The morning my rainwater filter exploded into my face at about 6am

I was out in my back shed near Flagstaff checking on my drum setup after a heavy rain. I lifted the lid to swap the first-stage filter and the whole thing burst - just a geyser of brown leaf water straight into my mouth and eyes. Turns out I had the intake valve open and the drum was pressurized (dumb mistake, I know). I spent the next hour digging through spare parts and rigged a pressure relief valve from an old sprinkler system. Has anyone else had a gravity-fed tank do something wild like that during a routine check?

3 comments

3 Comments

hugos461mo ago

Saw a guy on another forum who had a similar thing happen with a rain barrel setup, except his was ice buildup in winter that cracked the whole thing. Gotta watch those pressures, man, even gravity systems can surprise you once they get clogged up or sealed wrong.

dixon.james1mo ago

Funny thing about ice, water expands when it freezes, so that pressure comes from nowhere if you don't have room for it to expand into. A lot of people don't think about that when they seal up barrels tight. You get a freeze-thaw cycle going and that crack happens overnight. Even with gravity systems, air gaps or overflow paths are what save you, but people skip them thinking it's overkill.

brianm661mo ago

Honestly, is it really that common though? I've run gravity tanks for years and never had pressure build up like that unless I made a real obvious mistake.