Thread: Water Tanks

The slim lines are expensive because they are aimed at the suburban market where people haven't the room for a round tank.And they hold bugger all.What about those poly drums that food stuff comes in.Paramounts in Adelaide sell them fo about $40 each.They hold 200l each.But if you have the room get a round tank.

Make a calculation on the amount of water you use for this then work out what size tank you need.

ie. toilet flush 3 litres x 10 times a day, washing machine 30 litres x 1/2 times a day (don't know if these are correct amounts - just examples) = per week 315 litres, so if it doesn't rain for 10 weeks you will need 3,150 litres without garden use or washing the car or anything else. Personnally i would think anything less than 10,000 litres would probably be running out when you wanted it.

To calculate the amount of water you will catch measure the roof area that the spout will collect from, convert it to cubic millimetres divide by 1,000,000 = litres
ie roof area 10 metres x 10 metres = 100 sq metres = 100,000,000 square mm so for every 1 millimetre of rain that falls you will get 100 litres of water in your tank.

What about underground and a pressure pump? The spout goes into the tank and the overflow goes into the storm water the same as an above ground tank.

BTW i know the authorities will tell you not to drink it but there are plenty of people that grew up on farms that lived on tank water and it didnt kill them.

Not long ago there was a story in the "Ballarat Courier" about a family that lived solely on tank water but still had to pay all the Water charges except usage.

hope that helps

cheers

Originally Posted by Calm

overflow goes into the storm water the same as an above ground tank.


Not long ago there was a story in the "Ballarat Courier" about a family that lived solely on tank water but still had to pay all the Water charges except usage.

hope that helps

cheers

Very similar here, we were on tanks alone for 25 years until the council allowed a development down the road. The developer had to put in town water which ended up going past my front door - didn't bother me as we had our tanks. We were then informed by council that "as the council has provided town water you will be required to pay the water fees associated with the rates" - this was even though we were not even connected.

They provide the "service", you pay for that service whether you choose to use it or not. Then of course if you do use it there is a water meter so you also get charged for what you use as well. BTW the "service fee" is not a one off - it keeps coming back and it rises.

Originally Posted by Calm

To calculate the amount of water you will catch measure the roof area that the spout will collect from, convert it to cubic millimetres divide by 1,000,000 = litres
ie roof area 10 metres x 10 metres = 100 sq metres = 100,000,000 square mm so for every 1 millimetre of rain that falls you will get 100 litres of water in your tank.

Calm is spot on, but just to clarify - the roof area is the area underneath the roof and not the actual sqm of roofing (unless of course you have a flat roof ).

Also the conversion to square millimetres is redundant. If you work out the area in sq metres then that is the amount of water captured by the roof for every mm of rain. So you can see that in Calm's example that the 10m x 10m area = 100 sqm = 100 lt/mm of rain.

The physics of a liquid is that it wants to flow or spread out. A round tank has equal pressure on all sides so the stress on the walls is evenly distributed, whereas a slimline or oval tank has a lot more stress on the sides as it wants to push out. The cost difference is due to the extra engineering and thicker walls in the sides. A lot of slimlines also have extra braces, brackets and support cages.

I have a 2500 litre slimline (Chosen as it fits up the side of the house and I can tap two downpipes into it) that is connected to a toilet and does the chooks.
I also have a 4500 litre round that I use to keep the vegie garden and fruit trees going. As was said in an earlier post $$ for slimlines are high, the 2500 cost more than the 4500.

Can't connect to the washing machine easily so the washing water goes out to a blue 250 litre drum and I do the rest of the garden with this. At least I am re-using it.

This has cut our usage down by a heap but doesn't seem to have affected the dollars charged on the water account though.

Get the biggest tank that you can afford to fit into your space.

Depending on where you are. Kingston Tanks is a good place to try if in Southern Victoria, they stock many brands and have regular sales/clearances. www.kingstonwatertanks.com.au