Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

I need to arrange water supply to villa I have purchased in Girne (Alagadi) and wanted advice from colleagues within the forum whether best to have a meter installed or to have a tank? The villa will only be used as a holiday home 2 weeks of the year, twice a year

Unless you have a 'mains' supply which is guaranteed to be always 'on' and at a constant pressure (most unlikely) then you will have to have hot and cold tanks anyway because mains supplies are regularly shut off by local councils to conserve water, so the water tank storage will give you available water for when this happens.

Most if not all properties in Cyprus have cold and hot storage tanks due to this unreliability and/or lack of mains supply. The property is then supplied from the tanks via a pump.

If there is a mains supply and you want to connect to it then you will have to have a water meter installed anyway but you would still need tanks.

If you don't have (or don't want) a mains supply then I would guess you wouldn't need a water meter, but you will then have to constantly monitor what water you have in your tank and arrange for tankered water to come and top it up. That might be ok if you are only coming twice a year but what if you decide in the future to use it more, or rent it out, or sell, then it would be a pain.

Only here for 2 weeks of the year??? If you have tanks and no direct connection to mains water - even if you do - please remember that the water in your tanks will sit there for 50 weeks without being used! In the summer (40C) heat the bugs in the water can grow quite nicely in your tanks and then when you come over you get to spread them all over your body - mmmmm nice.

Most people who only spend a couple of weeks a year here never think about the stagnant water they are going to use out of their tanks - please be aware of it.

Thank you both for your replies much appreciated. I think we will go with a meter and get a payment card?

If you do that will you not be paying for water that still just sits in your tanks, use it or not you will pay a standing charge each month as well. If you plan on coming for longer periods over the years then the meter is the way to go and just count in the total cost of the water charge over a year as part of normal maintenance and household bills.

If your "Master" plan is just for the odd holiday then you may be better off with tanker water but then you would have to suffer the arrangements of getting it before you got here every time. Its swings and roundabouts Denizismail but as you seem to be just a holiday person then make it as easy as you can for yourself and get to enjoy your holidays instead of worrying over the "What Ifs" in life.

waddo wrote:Only here for 2 weeks of the year??? If you have tanks and no direct connection to mains water - even if you do - please remember that the water in your tanks will sit there for 50 weeks without being used! In the summer (40C) heat the bugs in the water can grow quite nicely in your tanks and then when you come over you get to spread them all over your body - mmmmm nice.

Most people who only spend a couple of weeks a year here never think about the stagnant water they are going to use out of their tanks - please be aware of it.

That is a valid point waddo, although I have to say at the moment we ourselves only come over about 3 times a year and our water has always been ok. I always check our water when I arrive and it always looks nice and clean. Our cold tank is underground and covered with decking so it never gets direct sunlight to it, also the lid is always screwed firmly on so no bugs ever get into it, now, microscopic bugs may be another matter, but from our experience over the last 9 years we've never had a problem with it. We would never drink the tank water anyway even if we lived here full time.

If it ever DID become an issue we have a good submersible pump which can empty our 2 ton tank in around 15 minutes or so, so it would be no real hassle to drain the tank out and refill with clean mains water. There are usually ways around these things and personally for the convenience of mains water I would go with that with a meter any day as opposed to tankering water in. Thinking ahead to when (lol) the Turkish water pipeline is finally on tap then hopefully the 'mains' will always be 'on'.

Yes there is the standing charge to pay each month for the mains water but I think Alagadi comes under Esentepe municipality and we currently pay only 22.22TL per month and that includes both standing charge and council tax so not really very much at all for the convenience.

If you do have one of the new water meters fitted, please note: They disable themselves if no water is drawn through the meter in any one month period... this feature sounds a little odd but it does mean that if your pump is off a leak will be limited to one fill of the contents of the top tank....

To re-activate you have to reinsert your pre-pay card and press the grey/black button.

It's fair to say a very small dose (typically one tablespoon) of chlorine added to the bottom tank before you leave will keep it in good fettle for your return - as long as you don't intend to drink it!

Groucho wrote:It's fair to say a very small dose (typically one tablespoon) of chlorine added to the bottom tank before you leave will keep it in good fettle for your return - as long as you don't intend to drink it!

Good point that Groucho and something I'd not thought of, will get some next time I'm over and give that a try.

