Wow - you are miles ahead and flying down the road to water sufficiency! I'm impressed 🙂 I'd love to see pictures sometime when you get it all finished.

Using black plastic for the walls and black roofing may help keep it from freezing. I know from experience that a 55 gallon drum will freeze solid, not sure about the larger tanks though. Ideally, you would want to put the large cistern underground, but that may or may not be possible for you. At least not likely this time of year, but perhaps something to look into come spring. I am lucky in that I have a deep well that taps into an underground spring some 300 feet down, but there is an old ground water well also. My guess is that it used to dry up so the owner at the time put in the deep well.

If you can keep the water moving it will be less likely to freeze. That might involve installing a loop from the last tank back to the first tank with a small circulation pump attached. Just a thought.
Years ago we had a shallow dug well that would go dry every summer. We used to dump water right in the well and store it there. I don't know if that was a good or bad idea.

Don't know if you have line power or not. If you do you can get pipe heating cable that wraps around the pipe. Also livestock water tank heater would keep your tanks clear of ice.

Wow - you are miles ahead and flying down the road to water sufficiency! I'm impressed 🙂 I'd love to see pictures sometime when you get it all finished.

if that was "really" true, i wouldn't be bring it in right now!

late breaking news on the water subject!

i worked last night, drank the rest of my milk before i left work, wasn't sitting just right. i didn't sleep well yesterday and sometimes i need to pull over for a nap on my way home. did so early today, warmed up the truck covered up but did not pull out the sleeping back to cover more. work up cool, turned the truck on warmed up again, put the sleeping bag on. . .

got home, chilled to the bone. . . turned the heat up, no big deal, (it was set for 17C) under a couple of covers, fleece long sleve shirt on, work up just now no longer chilled . . . until i took the covers off. . .had like 9 pneumonia pt's in the last three days, so i check my temp. . . 38.0C GREAT

i'm building this thing as long as i don't bloody die! i can't be sick grrrr i only have 8 days off to get this done and winter is on it's way. (i'm not really that handy either)

While my suggestion can’t help you get water it will help purify the water you do get and what I am suggesting is that you invest in something called a Berky water purification system. If you notice I put purify in bold and underlined it because what the Berky system does is allow you to use almost any water and it takes about 99.99% of the impurities out of it, including most of the things that make us sick and allow you to drink clean, healthy water no matter where you get it even if it is from a ditch.
In one of their ads they show them actually taking liquid run off from near a manure pile and putting it through the Berky and then along with tasting it they tested it and the Berky had filtered out 100% of the impurities along with the brown colour. The only thing that they said that it didn’t do was change the odour and while I bet that made the water hard to swallow it would at least let someone stay alive in a life and death situation.
I am not saying that you should get manure run-off but I just used that as an example.
My wife and I had ours when we were in Mexico and we did not get “Montezuma’s Revenge” or whatever they call it when you drink their water and then end up on the crapper for a day or so. At first I was pretty nervous but after a while I was drinking my usual 8 or so glasses each day.
No I am not a Berky salesperson nor do I get any money from anyone buying a Berky but ever since I have had mine the only thing I wished I had done was to have bought one sooner and it is something i recommend to almost everyone of my prepper and even my non-prepper friends.
You can check them out on the Internet and there are a couple of distributors here in Canada so that you can have it shipped right to your door in a day or so. They come in different sizes depending on your needs and are a great investment especially now that so many of our water sources these days are so damn suspect.
I know that this doesn’t help you get water but al least it will allow you to use any water you do come upon like lake or river water etc.
Best of luck.

Hello I'm thinking if you insulate the pipe to the hopuse is good but you could try heat tape on it first.
Thats all I used on my trailer in Alberta at -30

You could also use a inline block heater to circulate and keep water from freezing
Your goona have quite the system there I would also like to see some before and after and dureing building photos

I think their is a water line out there that has a built in heat tracer, and I have seen wiping tile with water lines inside it with foam sprayed in it, I have seen this used for a outdoor firewood furnace. Ummm this just gave me a idea for another post.....running a truck on firewood! Should I start a post on this ?

alternate ideas;
go to farmers supply store. They have drop in tank heaters, quick easy to do. some are bigger than others.

