Thread: starting from scratch on my rural block

An exciting time for you

thanks mj, progess this week the septic was droped off, work began on the tank today
its 107,000 liters, inground and out of sight! the rio for the shed footings will arrive on friday, the shed will be 10 x 17 mtrs with precast concrete panels and colour bond roof. Do you think its big enough! can wait for it to be built. at 6.30 this morning it was the best place in the world to be! my slice of heaven.

Looking good

what sort of septic system are you going with and roughly how much does it set you back?
I'm interested in these things because I am currently researching building on a block also, cheers.

I'll be interested to see how you go with the shed....I went the standard steel frame, colorbond walls/roof option, but I'd go for something a bit more substantial if I end up building another.

The precast concrete panels sounds like a good idea for the walls, and your shed will go up real fast !

Hi Matrix, the system we went for has a sprinkler system, we have to move around the paddock, not ideal but council have new requirements for this style of system. we saw it in action at tocal field days, it comes with the airrater and pump. we spent around $6000.00 +, plus quarterly service fee $ 75.00. we prepared the hole ready for the tank to drop in as in the photos. check earthsafe environmental system website. Mr Brush I'm keen to see the shed to go up as well, its been in the planing stage for a long time, with engineers and architect plans. with still lots of ideas bouncing around in my head!
any advise or encoragement would be well received.

The thing I really stuffed up with my shed was the natural light (or lack thereof). Mine has a solid colorbond roof, and just the standard small window set into one wall.

If I was doing it again, I'd substitute (possibly tinted) polycarbonate sheets for a few of the colorbond sheets in the roof

Laserlite Australia : Residential : Laserlite 2000

The polycarbonate has the same profile and dimensions, so its easy to incorporate into a metal colorbond roof. A mate has a shed with one section of the polycarbonate about every fourth or fifth sheet of colorbond, and the natural light inside the shed is great.

Select the degree of tinting depending on how sunny it is where you live....

We have one of those aerated inground septic systems as well (UltraClear) - very happy with it. Ours also has a movable outlet hose with about 6 sprinkler heads, as required by council. After they had signed off on everything and we were living in the house, we just inserted a T-piece with tap right on the outlet from the tank. Each of the two branches has a 25m section of 1"rural pipe with about 6 large sprinkler heads along each pipe, and the pipes run in different directions from the tank amongst some trees and shrubs. We just run one branch for a while, then if that ground gets too wet just switch over to the other branch for a bit. In reality, we use so little water that we only switch the tap over about once a month - saves continually moving hoses around !

using laserlite is a good idea, I'd planed to use some glass panels above the precast panels, but I'll talk to our roofer about a few sheets in the roof. we'll just have to leave a gap between the insulation blanket. I'm sure our septic system will stand to the test once we move in. would anyone recomend an in tank pump vs one that sits on top?

Our septic system has the little concrete 'wart 'on top of the tank - but it doesn't contain a pump ! All the systems I've seen use a submersible 'pump on a stick' arrangement.

The housing just contains the control box with electronics to drive the aerator, level switches, provide mains power to the pump, etc.

The pump itself is a standard submersible type that lives inside the tank. We've just had to replace it after 7 years - UltraClear use a fairy cheap Italian-made pump ($300), so that's not a bad lifetime I suppose.

Re. Laserlite - I'm actually considering retrofitting a few sheets to the roof. Just remove a Colorbond sheet, cut a hole in the reflective bubble insulation sheet, and replace the Colorbond with Laserlite. Of course, it would have been MUCH easier to do this when the shed was first built...........

I reckon you've got the size of your shed just about right. Mine is only 6m x 9m (3 bays), and its definitely too small. I have to run some 4m lengths of timber through my thicknesser next week, which will involve moving the machine around a bit so that the timber passes through the open shed door on the outfeed side.......

Before you go rippiing off the roofing to replace it with Laserite or similar, have a good think about the climate and the windows. The poly carbonate does let in a large amount of heat in summer and you can cook if standing underneath. Having windows may be better and covering or shading them to prevent direct light will reduce the heat. Bear in mind that I am writing from Perth where the max today will be 39 degrees - so us sandgropers get a bit thingy about heat!

Mr Brush, our system also has the ' wart ' and contains all the goodies you motioned.
what I was asking was for the water tank pump, apologies should have been clearer. I'd like to have an in tank pump to avoid the ' wart ' as you have aptly describe. it will have to pump to the shed for toilet/shower and also the house. my previous place the pump was inside the back door inside a cabinet. it worked on pressure being kept up to the bellow / diaphragm. it could be noisy at times!

Its a bit cooler here - we get very few days a year over 35 degrees, and not that many more over 30 (NSW Southern Highlands)

I get where you're coming from though. The Laserlite comes in a variety of tints/light transmission options, so I'd certainly be using one of the tinted versions. My shed has a 30 degree pitched roof, so it might be best to just put the Laserlite on the side of the roof facing due south.

Again, if I were starting from scratch, I'd go for a fairly shallow angle (10 degree?) skillion roof, which leaves about 1m at the front for windows down to the standard wall height. Extend the skillion roof out in front of the shed a bit to shade the windows in summer.

Jeez.....I keep talking about my next shed. Might be time to think about moving house !

We also have an inground tank to collect roof water, and mounted an external pump on top in the concrete 'wart' to reticulate the water to taps around the garden. The property is also on town water, so we use that for house needs.

One issue I found is that standard pumps are a relatively tight fit inside the standard size concrete wart. Since you need to access the pump every 6 months or so to top up the bladder thingy with air (using a bike pump...), make sure the valve to do this is accessible on the pump when it is inside the housing.

Several friends have gone the submersible pump option instead, but even with good quality pumps (e.g. Grundfos - Grundfos SQE 3" submersible pumps from Integrity Pumps and Engineering) they seem to have more than their share of electrical problems. One mate is on his third Grundfos submersible pump in 4 years.....

Jason, keep the info coming!! We were looking at buying some land near Wakefield and doing what you are doing. So this is a very interesting thread for me to follow. Lots of details, and pictures as you go please!
TN