G's, please don't take this as a poke in the chest in anyway, I have lived here solid for the past eight years and learned lot's, some through local knowledge and some through accident but everything I have learnt has been useful. I also did not know that the new water meters will switch off after a month of no use, that is really useful information! I am not sure if Alagadi comes under Esentepe or under Catalkoy, I do know there has always been a fight over who has to clean up the beach area around Alagadi because of the dividing line between the two areas that either runs through it or very close to it.

Back to water - have you ever had your water tested at the lab? I have mine tested every year and surprise, surprise, the well water is safer than the mains water, which I am told I must no even shower in!!! We do not drink the mains water direct either but do use it in the water boiler/kettle. Now, and here is the thing, we also make our ice cubes from it, wash our dish's in it, clean our salad with it, wash our fruit with it, shower with it and of course when brushing our teeth - guess where the water comes from that falls out of the tap? Point is that it is not just "Drinking", it is all things that you do with the water from your mains/tanks and that the more you can limit the interaction the safer you would feel. I say feel because if you ever eat out or drink a beer out of glass you have not washed then chances are it was washed in tap water.

Bugs are sly little devils and will get you one day.

Waddo. As a matter of interest, can you tell me the laboratory you use to get your well water tested as I would like to do the same.
Thank you, Bookmark.

The name of it no but where it is yes. If you are coming from Ozankoy/Bellapais then the lab is on the right hand side of the road just before you get to the traffic lights. Kind of next door to Akin car sales on the cross roads.

Waddo, no offense taken at all and you are absolutely right.

I wasn't suggesting that because I don't drink the tank water it's 100% safe, I know that you can catch things such as legionella from shower spray/mist etc, and i've given my whole water supply a lot of thought over the past year in that my water is now filtered for sediment and softened via a softener b4 it goes into the tank.

The sanitizing aspect is not something I've looked at so closely, but because of this thread that is now the next step. I did recently clean out my tank, as luckily I can get into it and the muck and sludge that came out was unbelievable, including a large bucketful of lime scale, especially considering that it was cleaned previously 2-3 years ago, Hopefully the lime scale won't be a problem any more, but the sanitizing.... my next task.

Our site consists mainly of holiday home owners, the vast majority of whom don't even give their water supply a second thought unless they run out or the pump fails, but as we know there is a lot more to it than that.

Thanks again.

Hi DenizIsmail,
We have friends on Turquoise Bay, Esentepe,
who visit their apt regularly.
There is no mains water supply there, yet.
Water is stored in their own 10 ton water tank.
This is filled via tanker.
These apartments do not have solar panels,
Hot water is via an externally wall mounted electric water heater.
After each visit, their 10 ton tank is dosed with chlorine & pH-
At the moment, 10 tons of tankered water should cost
No more than 100Tl.

If your house is fitted with solar panels,
hopefully there is also a ground level water tank,
connected with a water pump.
If so, just tanker your water in,
Until your circumstances change.
Should work out cheaper than installing a water meter,
Then having to pay monthly standing charges,
while the house is unoccupied.
Good luck.
Navek

I bought and fitted - dead easy - a TwistIIClean 1" Inline Water Filter with the 100 micron screen to stop the crap coming through into the house. It very successfully reduced the house water pressure and has stopped a lot of bits coming through. However, the brown sand that every one gets stuck in their tap outlets is still there - but at least its clean, lol. As I changed all the water system over to plastic welded pipe work over the past five years I thought I had cracked it - problem is if your pipes are outside anywhere in the sun then you will get a green grot build up in them - the inline filter catch's all that - and the pipes inside have the limescale deposit on them - hence the brown sand.

I take it your water is filtered and softened b4 it goes into your top tank not your main storage tank? I do not soften ours but always wonder if I did would it stop the sand deposits? Water purifying is a different game and you have to get that dead right or it ends up more dangerous than the normal mains water!

Look for water purifying on American sites as they do lots of that over there and many, many places are on boreholes (wells) the same as Australia - may find some useful bits there.

Hi Waddo, funny enough I also have the Twist11clean, but the 3/4" with 105 Micron black filter. Had a devil of a job initially trying to find a supplier as they all seemed to be in the states but managed to find a supplier in the UK (Geoquip) Have to say it's a brilliant piece of kit. Yes it does reduce the pressure slightly, I did toy with the idea of trying a larger mesh filter, but haven't bothered as yet. Mine is wall mounted directly after the water meter, has a sunshield on the bowl but I've also recently made a cover so that the whole filter housing is covered from the sun.

