Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Mar 17, 2010 1:37 am We are building on a rural block. We will be placing the water tank about 20m to the rear of the house. 150,000L tank which is 9metre diameter and 2.2metre high. There is no room on the building envelope to position it at the side of the house and due to it's size I did not want it straight out back so I would rather position it at the bottom of the building zone. We will be placing a 12m x 9m shed 9 metres left of the water tank. The plumbing will have to run underground from the house to the tank. Will this all work? Cheers. Re: distance of water tank from house 2Mar 17, 2010 8:48 am firstly how many squaremeters of roof are you going to connect for water collection. Will you be using a water pump to pump water into the house? Do you have mains water? Does the pump need to switch between mains and tank water automatically??? Re: distance of water tank from house 3Mar 17, 2010 10:39 am We too have a rainwater tank away from the house (20K/gal) and have no problems. We created a 'pig pit' which is a 'T' in the line and bricked up (pig pit/ lowest point) a box around the T, then we can open the cap and drain the line(s) at the end of winter, so all the acummulated crap doesn't sit in the line and decay... We leave the line open until after the first decent rains, so the roof gets a washdown without going into the tank For gravity to work there needs to be an amount of fall from the gutter to the tank, ours is about 150mm. Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: distance of water tank from house 4Mar 17, 2010 12:17 pm The house is 348m2. The shed will be 12 x 9m. We have no mains water, only from water tank. I would imagine we will need a pump to pump the water to the house. I do not want this huge tank immediately outside my windows, I would like to appreciate the open view without the tank staring back at me which is why I would like to position it at the end of the building envelope, being 20m away from the house. You would think with 13 acres you would be able to sit it outside a building zone of 30m wide and 40m depth, but oh no, it has to be sat within with everything else. At least if it can be positioned back away from the house, I can live with that. Thanks. Re: distance of water tank from house 5Mar 17, 2010 12:24 pm Looks like you just to ensure you get a biggish pump. The cheaper ones will not work that well because you have long pipe runs. Need to establish what your going to run off it. For example a garden tap 40 meters away may be sufficient to fill buckets but if you put a 15meter hose on it then it might not be. You may want to take it to the next level and increase the thickness of the plumbing pipe in the house. Re: distance of water tank from house 6Mar 17, 2010 2:35 pm Toby - a building envelope of 30 x 40 is 1200sq mtrs about the same as here. We have 3 tanks 92kl + 70kl + 20kl we use the sides to grow passion fruit etc and have painted them green to be more in keeping with the surrounds etc. it doesn't bother us in the slightest that we can see our water supply. As far as pumping the are many pumps that foot the bill and yes the feed line(to the house) is all important. We run 3/4" 20mm and the water pressure is fine. Also, I am happy to have less than mains water pressure as this reduces water use All important when you consider that you will have limited water supply My 2 bobs worth Where you are coming from is where you are going to... Re: distance of water tank from house 7Mar 21, 2010 10:46 pm Thank you all for your replies. It is quite scary to be building when I have not got a clue about most things which lie ahead of us. It is very reassuring to be in touch with this site and receive so much information and adive. Cheers. Re: distance of water tank from house 8Mar 21, 2010 10:58 pm If your area gets 1000mm( 1mtr ) of rain you will collect 350,000 ltrs PA. We here have about 1.3mtrs of rain and are yet to buy in water for drinking. If you are unsure of your annual rainfall you could check the State B.O.M site http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/ Where you are coming from is where you are going to... 18 90360 From what I know about water tanks (I've been working with a client on them for a few years now) is this - The concrete can last a lifetime if they don't crack for some… 2 10516 If you can calculate the reasonable charged head from let's say 100mm below the gutter to the top of where the vertical riser's horizontal discharge pipe will be, that… 11 17513 |