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Trading Post Member
 
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Last Login: 23/09/2008 7:31 AM
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With so many home owners now installing water storage tanks for their homes I am looking at getting on the bandwagon.
I'm a bit overwhelmed by the ammount of variety of tanks out there, what type of water tank should I get?
Any advice welcome. Thanks.
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Last Login: 4/06/2008 4:12 PM
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Cordelle, are you located in a rural or urban setting?
I would reccomend a polyethylene tank particularly for an urban setting.
The biggest advantage of polyethylene tanks is that they don’t corrode and are easy to relocate. Provided they are made of high grade materials and are of the correct thickness, algae growth won’t occur and collected water won’t have a plastic taste or smell.
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Last Login: 23/06/2008 11:43 AM
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| If you are currently building or renovating designers have quickly risen to the challenge of post-construction installation of tanks and there are now modular tanks that can be fitted into wall cavities when renovating, bladder tanks for under-house installation and wall style tanks than can easily be fitted beside the house or as a feature along the fence. Some even have specially designed brackets so that you can attach cosmetic screens.
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Trading Post Member
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Thanks for the advice guys, I live in the burbs and after doing a bit more research a polyethylene tank seems the logical choice.
I want to grow plants over the tank to help camouflage it a bit, any advice on good plants for this?
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Trading Post Member
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If you want to truly hide the water tank I would install an underground water tank. It’s a very expensive option, for a 3000 litre tank you be looking at around the high $3000 mark. That’s not including installation.
Advantages of installing an underground tank are:
- Completely hide the tank underground
- Great if you don’t have space above ground
- Some come in a concrete finish may be used as a garage floor or drive way with no additional concrete cost
- Its built to last, stronger than the ordinary tanks as it is designed to be strong enough to withstand a weight of a truck.
Disadvantages are:
- You’ll need a pump in order to extract the water out of the tank
- Pumps cost $1000+
- Limited sizes, 3000 -6000 litres
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Last Login: 15/09/2008 9:10 AM
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| When screening/camouflaging your tank make sure you choose plants that do not have rapacious root systems and ensure the inlet strainer is kept free of leaf litter and vine tendrils.
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Last Login: 27/04/2007 7:18 PM
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Further to this, how do you know what size to get? I live in Heidelberg where the rainfall is somewhere around 600ml per year. My house area is about 110 sq meters. How do you work this out. The rainfall has become a little uncertain so I'm also a little confused as to how to take that into account. Any thoughts on this would be welcome.
Thank you
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I think it would be great to see inner city buildings installing water tanks on the rooftops and then the water being used for cleaning etc. A lot of rainfall is going to waste in city areas.
Do you think this idea has merit?
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Trading Post Member
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Last Login: 27/08/2008 4:43 PM
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| I'm not sure that one roof top of a city apartment building would be able to collect enough water for all the apartments to use but I'm sure it could be used for something.
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Myergal,
Check out the polyworld website they have an online calculator that you can use to determine the size of tank you will need. Hope that helps.
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