Water & Rainwater Tanks
General Overview
Tank Constuction Materials:
- Concrete
- Fibreglass - Don't last a long time - typically need
replacing after around 10 years.
- Metal/Steel - Shapes: Rectangular, Round, rectangular
with rounded corners. Corrugated or straight. Available
with an aquaplate coating. Warranties typically of 5
years without aquaplate coating, or 20 years with the
coating. These tanks can easily to made to custom sizes.
- Plastic - Warranties typically of 25 years. Generally
cheaper than Metal/Steel tanks.
Roof surfaces:
The following list of roofing materials most suitable for
collecting potable (drinkable) water was suggested in
'Sustainable Water - How to do it & where to get it', (© 1999 Rod Wade, Environmental Conservation Planning
& Consultancy Pty Ltd, Oxenford, Qld):
- Colorbond® steel sheets or tiles
- Zincalume® steel sheets or tiles
- Glazed tiles well fired
- Concrete/cement tiles
- Clay tiles
- Correctly treated Fibro - new type only
Calculating the amount of water which can be collected
from a roofed area:
- Calculate the area of the roof in square metres. Don't
take the slope (pitch) of the roof into account.
- Multiply this figure by the mm of rainfall fallen
- Parramatta
tank works suggest that you multiply this number by 0.8
(80%) to take into account losses, like rain that bounces
off the roof.
- This is the figure in litres.
Links:
My Experiences
At present I have 2 tanks situated in the backyard - A 2000
Litre tank which is used for non-potable uses such as gardening,
and a 350 litre tank which is used for drinking water. Both tanks
were purchased at the same time from City Rainwater Tanks
in St Marys. Below is an overview of my experiences with them:
Larger
Rainwater Tank:
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After some pondering, I decided to purchase an
aquaplated steel tank, as this could be manufactured to a
diameter to suit the limited space I wanted to fit the
tank into, while still providing the maximum possible
storage volume. The tank stand was an additional cost,
purchased from the same company. Trap #1 : The stand
that was provided was for the larger standard size tank,
not my custom size. After installation, I had to call the
installers back to cut the stand down to the appropriate
size.
The tank has a coarse filter covering the inlet. There
is no other filtering provided. Water runoff for this
tank comes from 3 roof surfaces: Terra-cotta roof tiles
on the house roof, concrete tiles on the garage roof and
a fibreglass roof over the pergola. The usable capacity
of this tank is around 2000 Litres, while its rainfall
collection area is around 77 square metres. See the Water Catchment page for further
info.
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Drinking
Water Tank:
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The 'Complete Rainwater Collection
System' which I purchased is manufactured by Australian
Rotomoulding Industries (ARI) located in Pakenham,
Victoria. The capacity of the tank is 400 litres, but it
has a 50 litre internal 'first flush' diverter installed,
so the usable storage is around 350 litres. The purpose
of the diverter is to let the rain fall on the roof for a
few minutes to flush away any potential 'contaminates'
which may have accumulated since the last rainfall. The
unit can be purchased with either wall mount brackets or
a tank stand kit. It is supplied with an external carbon
filter¹ and tap. For further details see the diagram
below.
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Basic operation (in theory)
Leaves and other large debris are caught in the mesh
strainer at the top of the unit. Initially the foam ball
is down the bottom of the diverter tube as shown. As the
internal diverter tube fills, the foam ball rises until
it gets to the top lip where it effectively seals off the
potentially 'contaminated' water in the tube. Any further
water is diverted into the storage tank through small
holes in the side of the inlet pipe. The diverter has a
small hole in the bottom of it which allows water to
trickle out. Several hours after the rain has stopped,
the foam ball should have dropped to the bottom of the
diverter, ready to divert the first 50 litres from the
next rain event.
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This is the theory. Now for the practical:
Problems :
- The foam ball in my unit 'sticks' to the top of diverter
after the rain has stopped. After speaking to the
supplier and manufacturer, I've made a couple of attempts
to file down the jagged edges around the lip of the hole
that the foam ball is wedged into. This has improved
things to a small degree - The ball has fallen of its own
accord once or twice, but if not I can now usually
dislodge it by thumping the tank. This wouldn't work
before. It does require that manual intervention though.
- This is partly my fault for not asking enough questions,
but when I got the original quote, it wasn't pointed out
to me that my roof area was too small for the system to
work effectively. I found out afterwards that the minimum
recommended roof collection area was 40 square metres.
Mine is around 25. As a result, the tank won't fill with
light rain. Quite heavy rain is required². As discussed
below, 5mm of rain over 1 hour will result in 15 litres
of drinking water, whereas 10 mm of rain over the hour
will result in 45 litres.On the upside, I can be sure
that the roof area is well flushed by the time the tank
does start to fill.
Calculations: Water trickles from the diverter at a
rate of about 1 litre per minute. With a catchment area
of 25 sq metres, this means that 0.04mm of rain is
required to fall every minute before the diverter's foam
ball starts rising. This equates to a rainfall rate of 2.4mm
per hour. In order to fill the 50 litre diverter, an
additional 2mm of rain is required before any goes into
the storage tank. When calculated out, 5mm of rain over 1
hour will result in 15 litres of drinking water (2.4mm
for water trickling out of diverter, 2mm to fill
diverter, and 0.6mm * 25 sq metres = 15 litres diverted
into drinking water tank).
- The mesh strainer at the top of the unit is not designed
to be removed for cleaning. It's screwed down with 3
screws, which are hard to re-align when refitting the
strainer. You are meant to scoop any debris caught in the
strainer by hand.
- According to the instructions, there is meant to be a
brass shut-off valve between the water tank and the
filter, so that the water can be turned off when changing
the filter. This is not fitted on my unit. Without this
valve fitted, it is necessary to empty the tank before
fitting a new filter cartridge.
Recomendations:
- Do the maths before hand.
- Check at what rate the diverter empties. Mine is around 1
litre per minute, or 60 litres per hour. I've seen an add
for an external diverter with an emptying rate of 4
litres per hour. Depending on the rain catchment area and
rain intensity, this could have a large impact on the
amount of drinking water obtained.
- If I could do things again, I'd probably choose an
external diverter with an adjustable emptying rate.
Notes:
- The advertising pamphlet from ARI states that the carbon
filter is 5 Micron nominal x 9.25" silver
impregnated activated carbon. The replacement
cartridge I bought from City Rainwater tanks is a Purtex
brand, model PX 30-97/8 and rated at 30 Micron.
- Rainfall definitions: The Bureau of Meteorology's
definitions for constant rain are: light rain < 2mm/hour,
moderate rain 2-6 mm/hour and heavy rain as > 6mm/hour.
The rainfall rates for showers are different from these.
Last Updated: 27/04/03