ATA members, Now that my Green Loan is about to be approved (at long last) I'm looking for three quotes for a rainwater harvesting system. I live in Phillip Bay, in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, and would like some recommendations for installers please. 
Recommended Rainwater Tanks Installers In Sydney East Please.
(6 posts) (5 voices)-
GJOESQ
MemberPosted Friday 4 Dec 2009 @ 3:48:32 am from IP # -
Russell Moore
MemberCan't help with installers, but my advice is to get the biggest sized tank possible.
You can never have enough water storage!Posted Friday 4 Dec 2009 @ 3:58:07 am from IP # -
ghostgum
MemberI've got 10000 litres, which is enough to provide about 200 litres per day during a 60 day dry spell over January/February (which is usually not completely dry). More would have been better, but then it would have changed from poly tanks under the floor to 50000l built into the structure under the house at much greater expense.
You can get rainfall records from http://www.bom.gov.au for the last 12 months. If you then go to the pandora archive you can get another 3-4 years of data. It's tedious pulling it out month by month, but you only have to do it once. You then extract the rainfall data and put it in a spreadsheet. For each day, add the roof area in square metres times the rainfall in mm to the tank (gives you cubic metres of water), and subtract a fixed usage per day. Clip it to 100% full. Then you can draw graphs of storage vs time and predict how much you can get. 50000-100000 litres is enough to average over 6-12 months. 10000 litres for 1-2 months. 2000 litres for 2-4 weeks.
Posted Friday 4 Dec 2009 @ 4:21:35 am from IP # -
Solgen
MemberI had a 10000l tank installed last year, I live in Sydney. I had 5 plumbers come and visit and promise to quote but only one did. He got the job but I was not very impressed with his work or knowledge and further more he charged over the top. I don't have any first had experience but perhaps the companies that sell tanks have knowlegdable installers?
My tank is fed with 100m2 of roof and so technically it only needs 100mm to fill but twice in the last 12 months we have had to switch over to mains after about 8 weeks without rain.
I have rainfall data from where I live for over 20 years and know that our average rainfall is 1000mm but it is not uniform with most falling in the wet season between Feb and June. Therefore while our tank theoretically could supply all our water it doesn't quite work in practice and it is why I am now working up a design to an additional 5000 litres.Posted Tuesday 8 Dec 2009 @ 11:08:09 am from IP # -
RogerCrawford
MemberHere is a post I did a while back
I am in Sutherland Shire Sydney and have installed 14000 litres of water tanks
I have set up my system so that I use as little mains water as possible
The setup I use is a Davey Rainbank II with a Davey HP45-05 and the system provides water to my 2 story house (including lawn pop up sprinklers and garden sprayers)
The Rainbank II switches over to mains should the tankwater run out. I have a float switch in the tank.
Interestingly I believed this system would completely negate my reliance upon mains water, however it has emerged that it requires the mains to pressurise the rainbank.
The catch with this system is that even if I have a glass of water it re-pressurises and I have found that my daily water usage is substantially reduced, ie, we only use 46 litres of mains per day.
The garden manifold rear of house, near to the davey pump, which comprises three taps, one for lawn sprinklers, one for garden sprinklers and the other for hose is plumber directly after the davey system so it deliberately does not go through the filtration system as this would be a waste of the filter.
The rest of the house water is filtered by a 20 micron Davey Jumbo filter, then in the Kitchen we have a 1 micron smaller Davey unit.
I have sliding gate valves on my 90mm pvc downpipes so I can shut of or open up the pipes depending upon whether I want all my water to go to the tank. I have a large flat metal roof and we catch heaps of rainwater.
My tip is to fit at least 15000 litre tank and round as its cheaper
I did the concrete pads and pvc plumbing myself and got a plumber into finalise the copper pipe work. They all charge excessively and one needs to be ever vigilant to supervise the quality of work.
I fitted insulated tubing available from Clark Rubber to greatly reduce the noise transmission along the copper pipe from the Davey pump. Buy 3 metre lengths and fit before the plumber welds the pipe.
Hope this helps a bitPosted Wednesday 9 Dec 2009 @ 9:52:24 am from IP #
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