Hi all!
My partner and I recently moved into a house with a very old gravity fed hot water system. We asked a company to decommission it and they've cut off all the pipes and installed a new hot pump water tank.
Gravity fed water tank in the ceiling 
Pipes decomissioned
However this left us with 5cm of water left stuck at the bottom of a big metal barrel and it was leaking through and staining our ceiling. We have tried calling plumbers but they said it's not really a plumbing job and unless we want to remove the entire tank, they suggested we try remove the water ourselves. We're not looking to remove the tank.
So since then, we have cut a hole in the tank with metal sheers and managed to remove most of the water with a manual hand pump, but the issue now is that the water that's left is too little to be pumped out. What should we do? There's only like 5mm of water remaining but it's very muddy and clumpy.
A few ideas:
- Cut the hole bigger and use rags to soak up the water (what fabric materials would be good?)
- Use absorbant material like diatomaceous earth (other material suggestions welcome)
- Use a wet-dry vacuum to suck up the rest of the water (this might be hard to get in the ceiling)
