Installing A Water Tank And Are Rainwater Tanks Worth It.

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A few years ago Brisbane was going through a mild drought. I say mild because realistically it was just water restrictions and the introduction of pay per use water. I’ve seen what real droughts do to rural areas and having to wash your car using a bucket and no longer being able to use sprinklers was hardly devastating to our lives. With the restrictions on water use came a wave of water tank sales buoyed with a govt rebate scheme in 2008. It is amazing how many people jumped onto that bandwagon without really thinking about it. Free govt money! The cost of a tank today is pretty much the same price as the cost (after rebates) back then, so I’m guessing tank installers were taking the rebate as cream.

At the time I thought it might be a good opportunity to get one so I checked out pricing and crunched some numbers. I based it on a 3000L tank as it would be the only size I could realistically manhandle down my hill and it was the minimum size required to get the rebate. (There were other stipulations as well such as getting it plumbed to your laundry or toilet which added extra costs not to mention the large costs of concrete/gravel or sand base)

The price of water was around $1.20/1000L so a full 3000L water tank had around $3.50 of water in it. I think at the time my out of pocket costs would have been $800 for supply only then the cost of me creating a bed for it etc. So based on that I would need to drain a full tank 228 times to recoup costs. In a perfect world of raining once a week and using the full tank over the remaining 6 days it would still take nearly four and half years to get the money back.

That may not seem so bad but the reality is Brisbane has around 110days per year average rainfall, most of which pummels down for weeks on end and then during autumn and winter we have 2-3 months of absolute dry. So during the 3 month rainy season you have no need to use your tank, then your tank remains empty sporadically for the remainder of the year. So even at optimal use you’re looking at a decade to get your money back. So back then I decided it wasn’t worth it.

From an economic standpoint, unless you experience water shortages, have costly water bills or the town supplied water is full of chemicals, then don’t bother. Your town supply water is essentially a giant water tank (usually a dam or natural waterway) accessible by everyone. From a permacultural perspective you do want it as harvesting and trapping the energy of that water on high ground is a valuable resource. Plus plants seem to do better when fed rainwater over town water, at least here in Brisbane.

Which leads me onto the next part.

HOW TO USE YOUR WATER TANK

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How To Build A Rainwater Tank First Flush Diverter And Plumbing In The Tank – DIY

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With the rainwater tank set up it was time to plumb it all in to collect the water from my gutters which are still clear thanks to my gutter mesh I installed over a year ago.

The mesh has 5mm holes in it to allow the rain to enter the gutters however all the dust and other fine sediment that accumulates on the roof during the dry suddenly gets washed off and heads straight for the tank in the first few minutes of rain. This fine sediment will become an unwanted sludge in the base of your tank and lead to clogging of pipes. To remedy this I built a first flush diverter. Now you can buy a 90mm kit for $27 but where’s the fun in that! Also not everyone has access to a cheap kit but can easily make one up using regular plumbing fittings and following these steps.

There are recommendations of clearing 0.5-2L per m² but I would need either 30m of 100mm pipe or a barrel to do this. I figured even a small amount would help so I went about gathering the parts to build my DIY first flush diverter.

Generally a first flush system is connected vertically down from the main plumbing via a T-joint fitting. Since I was using 90mm pipe I needed the top part to be a short 90mm section to slot into the T-Joint. This went into a 90-100mm adapter. Even though it’s expanding into 100mm I used the word ‘reducer’ because when you go to the shops and ask it may be labelled as such. The reducer is important for two reasons. It allows me to use 100mm pipe which gives me an extra ~5.5L for every metre length. Secondly, by putting a 92-95mm wide float in the 100mm pipe the difference in diameter is how the float will plug up the diverter when it rises to the top to allow water to then head towards the tank. A 100mm sleeve/coupling is then used to attach the reducer to the 100mm section of pipe that will hold the dirty water. Note: The coupling at the top does not need to be threaded.

 

 

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The Chicken Diaries -Day 1

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Dear Diary,

Friday 5th June 2015 – 9:00am
Things are chaotic here at the egg farm. A whole bunch of us have been moved over the last few days to special holding cages and and there’s a lot of gossipy clucking going around as to why. Word in the shed is that we’re off to some place called the “Shopping Block”. Hooray, I love shopping! There’s been a lot of cars coming and going all day. Small groups of us are taken and shoved into all manner of boxes and cages. I’m guessing that’s how they’re shuttling us to the shops.

9:30am

Oh dear, talk about Chinese whispers gone wrong. It’s the CHOPPING block, not the shopping block! I now have no idea if I really want to get into one of those cars, my small world is in turmoil. The good news is that someone put this appeal on something called FaceSpace or something and and it went viral and the egg farm owners certainly didn’t expect to be run off their feet loading chickens in cars all day. There’s a good chance a lot of us ladychickens may get an opportunity to prove that we’re not past our use by date. Wings crossed, I’m hoping I’ll be one of them.

The family that owns us supplies bulk eggs but also sell eggs direct to the public from a little shop out the front of their house. I can hear the farm employees complaining that they’ve been run off their feet constantly loading chickens into cars since 9am without a break.  The workers keep saying to the arriving humans that they’re running out of chickens. What about me? I’m a chicken. Oh dear this is highly stressful.

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