Thursday, June 30, 2011

Excited About Stormwater

Look at what came in last week!


This big tank now sits against the westerly wall of our laundry and new family room, where it will insulate us to some extent from the sun. The colour is designed to match the new gutters. The white PVC sections will be painted to match.


At the far end of the big tank is an overflow pipe to our second, smaller tank, which is against the westerly wall of the kids' bedroom. The overflow from this tank will discharge to the gutter. This is called a "charge system", as it relies on the pressure of water behind pushing the water in front uphill to the road. Our Council does not want people to use pumps with stormwater, because pumps tend to fail during storms, which is when you really need them.

We've had a few light showers in the last couple of days and it's exciting to think that we can store a bit of our rainwater. Mind you, it isn't much: only about 5000 litres. Any heavy downpour should fill the tanks, based on the roof area.


The only disadvantage of this system is that (unexpectedly) the discharge pipe is visible through the window. This is a westerly window and therefore usually has the blinds drawn, but I will have to work out something so that it isn't quite as hideous. Maybe a Star Jasmine?

I was also excited to see the installation of our surface drainage for the driveway. Note that the garage doors have also been installed; you might see a common theme in the colour! Colorbond 'Manor Red': it's everywhere!


Isn't the drainage for the patio exciting? No?


Well, it gets awfully muddy here if you don't have proper drainage.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

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Aprill said...

I hear you, sister! Drainage is our number 1 concern at the moment. First cab off the renovation rank. ;) It's looking great at your place, so far.

Gnometree said...

come to my house and you can get excited about our 75000litres of rainwater and a (currently) exposed septic tank!!

quu said...

Wow, nice looking tanks.. I hope that that kind of tanks would sell here too. Finnish people has just larger buckets, because rain is regular visitor..