Cistern

Dadlies Tucking, Tony's, look in phone book.

I thought you were in a condo? The condo association will take care of that and charge you for your usage!

Not necessarily, some condos have their own private cisterns. As does mine.

Really? Boy, I learn new things here every single day! Each unit has their own cistern? That was an expensive way to build!!

yup.....40 units each with their own cistern.

Any answers to the question? Who fills them?

G-Dub-Ya,

This concept of individual cisterns for each condo boggles my mind. Does each unit also have its own collection system (which would seem hard to set up unless every unit was ground floor and had its own roof), or is there some sort of shared collection system (i.e. all the rain that's collected is distributed among the 40 cisterns)? Or is there no collection system and each unit simply buys truckloads of water?

I'm so eager to learn about this!

swhitey,

First question -- since it seemsfrom your multitude of recent posts that you're still off island, why are you so sure your cistern is empty and needs filling? I can't imagine a former owner deliberately draining a cistern or running it dry before they sell. However, it is getting toward the end of the dry season and I'm sure there are cisterns that are running pretty low while we await the rainy season's arrival.

If your cistern really is low and in need of filling, and there isn't a rainwater collection system in place, you would likely be responsible for acquiring your own water from a company that delivers via a pump truck.

Contact the condo management company or the homeowners' association -- they'll be able to answer these questions with certainty. They may have even arranged to get a "bulk" discount of some sort through a certain water company by promising that the individual owners will use that company exclusively or by guaranteeing that the asssociation memberswould puchase a certain amount of water each year.

I would also think that the responsibilities of individual owners re: water usage would be spelled out in the condo owner's manual, which you should own a copy of if you don't already have one. (Hopefully you didn't buy a condo without a copy of the association's owners' manual so you knew how financially sound the owners' association is and what the rules are before you invested.)

--HC

Yup, all one level, each with several downspouts to fill their own cistern.

These units do have there own roofs. They are not attached to one another. And yes, I'm getting the condo financials ASAP. Thanks!