Cistern Plumbing - Before Spring Break

Now we've got to get all the drain lines in for the cistern.  I'm not sure if I properly described what we're doing here, so here's a summary.  We're hooking all the downspouts from all the roof gutters together, where they all drain down to a single point and collect in the cistern.  Virtually the entire roof will drain to the cistern except one from the furthest corner of the garage in front.

This example to the right is the downspout from the corner of the lanai, with Sophie posing inside the corner.

All these drain lines had to be routed on a not-to-interfere basis with the pool plumbing and (hopefully) before the masons arrived to pour the footers for the decking, which would be difficult to work around.

The second picture is the junction from the north side of the house (under Matt's legs) and the south side of the house from the bottom right corner.  The cistern is going to be several feet to the left of the junction.

The picture below shows how much of the hole that the excavator dug for us.  We had planned for him to dig the full size for us, but the rumor is that the contractor was worried about a cave-in and stopped him at maybe 1/3 of the size we need.  At this point, we're not sure how we're going to get the rest of this dug out.  Did I mention that the cistern is over 1100 gallons?