alternative idea, get a small air compressor that runs on 12v or 120v run a line into tank, attach it to a line with lots of small pin prick holes, this will add bubbles to the water, constantly keep the water moving, this they do around ships/boats in some harbours. I would look to a good quality 12v system since you can then run it on battery power if power out, or make sure you have a genset handy (or another running vehicle and inverter off the motor/12v off the motor)

Get a downspout attachement for water run off. Use rain water, treat it as your roof top is not clean (none are) then filter it out the rain water. Why not just put the cistern into the basement and pump it up? Run the rainwater into the basement cistern (could be plastic totes as well) make sure you have an overflow draining mechanism and use this water?

Pure rain water is distilled water, after 2-3 min in a rain shower the rain is .000 or .001 ppm part per million, use a downspout attachment this allows the water to collect into the system for the first 2-3 minutes, then you start getting the remaining water diverted into your water system. Filter, use.
Canadian Tire - Home Hardware - Home Depot sold them this summer.

Using black plastic for the walls and black roofing may help keep it from freezing. I know from experience that a 55 gallon drum will freeze solid, not sure about the larger tanks though. Ideally, you would want to put the large cistern underground, but that may or may not be possible for you.

under ground would be ideal, but with the time frame I have it’s not going to happen that way just yet. This above ground will serve our needs and can be taken down and moved in the spring. It can also be put back up as needed.

Black plastic . . . this is a point that people argue for a long of things, black being better over the ground for killing weeds before putting in a garden, is another use. I used clean plastic on the ground, it heats up under it, and keeps “green house” effect going very close do the soil and kills the weeds even faster. (but smart people still say I’m wrong) but that’s my experience. The black may heat up, but the clear would give the green house effect, and a lot of winter great houses use dark plastic barrels for “mass heaters” (I can’t remember the correct phase they use) so you comment got me thinking on another idea . . . but I’ll be using fiberglass insulation in the “walls” so the plastic doesn’t really matter, the heat/cold should be blocked to a “R” degree anyways. (Ok bad joke)

I’ve also had 55 gal drums freeze in an unheated insulated shed, so we’ll see what knowledge this experience will bring.
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If you can keep the water moving it will be less likely to freeze. That might involve installing a loop from the last tank back to the first tank with a small circulation pump attached. Just a thought.
Years ago we had a shallow dug well that would go dry every summer. We used to dump water right in the well and store it there. I don't know if that was a good or bad idea.

Someone down below mentioned an inline pump; I’m going to have to look into that! But yes, we are planning a loop in the tank plumbing,

From what I’m reading, they discourage adding water to you well; the main reason is possible contamination. But a tanker truck of water is not contaminated?!?! So I’m not sure why this is frond upon. But in my case, the water flows in and flows out. . . the pond is so low the water level will try to balance out. It’s like adding a 1 foot of water from a 5 gal bucket to a 1000 gal tank, the larger area will have the same amount of water but it’ll be too swallow to pump out still.

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Don't know if you have line power or not. If you do you can get pipe heating cable that wraps around the pipe. Also livestock water tank heater would keep your tanks clear of ice.

two live stock tank heaters, and I’ve got some heat tape for the hose, not they aren’t recommended for “hose” but I’m using RV drinking water hose that is not the soft rubber garden hose material, this may or may not be a good idea, I’ll know better soon.

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While my suggestion can’t help you get water it will help purify the water you do get and what I am suggesting is that you invest in something called a Berky water purification system..

the water I get will be “potable” so I’m not worried about that. And I have more ways to filter water then I do to store that lol. while I can’t say anything bad about the berky water system, (ok maybe one thing bad, the price) it is a great system. But the heart of that system is the filters, (a lot of the price does come from them) and those are what I keep stock of. I have a no name “body” that looks just like the silver big berky, but with those filters, a drip system can be made out of two 5 gal buckets that will clean the water just the same for a fraction of the price.

And while the filters will last a long time, I’ve had a nipple on one break, and the filter body it self can break. . .stock extra!!!!

