Norwesco's burial guidance for cover depth and compaction. Your real risks underground are the soil loads and groundwater around the tank, not the weight of the water inside it. Confirm your water chemistry and intended use, and verify the excavation and backfill plan against the manufacturer's installation instructions before you lower it in. Once it's in the ground, fixing a bedding error means digging it back up.
Commissioning and acceptance
Before you trust a new cistern, prove it holds. A controlled water-fill with pad and settlement monitoring catches fitting leaks and reveals any movement before the system goes into service. Our Hydrostatic Test Methodology for New-Install Tank Acceptance guide covers fill discipline, settlement monitoring, and hold-time math. If this cistern feeds a rural fire-protection reservoir or aggregates rainwater and reuse water, our Fire-Water Reservoir Tank Design and Industrial Water Reuse Tank Topology guides put this storage tank in the larger system context.
This Norwesco underground water tank ships LTL freight from the nearest Norwesco plant to your delivery ZIP, with origins in Griffin, GA; Hanford, CA; Lancaster, OH; Shawnee, OK; St. Bonifacius, MN; Tooele, UT; and Washougal, WA. That wide plant coverage means your tank moves from the closest origin to you, which is exactly why freight is quoted by destination rather than priced flat. Use the Freight Cost Estimator for a live rate to your ZIP, or call 866-418-1777 to book delivery and confirm offload. See the technical drawing on this page for fitting placement and burial dimensions.
