One of the smaller sustainability features I wanted to include was a decent rainwater setup – ideally running the entire house off rainwater, with mains backup. My last house was run entirely off rainwater, as there was no mains supply in the area, and I found that worked really well – it had a ~100kL tank, which filled every winter except one (I think it was 2015?) when Perth’s rainfall was wildly below average, and that was enough to get the household through the summer dry period.
I don’t have quite that much room to devote to a tank (that one was a massive 7.5m-diameter concrete thing), so I’m starting a bit smaller with a 17kL metal tank. This should be enough to get myself through most of summer, as I generally use about 3000L per month, and will double as an emergency fire supply – hence opting for a metal tank over a plastic one.
Heritage Tanks supplied and installed the smallest of their range on the sand pad we constructed the other week – I went back again to be SURE the pad was flat enough, which turned out to be overkill – the installers did a bit of their own flattening to get the actual tank footprint the way they wanted it, and then up she went.
The pile of bluemetal on the right, which I rescued from a pile I inherited with the block, is now nicely spread around the base to protect the sand from wind & rain.