I wanted to try and increase the flow rate to the softener because it needs good flow and min 1 BAR mains pressure, and although the galv' steel pipework TO the meter looked to be about 25 odd mm external, the mains iso' valve had a really restrictive internal bore down to about 10-12mm from memory. That then went through the meter into 20mm (15mm internal) plastic pipe to the cold tank so I upped the plastic pipe to 25mm ext and fitted a new 22mm full bore iso' valve to the meter, so the flow rate is now much better.

Now 22mm copper and plastic after the meter.

Mine goes.... Mains in > Water meter > Twist11clean > Softener > Underground cold storage tank > Pump > hot water tank/house supply.

To add, I think the crap in our tap filters is mainly powdery lime scale which I'm hoping will disappear over time as I'm told that softened water will eventually loosen lime scale deposits from the internal pipework... time will tell

Navek wrote:Hi DenizIsmail,
We have friends on Turquoise Bay, Esentepe,
who visit their apt regularly.
There is no mains water supply there, yet.
Water is stored in their own 10 ton water tank.
This is filled via tanker.
These apartments do not have solar panels,
Hot water is via an externally wall mounted electric water heater.
After each visit, their 10 ton tank is dosed with chlorine & pH-
At the moment, 10 tons of tankered water should cost
No more than 100Tl.

If your house is fitted with solar panels,
hopefully there is also a ground level water tank,
connected with a water pump.
If so, just tanker your water in,
Until your circumstances change.
Should work out cheaper than installing a water meter,
Then having to pay monthly standing charges,
while the house is unoccupied.
Good luck.
Navek

Navek, I never did understand why TQB installed gas water heaters and not solar panels when the sun is free and gas is not!

guru wrote:

Navek wrote:Hi DenizIsmail,
We have friends on Turquoise Bay, Esentepe,
who visit their apt regularly.
There is no mains water supply there, yet.
Water is stored in their own 10 ton water tank.
This is filled via tanker.
These apartments do not have solar panels,
Hot water is via an externally wall mounted electric water heater.
After each visit, their 10 ton tank is dosed with chlorine & pH-
At the moment, 10 tons of tankered water should cost
No more than 100Tl.

If your house is fitted with solar panels,
hopefully there is also a ground level water tank,
connected with a water pump.
If so, just tanker your water in,
Until your circumstances change.
Should work out cheaper than installing a water meter,
Then having to pay monthly standing charges,
while the house is unoccupied.
Good luck.
Navek

Navek, I never did understand why TQB installed gas water heaters and not solar panels when the sun is free and gas is not!

You can't sell the sun to customers but you can sell gas!

Groucho wrote:

guru wrote:

Navek wrote:Hi DenizIsmail,
We have friends on Turquoise Bay, Esentepe,
who visit their apt regularly.
There is no mains water supply there, yet.
Water is stored in their own 10 ton water tank.
This is filled via tanker.
These apartments do not have solar panels,
Hot water is via an externally wall mounted electric water heater.
After each visit, their 10 ton tank is dosed with chlorine & pH-
At the moment, 10 tons of tankered water should cost
No more than 100Tl.

If your house is fitted with solar panels,
hopefully there is also a ground level water tank,
connected with a water pump.
If so, just tanker your water in,
Until your circumstances change.
Should work out cheaper than installing a water meter,
Then having to pay monthly standing charges,
while the house is unoccupied.
Good luck.
Navek

Navek, I never did understand why TQB installed gas water heaters and not solar panels when the sun is free and gas is not!

You can't sell the sun to customers but you can sell gas!

Groucho, how stupid of me, and so true

You can use household bleach as your source of chlorine to sanitise your supply, if you like.

It is usually around 5% concentration- i.e. 50,000 parts per million (ppm) of sodium hypochlorite (but check the label!).

UK drinking water standard is 1 ppm of chlorine, so you should aim for 1 to 1.5 ppm in your ground level storage tank, as some will get used up on the way, and chlorine will break down on contact with air, exposure to sunlight (not relevant in this case) and when tackling 'bugs'

I would be inclined to use around 20 to 30 ml of household bleach per ton of water to be treated.

Remember to include the capacity of your roof tank, if you have one.

I recommend emptying the roof tank, as the water will have been in there for ages - just turn off the power to your pump, and use it all up somehow - and then turn the power back on to refill the roof tank after you have treated the ground level tank. If you do it on an evening, then it will have had 8 hours to do its job by the next morning.

You can check the chlorine content - before and after treatment - using a normal pool testing kit, and if you find that the Belediye water supply already has some chlorine content, then you can adjust the amount of bleach to suit.

