Plumbers in Boerne, Texas

From the roof to the tank

Water quality in a harvesting system is decided long before any filter, on the roof and in the first few feet of pipe.

The roof is the catchment, so its material matters. Metal roofing is the standard here for good reason. Asphalt shingle sheds grit and it is a poorer surface for water intended to be drunk. What the roof is made of sets the ceiling on what the treatment has to remove.

First flush diversion earns its keep. The initial runoff carries dust, pollen, droppings and insects off the roof. A diverter sends that volume away before the rest reaches the tank, and a diverter that is blocked or has had its drip cap removed is doing nothing. It is the cheapest water quality device in the system and the most commonly neglected.

Screens, leaf guards and a calm inlet. Gutter screens and a tank inlet screen keep debris and mosquitoes out. A calming inlet that releases water low and gently stops the incoming flow stirring up the sediment layer that has settled on the tank floor.

Overflow needs a route away from the house. Tanks overflow in a Hill Country downpour, by design. That overflow has to be piped somewhere sensible, screened, and not into a foundation, a septic drainfield or a neighbour's yard.

Pump, pressure and the treatment train

From the tank onward this behaves like a private water system, and it has the same failure modes as one.

The pressure tank does the work the pump gets blamed for. A pump feeding a pressure tank should start and stop in slow cycles. Rapid cycling almost always means the tank has lost its air charge or its bladder has failed, and running a pump that way destroys it. Checking the air precharge against the cut-in pressure is routine maintenance nobody was handed instructions for.

Filtration runs coarse to fine, in that order. Sediment cartridges step down in micron rating, then carbon for taste and organics. Fitted in the wrong order the fine cartridge blinds off in weeks. Pressure gauges either side of the housings turn filter changes from guesswork into a reading.

Disinfection is not optional for potable use. Ultraviolet is the usual choice here, and it only works on water that is already clear, which is why it sits last. A UV lamp loses output long before it stops glowing and is an annual replacement item, and the quartz sleeve around it needs cleaning on the same visit.

Collected rainwater is soft, and that changes the house. After the limestone groundwater most of this county is used to, rainwater feels different and it is gentler on heaters and fixtures. It is also low in minerals and slightly aggressive, so it is worth confirming that what it touches downstream suits it.

Backup supply, separation and cold nights

Two hazards matter more than everything else on this page, and both are about connections rather than water.

A backup supply must never be plumbed straight into the cistern loop. Where city or well water tops up a tank, it does so through an air gap at the top of the tank, or through a correctly specified backflow device on a dedicated fill line. A direct connection between an untreated private system and a public main is a serious cross-connection, and it is the single most common defect we find on inherited systems here.

Label the two systems everywhere they appear. Irrigation-only cistern lines, hose bibs fed from the tank, and any tap on the untreated side need marking as non-potable. Houses change hands, and the next owner will not know what you know.

Above-ground tanks and pump houses freeze. A hard Hill Country freeze takes out pump heads, exposed manifolds, filter housings and the short runs between tank and pump house first. An insulated, gently heated pump enclosure and drainable exposed sections are what get a system through a January cold snap intact.

Know your volume before a dry spell, not during one. A tank level gauge and a rough sense of daily household use tell you when to order a delivery. Running a cistern dry damages the pump and pulls the settled sediment layer into the house.

How a call plays out

The phone is answered around the clock, holidays included. On a cistern-fed house, tell us what the system is: tank size, whether there is a backup supply, and when the filters and UV lamp were last changed. That is usually the whole diagnosis.

Boerne and the surrounding Kendall County communities are on our daily route, with genuine overnight dispatch. On a harvesting system we check the separation between collected and supplied water first, because that is the fault with real consequences, then work back through pressure, filtration and disinfection.