Engineering problem

[bixaorellana]

I know there is a way to do this, but I just repeatedly proved to myself that I don't know how.

This ugly thing in my patio is full of water and I want to empty it. I tried submerging a length of hose in it, but there must be more to that trick than meets the eye.

Of course it could be laboriously dipped out, a solution to be avoided.

Guidance, please!

[Deleted]

You have to suck on the hose to get the drainage started. Then it will siphon away as long as it is draining lower than the bottom of the tank.

[bixaorellana]

I saw my mechanic siphon gasoline from a container without sucking on the hose, but he held the container up really high.

You can see in the picture that the hose will have to come up and over. If I get the siphon started, will it keep flowing?

[tod2]

Now Bixa this is how its done. You send water down the hose until it runs out of the other end. Then put your thumb over that to stop the flow - you might need help here, but the end that was being filled with water must be submerged in the water you are trying to get rid of. Soon as you have done that you can take your thumb off the blocked end and providing you keep that slightly lower, the water running out will automatically pull the water behind it through the hose.....Whew! I don't know if you get the idea. ;D

[onlymark]

Bixa, the end of the hose you want the water to come out of must always be lower than the bottom of the container for to flow to continue once you've started it off.

[Deleted]

Or you can take a hammer and a spike and just punch a hole in the tank.

[bixaorellana]

Thanks to Tod and Mark, as I now see what the problem was. Tod, I knew about keeping one end submerged, but after reading Mark's reply I realize that I have to get the outside end closer to the ground to get it to flow. I also think I need to get a short, softer length of hose.

Kerouac, that was my idea, too, except I was thinking more of a 32 ounce maul as a solution. The landlady is in her nineties and must have been burnt by tenants before, as she made me sign an inventory of what came with the house. The (probably asbestos) water tank is on the list. She was going to include the window panes until her daughter stopped her.

[Deleted]

Even a long garden hose will work just fine as long as the draining end is lying on the ground.

[bixaorellana]

Okay! Thanks. The one I'm using is a length of garden hose @9' long, with no nozzles. However, it had been rolled up and was sort of stiff. I'll put it out in the sun to make it malleable, and try again.

It maybe doesn't matter that the stupid thing is full of water, but every time I look at it I think "mosquito farm".

[fumobici]

The critical things to getting a siphon running are to make sure the hose is purged of air and that the end you want the liquid to drain from is lower than the submerged end. Those criteria being met, it will work.

[cristina]

Is that a removable lid on top? My first thought was to displace the water with rocks.

Of course I think this way way because I have many rocks at my disposal.

[Deleted]

Is she never going to empty that tank?

If not, I would have started a crayfish farm in there by now.

[bixaorellana]

Both of y'all are odd as all get-out.

[bixaorellana]

Okay, you people are geeeeeeeeen-yusses!

I emptied the damned thing, thanks to all your guidance. Can't quite get all silty bit at the bottom, so am using an old sheet to create, as Kurt Vonnegut puts it, "the miracle of capillary action".

Thanks!

[Deleted]

You could have also unfurled your long locks into the tank like Rapunzel.