Thanks keith, all very useful info.

DenizIsmail, sorry we appear to have hijacked your thread but hopefully you will also find all this info of use.

guru, have no top tank, hot tank or solar panels - ditched the lot. Top tank maintenance meant climbing and I don't do heights, hot tank only lasted 3 to 5 years before bursting and anyway it never did hold enough hot water in the winter time and the solar panels (The old black pipe type covered in glass) were not really solar panels anyway and just made the water tower even more dodgy to climb up.

Installed a plastic two ton tank connected to the main, pumped the water from there via the TwistIIclean into the house and into a wall mounted gas water heater - job done. Now have hot water, as much as I can use, whenever I need it, good water pressure and nothing leaks and drips. Cut down the water tower and got rid of the lot - happy bunny as any maintenance needed I can now do at ground level and it is all dead easy to maintain. Starting year two on the gas water heater this year but cost of gas (Big Blue Bottle) works out about the same as buying and fitting a new hot tank every four years - no loss there.

I have the added bonus of a well so when - not if - the council turn off the mains and my tank gets low I can just top it up from the well.

Hi Waddo, I can see why you've configured it that way, especially if access is a problem. Luckily I can access our hot water tank quite easily as it's on a flat roof terrace. I think replacing the hot tank is my next job, as it's 9 years old and slowly dripping, and although I fitted a Titanium element a few years ago to combat lime scale build up on the element prior to fitting the water softener, after 9 years god only knows what scale, crud and crap must be inside that tank if our cold tank is anything to go by.

I take it you have a DIRECT mains connection to your property?

Although we have 'mains' as such, as ours is a communal site the actual mains comes in at the top of the site into a (about) 3 ton tank and it gravity feeds all the properties. The pressure is really good when the tank is full as there is probably about 30 plus foot of head, but only problem is when the Belidiye turn the water off the tank runs down very quickly and the pressure slowly disappears until we all eventually get nothing. I'm hoping that turning the water off will be a thing of the past when the Turkish water comes (here's hoping lol) and thus the tank will always be full and we'll have a more constant pressure.

I think I know the place where you get your water quality tested so can I ask.

How much does it cost to get it tested?
Do you get a report breakdown in English?
How long does it take for the testing and results?
Is there a chlorine content present in your mains supply?

Have not got my last test result now - mass office clear out last month go rid of loads of things I knew I would need later - lol

It cost 50TL, they provide the sealed container that you fill and take back.
The report was in printed Turkish but the girls speak English and the translation was very good - they are most helpful.
It took a week after I had returned the water container to them, this because they test it for all sorts of things and had to change filters but at the time they had run out of the filters they needed.
Don't know if there is chlorine present in my mains water supply and would not have bothered if they told there was.

Yes we have constant (in between when it is turned off) mains water supply direct. My big bonus is that I have a well I can run a 2 inch pipe from 24 hrs without it dropping any water pressure at all. When we moved here my first concern was that I could have a well on the property, no well, no house was my agreement with the builder!! This well is 130 ft deep and is into pea gravel at the bottom, the water in it is running water as well.

Thanks Waddo

"Navek, I never did understand why TQB installed gas water heaters and not solar panels when the sun is free and gas is not!"

They didn't fit gas water heaters, they fitted electric water heaters.
One's as bad as the other though.
Navek

Navek, I have been running a gas water heater now for over 6 years as a backup to the solar panels and for when the hot tank ran out. Realised that with the gas heater I did not have to wait for the water to heat up in the winter with the immersion running and that I never suffered the sudden loss of hot water when covered in soap! Would not go back and never be without it, even have a spare just in case the one fitted suddenly packs in. Worth it for us without a doubt.

The electric water heater idea was never a good one, power cut means no hot water but then it also means no pump so neither of them (gas or electric) would be any use and all you end up with is the old gravity system of dribble through the shower. Have had a standby genny for the past eight years and only run it twice in anger so went for gas for cost and convenience - not to mention safety when I looked at the work of the local expert electrician, did not want to end my days sparking around in the shower - lol.

Navek wrote:"Navek, I never did understand why TQB installed gas water heaters and not solar panels when the sun is free and gas is not!"

They didn't fit gas water heaters, they fitted electric water heaters.
One's as bad as the other though.
Navek

Oh I thought they were gas, but electric far worse, TQB must've been sponsored by Kibtec. I actually almost bought on TQB... had a VERY lucky escape