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Have any of you, or do you know of any old-timers that have had cracking issues with their masonry cisterns? This question is more directed toward seismic activity. Some friends of mine over in Belize asked me. they said after the quake in Honduras some of the old concrete vats cracked. That and cost is why we used poly vats. good money in repairing concrete vats.
Cheers!
Posted : July 11, 2009 2:06 pm
Our house is 25 years old and sits on a fault line that runs beneath the Peterborg ridge. We feel every little tremor, have been woken from a sound sleep by tremors, have had items fall off walls, have a few cracks in floor tiles, etc., but thankfully our cisterns haven't suffered. It's something of a concern, but I still prefer concrete cisterns over poly vats. I spent the first 25 years of my life in CA and the tremors here are different. In CA they tend to be the sort that twist homes, roads, etc., while here they tend to be the sort that shake. I don't know what type of quakes are prevalent in Honduras, but if they cracked a preponderance of cisterns, perhaps they were twisters rather than shakers. (I know there are technical names for the twisting and shaking, but I can't think of them at the moment.)
Posted : July 11, 2009 4:18 pm
mine cracked several times. either voids in the concrete or the corner where the crackcs happened is on fill.
Sloop Jones
Posted : July 11, 2009 5:32 pm
dnt: While you and I know that you mean California, I have noticed that some people use CA as an abbrevaition for Charlotte Amalie. 😉
Posted : July 11, 2009 6:37 pm
Mine has cracked a few times - the settling issue more than seismic activity - I was told? - the house is 40 years old and this is in the last 10 years - easily could have been seismic in my opinion and have some wall cracks and tile cracks too over the years - I don't suspect it is going to slide down the mountain but I am carved into a steep slope so maybe?
Posted : July 11, 2009 10:32 pm
We have had cracking issues in a cistern that we built years ago then ended up abandoning. It still works for some water catchment/storage.
The reference to poly cisterns interests me--I'd love to add some water catchment capacity without the expense of building a cistern. I've seen small (500-1000 gallon) poly water storage containers but wasn't sure they were cost effective from a price per gallon stored perspective. Anyone have experience on this?
Best,
Islandlola
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Posted : July 12, 2009 12:08 am
Many people do experience damage due to 4+ earth episodes, but not many report the damage.
So,when we have a 5+, & someone has damage, the claim is denied as 'no one else reported damage".
I feel a tremor can cause invisible damage, then the next episode(no matter how small) can cause the damage to be apparent.
This is the weasel factor the insurance companies use here to get out of paying legitimate claims(are we listening Mariam Mathis & Brad Worth??).
Posted : July 12, 2009 3:37 am
Are quake tremors in STX ? I plan to move there and am curious. I am in North Charleston close to Summerville, and they have a fault line in Summerville too. Someone said yours is Peterborg fault?
Thanks
Posted : July 14, 2009 10:54 am
