Browse Forums Eco Living Re: Rainwater harvesting 2Apr 30, 2020 5:50 pm 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Rainwater harvesting 3May 01, 2020 9:29 pm Hello This is for an existing house. In fact, I think some pipes are terracotta (very old and unlikely to be 100% watertight), so there's no way that the existing set up could be converted to a wet system. I was thinking of I could cut in a Maelstrom Filter together with a first flush device just before the pipe reaches the kerb outlet on the street, and install an underground tank. But I am not sure how good the water quality will be (even with first flush). Water quality will especially be an issue because the roof water and hard surface drains are combined at this point. There's no guarantee that the water from the hard surface drains will stay clean after first flush. Maybe a chlorinating device might help with water quality too. Thanks Re: Rainwater harvesting 4May 02, 2020 12:37 pm First flush is the dirty roof wash that needs to be collected straight away at the downpipe, it cannot be collected after it becomes a 'shandy'. Underground tanks are expensive plus it would need an overflow at a suitable height that is large enough to handle the combined rainfall from the roof and the surface drains during heavy rain. Given that you have concerns about the existing pipes, are you only considering harvesting surface water because of concerns about the longevity of using the stormwater pipes? The first step with harvesting rainwater is to determine your intended use and whether that use will be constant all year. You also have to consider how your long term average rainfall pattern will satisfy those needs, for example, are you in a region that has wet and dry seasons? The aim should be to maximise yield and usage to get bang for bucks yet keep costs at a realistic level.. What is your intended use and do you live in a regular rainfall region? Also, what are your downpipe sizes? 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Rainwater harvesting 5May 02, 2020 6:05 pm Hi Intended use is for watering plants. Maybe later I might have aspirations to connect the toilets for flushing, but I will hold off on this for now because of the work required to run new pipes to the toilets. I am in Sydney, which has decent rain fall. My downpipe sizes are 100x75mm rectangular. I am trying to avoid breaking concrete paths to separately collect roof water, because this will be a lot of work. At the moment, roof water and hard surface drains are combined, and lead to the street kerb. I can tap in easily at a point just before the pipe leads to the street. Thanks Re: Rainwater harvesting 6May 02, 2020 9:40 pm You can easily plumb pumped water to most cisterns without the expense of a mains water switching device, it is a simple and cheap manual system that you can see if you Google "Victorian Building Authority plumbing technical solution sheet 99.01". It has diagrams and explains what can be also found in AS/NZS 3500.3 which the Plumbing Code of Australia (PCA) references. The PCA is Part 3 of the National Construction Code (NCC). Having 100x75mm downpipes indicates good amounts of roof water flowing to each downpipe. Underground tanks are expensive and I can also see sediment issues. If you had a good size above ground tank supplied by a pit/pumped system, the pit would have to be large to avoid the pump frequently cycling plus the pump would obviously need power supplied, would a power supply route create a problem? In this pumped scenario, have you decided where the tank would be sited? If you wanted cleaner water, you could have two tanks and pump water to one tank (a settling tank) that transferred settled water via a balance line to a second tank that supplied the pump. You could also have two or three small diameter tall tanks each filled by their own dry system downpipe. It is usually easy to link tanks and have one pump but a disadvantage would be plumbing three overflow pipes. Are you against having a largish tank next to the house? If acceptable, you could have one downpipe directly fill the tank. If you could see where the gutter's high points are that determine the roof area harvested and if the roof areas considered were on the weather side for maximum yield, you could choose a high yield downpipe and calculate an approximate annual yield. If insufficient for your needs, you could also harvest one or more remote downpipes by having some permanent 32mm or 40mm pipes plumbed at ground level between the remote downpipe(s) and the tank or else just connect an 18mm or 25mm hose between a downpipe and the tank whenever needed. A product I have would be connected to the remote downpipes to enable this and this would almost certainly be the easiest and cheapest option. Advantages include having the water filtered, a first flush provision and overflow pipes not needed. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. There is a whole lot more to know than just the answers you seek but they are a good start. Overflow outlets have a mosquito proof mesh. These… 3 9179 Once you know the basics, the rest is easy. Read my post in the thread linked below. viewtopic.php?p=1919271#p1919271 2 20484 Grate, thank you! RexChan if thats the reason i could sleep well without thinking about additional cost. But 1st i'll need to read about NRV cleaning/replaing stuff. I… 7 31952 |