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alternate ideas;
go to farmers supply store. They have drop in tank heaters, quick easy to do. some are bigger than others.

alternative idea, get a small air compressor that runs on 12v or 120v run a line into tank, attach it to a line with lots of small pin prick holes, this will add bubbles to the water, constantly keep the water moving, this they do around ships/boats in some harbours. I would look to a good quality 12v system since you can then run it on battery power if power out, or make sure you have a genset handy (or another running vehicle and inverter off the motor/12v off the motor)

Get a downspout attachment for water run off. Use rain water, treat it as your roof top is not clean (none are) then filter it out the rain water. Why not just put the cistern into the basement and pump it up? Run the rainwater into the basement cistern (could be plastic totes as well) make sure you have an overflow draining mechanism and use this water?

Pure rain water is distilled water, after 2-3 min in a rain shower the rain is .000 or .001 ppm part per million, use a downspout attachment this allows the water to collect into the system for the first 2-3 minutes, then you start getting the remaining water diverted into your water system. Filter, use.
Canadian Tire - Home Hardware - Home Depot sold them this summer.

thanks for the reply.
the whole point of this system is to have it work without the power. i can cut the flow to the well tank, and have water flow to every room in the house, now my hot water heater is not yet converted to propane, but i have a portable heat too. so the pump is 12 v, and my stock tank heaters are 110v but my battery bank/inverter will convert that for me. i'm not sure how long i could run those heaters off batter power, but i can charge the batteries, (sun, genny, truck)

as for the rain water, it won't do much good right now, (i did hook it back up for the rains yesterday) but with any luck, i won't be needing that for drinking water. i have to keep the faucets/hoses from freezing, but that's easy to close them off and drain, but'll have a 7 barrels partly filled if i need them. cleaning the water is not a problem either.

my rain system is more for the garden, so i drained it when the winter hit (because like i said, we had LOTS of water hitting the ground the last few months)

with the thaw and rain the last few days, the pond water level is much higher, i'll be checking to see if the well came up much. that won't change the plans but at least it'll be a good start for the spring thaw.

Hi Entropy:
I agree with you 100% that the filters are what make the system, but if you are making your own you need to make sure that the "plastic pails" are made of food grade plastic rather than just your normal run of the mill plastic buckets. If you don't use food grade plastic you will end up with some pretty nasty stuff leeching into your water as it sits waiting for you to use it.

Hi Entropy:
I agree with you 100% that the filters are what make the system, but if you are making your own you need to make sure that the "plastic pails" are made of food grade plastic rather than just your normal run of the mill plastic buckets. If you don't use food grade plastic you will end up with some pretty nasty stuff leeching into your water as it sits waiting for you to use it.

while we are on the subject of plastic buckets, there are two things you need to know to find food grade buckets.
one is the recycling symbol with (in the case of 5 gal buckets) the number 2 in it (HDPE) the other thing is a stamp (usually around/near that symbol) that says "meets F.D.A. regulations" the number 2 isn't enough. . . HDPE is food grade, but sometimes non "food grade" products like buckets, were in contact with chemicals that are not food grade safe. (those chemicals are used to remove the bucket from the mold from what i'm told)

Home depot buckets are not food grade,
home HARDWARE buckets are!

if you are using them to store food, and use mylar bags you are fine with home depot buckets, if you wer using them for direct contact with food or water then you want a home hardware bucket.

the only other bucket that is safe are those that have only ever held food (muffin batter buckets for example) and i'm not 100% if they have the "F.D.A." stamp on them, especially if they are Canadian companies filling them.

Here is a little information on circulatory pumps that may be of some use to you with you water issues. In our town when the waterlines were originally put in they were not put in at a sufficient depth to clear the frost line. As a result there were multiple cases of the line freezing between the main line the individual houses. To solve this problem Aqua-flo pumps were installed to circulate the water between the house and the main line. These work well. Although they work on an intermittent basis they still require mains electrical power. Also the temperature of the water in the main line is 38°F. In your situation there is no way to guarantee that you would be able to keep the tank above freezing.

I think that you will have to heat both the tanks and the lines. I do not know what area of Ontario you live in hopefully you do not have many days of excessive minimum temperatures at night. You will not need much heat if you have lots of insulation but insulation alone will certainly not be enough. Night time when you are not using the system plus the lower night time temperatures will be your biggest obstacle.