Browse Forums Building A New House 1 May 29, 2010 10:46 pm I am after some help with our Basix certificate. We are able to pass the thermal comfort and energy sections without too many problems however it seems to be struggle for us to pass the water section without plumbing a 10000L water tank into the laundry and toilets as well as the garden. We are not too worried about putting a tank in and using it on the garden however we would prefer not to have to plumb it into the house.
We have a 1557m block. The roof area of the house will be about 314m. There is a 84m shed. We would be left with around 900m of garden/lawn by the time you take out the driveaway and paths etc. How can we meet the Basix requirements without connecting the tank to the house and without going to a massive tank. We also have a 1yo daughter so we would like some lawn for her to play on. Here is a rough site plan. http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb33/naddis01/BlockwithHouseindicated2.jpg From the pic the garage is at the front of the house with obviously a driveway coming to the street (bottom right hand corner). To get cars from the street to the shed/backyard I will need lawn. Any ideas? Re: Help me pass Basix - Water section 4May 30, 2010 9:27 am Hi naddis, There are quite a few options regarding tank designs that don't take up alot of room, i.e modular tanks, brick tanks and under ground tanks, now regarding plumbing whole house to tank is very easy you can hook up your mains supply to the tank and when the tank gets low and you have no rain the mains will top up your tank you just need to get a mains pressure supply pump like say a Davey or Onga put in a inline filter and UV light and your away very easy, hope this helps. Re: Help me pass Basix - Water section 5May 30, 2010 10:47 am Thanks for the responses so far. I am not fussed about the tank taking up space as I have a 1550m block. I should clarify, when I said connecting the whole house to the tank, I meant is it possible to collect all of the water from the 314m roof area to one above ground tank, not connecting the tank to use the water in the house. Re: Help me pass Basix - Water section 6May 30, 2010 11:37 am Naddis, There are several ways to connect the tank to the whole, dependent on the slope of the block and the location of the tank. If you have underground water tank placed below the level of the bottom of your house, all of your downpipes can flow to this tank. This is what I have and I think this is the best option. If you can't put the underground tank below the lowest point of your tank you can have a closed system, where all of the downpipes need to be fully sealed and taking some water pressure to still have all of your downpipes going to the tank. This is also an option for an above ground water tank below the point of your lowest gutter. If neither of the above options is possible, you can get a sump installed, which is a small concrete pit. The pit has all of you downpipes flowing to it. In the pit you have a pump that pumps the water from pit into your tank. I hope the above helps to give you your options. View our blog at: http://room4acubby.blogspot.com/ Re: Help me pass Basix - Water section 7May 30, 2010 11:21 pm room4acubby Naddis, There are several ways to connect the tank to the whole, dependent on the slope of the block and the location of the tank. If you have underground water tank placed below the level of the bottom of your house, all of your downpipes can flow to this tank. This is what I have and I think this is the best option. If you can't put the underground tank below the lowest point of your tank you can have a closed system, where all of the downpipes need to be fully sealed and taking some water pressure to still have all of your downpipes going to the tank. This is also an option for an above ground water tank below the point of your lowest gutter. If neither of the above options is possible, you can get a sump installed, which is a small concrete pit. The pit has all of you downpipes flowing to it. In the pit you have a pump that pumps the water from pit into your tank. I hope the above helps to give you your options. The block is flat and I would place the tank at the back of the house (the left hand side of the blue shaded area on the site plan). Are you allowed to use multiple tanks to meet the stated capacity on the Basix certificate? If so I could put one tank down the side of the house and one at the back which may make the plumbing easier. Basically what I want to do is pass the water section of the Basix certificate as cheaply as possible. Do closed systems like you mention block up with dirt/crud over time due to the downpipes potentially having water in them for a period of time? The way I read the fine print, if you leave an area in your yard to do whatever it likes then you don't need to include this in the total area of garden/lawn for the calculation of the Basix cert. Is this correct? If you did this then down the track made this area garden or whatever, what would happen? Re: Help me pass Basix - Water section 8May 31, 2010 11:51 pm What sort of costs would I be looking at if we had to connect the tank to the laundry and toilets as well as the garden? If you put in the Basix cert that you are going to install one thing but then decide to put in something more efficient will there be any dramas? Eg going from a solar water heater with electric boost to gas boost. Re: Help me pass Basix - Water section 9Jun 01, 2010 9:33 am Naddis, I'm sorry but I can't answer any more of your questions. I don't know too much about the Basix requirements and I was only stating my knowledge of the tanks systems that I found when I was trying to sort our our tank system. View our blog at: http://room4acubby.blogspot.com/ Re: Help me pass Basix - Water section 10Jun 01, 2010 2:04 pm Naddis, I had the same choice as you. In my case a 5,000 litre water tank plumbed to the toilets and laundry (with pump) or a 14,000 litre water tank not connected to anything. The 14,000 litre water tank has a tap at the base and it's supposed to used to water the garden. In practice it will just sit there pretty well full all the time since my philosophy regarding plants is that you don't water them and if they die, there weren't the right plant for the environment. Cheers, Casa Demolition August 2009, Construction Started September 2009, Completed December 2010 The time to heat is purely a function of the distance between the hws and the faucet. There are many options for hot water, you can also have a circulating circuit of hot… 1 8672 18 74792 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 6485 |