Mrs rebel is a very smart Lady make sure you listen carefully to what she says.......
We have 50,000 litres in storage. I cant stand the chlorine taste of town water. If we go somewhere we cart water with us including to restaurants.
Put a hanging basket in it about half way down and fill it with dolamite or at minimum crushed limestone so that every time the tank fills it automatically treats the water. If you get acid rain more lime dissolves to compensate. It is the lime in cement that makes water from a concrete tank taste nice. I made the basket from the stainless top off one of those gas fired outdoor gas heaters with all of those small holes in it. Just cut a piece big enough to make about a litre sized tube and suspend it with a bit of stainless wire at the strainer inlet with a stainless screw as a hook..
Concrete tanks often fail over time due to the lime dissolving from the concrete. Once the initial smell from a plastic tank is gone you wont have ongoing issues and mould or moss wont grow in a plastic tank like it will in a concrete one.
The water will last for years if there are no contaminants in it to create bacteria and the limestone is topped up as necessary.
Use a strainer at the inlet and also a first flush diverter of some form or another. In a lifestyle thread some time back I posted a photo of a sediment trap that you make out of a few water pipe fittings to add to the inlet plumbing to eliminate the fine sediment that you get off the roof and gutters.
I will look back and try and find it for you. We have two plastic and one stainless tank and never had a problem.
We have lived off tank water nearly 25 years.
