Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Sep 11, 2012 9:18 am Hi, I would like to install water tank but I heard from the plumber that the water will cause issue to your pipe in the long run, is it true? Pipe to the garden is ok but not to your toilet. If you are a plumber please tell us your honest opinion. If you already install water tank and use it for a couple of years, what do you think? how many years since you installed this water tank? Please share it with us. Thank you. Re: Will using water tank causing issue to your pipe?? 2Sep 11, 2012 10:14 am I grew up in a house that didn't have town water. We had a 140,000 litre in ground tank (yes big). House was fed by a poly suction pipe in the tank (with a foot valve and a mesh filter), through an electric pressure pump with an accumulator, then a nylon plastic filter and then by copper pipe to and within the house. House was built and moved into in 1986. No water problems to date. We all ended up fine (debatable I know). There was no water treatment, other than sometimes aerating the water in the tank by pumping it around a few times (by a solar pump). I should point out that this property is around 100km from the nearest big town and over 160km from Melbourne, so the air quality was good. Water does absorb pollution from the air as it falls as rain, so perhaps that is what your builder is alluding to. Re: Will using water tank causing issue to your pipe?? 3Sep 11, 2012 10:55 am surat Hi, I would like to install water tank but I heard from the plumber that the water will cause issue to your pipe in the long run, is it true? Pipe to the garden is ok but not to your toilet. First things first! Plumbers are not trained in rainwater harvesting and while some plumbers have the nouse to do a proper install, most of their installs are over priced, sub standard and/or not compliant. People will save heaps and have a good system only if they take charge and do some research as you are doing here. The issue he may be referring to is the one of naturally acidic rainwater reacting with copper pipe. By this, I take it that he would plumb the pump to the toilet by using copper pipe. When you plumb to the toilet, you should not use copper pipe for several reasons including the expense of copper pipe and the labour costs and restricted flow path if having to braze in 90 degree elbows. The best way to plumb to a toilet is to firstly turn off the water (at the stopcock) and remove the old cistern valve if it is the type that has a long extension float arm. At the bottom of the cistern you will see a cistern valve inlet either side. One will be sealed off, the cistern valve will be in the other. You then empty the cistern. Buy two Fluidmaster 400UK063 cistern valves, these are about $20 each in the Bunnings plumbing section. Remove the flow restrictor (plastic pig's tail) from inside the bottom of the valve's shaft that will be supplied rainwater. Cistern valves are replaced by undoing and then retightening a single nut on the bottom of the cistern. You then refit the mains water braided line to the new cistern valve fitted in the original position. The only thing that you have to be careful with is to make sure that you have the small float arm fully lifted if you twist the top cap; if you twist the cap while the arm is down, you can break it. http://www.haron.com.au/fluidmaster_products.html It is then your job to hire a plumber to connect the pump to the spare cistern valve by using UV stabilised PEX pipe. This is cheaper and easier to use than copper. The new AUSPEX is UV stabilised and available from Reece Plumbing. You can save a lot of money if you get someone you know who is handy and knows the regulations to plumb the PEX pipe from the pump to the cistern but a plumber has to do the final connection for compliance. You won't be able to use the pump while the line is connected to the pump but not the toilet. Have the plumber do this connection while he is there doing other work otherwise you will be charged a lot just to do a connection and pump prime plus it can make getting a compliance certificate a bit complicated. Victoria has a $500 rebate for connecting a tank to a toilet or laundry and l take it that you are not talking about a new house. There are many things you can do yourself, making the slab base yourself for one, and having a good size storage supplying quality water from a properly optioned system need not cost much if properly organised. What area of Victoria are you in and what is your current average daily use? 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: Will using water tank causing issue to your pipe?? 4Sep 11, 2012 8:20 pm Wow thank SaveH2O and wokwon, that is a lot of explanation. Unfortunately, I don't know half of them. Sorry. I also need to google some of the wording since I don't understand I am looking to build a new house either Narre Warren/Berwick/Cranbourne area. My current daily water usage for 2 adults and 2 children (4 and 7) average 294 L per day (based on the latest bill). I am not sure what type of pipe my friend's plumber refer to. I am planning to build a new house so I take that I better not install using copper pipe? What type of pipe normally the builder use with the one that under the house or water? isn't that normally use plastic type? or what type? or I confuse with drainage pipe???? Can the sales person of the builder know what type of pipe are they going to use? The rebate already use by solar hot water so I cannot take the water tank. Hence I need to ask you guys whether is it true connecting to water tank can cause issue with the pipe. I probably not installing water tank through the builder since it is expensive normally BUT I would like to do the provision or pipe connection to the toilet and garden for future water tank if I install it later on. Looking forward to your feedback or comment. Re: Will using water tank causing issue to your pipe?? 5Sep 11, 2012 9:01 pm As H2O said the problem with tank water is that it is naturally acidic.(see http://www.anewhouse.com.au/?p=57) This can mean that that the rainwater may corrode copper pipes. To prevent his problem you can either increase the pH of the water by adding limestone chips or using plastic pipes. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Will using water tank causing issue to your pipe?? 6Sep 12, 2012 12:34 am Connecting a pump to a separate cistern valve with AUSPEX (plastic) pipe and by not plumbing into the house pipe eliminates all issues with copper pipe. Many houses are now plumbed with PEX pipe as it is easy to work with and copper is expensive. Your water use is only 75 litres per person; this is very low! If you plumbed to the toilet that was the most used, you could save up to 640 litres per week as the average weekly use per person is about 160 litres. Most tanks are under utilised and you could consider also plumbing to the HWS. This is rarely considered but it offers big water savings. 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: Will using water tank causing issue to your pipe?? 7Sep 12, 2012 9:17 am Ok. For new house using pex pipe so I don't need to worry about it. If I buy existing house, can i still install this pex pipe? not sure what you mean by separate cistern valve, are you saying I need to install two pipes connecting to the toilet? How do I know if existing house using pex pipe? any hint? by the way what is that HWS? Thanks again for all your input. Re: Will using water tank causing issue to your pipe?? 8Sep 12, 2012 10:20 am surat If I buy existing house, can i still install this pex pipe? not sure what you mean by separate cistern valve, are you saying I need to install two pipes connecting to the toilet? How do I know if existing house using pex pipe? any hint? by the way what is that HWS? You can have PEX fitted if a plumber needs to replace some pipe but not viable otherwise as the pipe will be inside the walls. There are also regulations applicable as to where it can and cannot be fitted. Having two cistern valves allows you to have one connected to mains water with no need to change any pipe work and have the other fitted direct to the pump with PEX. The PEX is barely noticeable.The Fluidmasters have an air gap at the top that prevents cross contamination but you still have only one stopcock open at a time. Have a look at the page 10 diagram in this link. http://www.aila.org.au/canberragarden/w ... Rtanks.pdf You can also plan your system so that the cistern is gravity fed for much of the year. This will eliminate frequent pump start ups. You would need to also buy (about $2) and fit the very low pressure gravity fed (red) seal 242LP071 to the cistern valve if you used gravity feed. You can see it on the Fluidmaster doc l previously linked. Newer houses are much more likely to have PEX fitted than older houses. If using rainwater through copper pipe is an issue, you can lower the acidity by putting crushed limestone chips in a nylon bag into the tank. Sediment can also increase acidity but a well set up system will not have much sediment. Most have a lot of sediment! Hot Water Service. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair We have a hot water copper pipe that runs from our hot water unit on one side of our house under a concrete slab to our bathroom and laundry...old house so not ideal. The… 0 5115 18 90484 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 10630 |