Thread: Preparing for critical weather events

Originally Posted by p38arover

A quote I saw in a book by Richard Hammond (from Top Gear) - in the frozen north of Canada he was told "If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down"

Yes, I've heard that said too as a conservation measure for anyone on septic and tank water.

Working at this Simmonds built house in sunbury, they have a rainwater tank and the tap says not suitable for drinking.
Do people really think town water is better for you than rainwater??
The only bonus in town water is the fluoride added to help your teeth otherwise you may as well drink from you local pool it's that feral.

Originally Posted by LRJim

Working at this Simmonds built house in sunbury, they have a rainwater tank and the tap says not suitable for drinking.
Do people really think town water is better for you than rainwater??
The only bonus in town water is the fluoride added to help your teeth otherwise you may as well drink from you local pool it's that feral.

I reckon every house in aust should have at least 10 000l of slim line tanks, solve half of our water problems (not that we have any here on the nw tassie)
cheers
blaze

I agree, everyone should have a rainwater tank. A bit of bird or possum poo is not going to have any effect on the water - we grew up on a farm living on tank water only and when mozzie larvae got into it the old man put some kero on the surface to sort them out, but we still drank the water. I can't recall anyone in our family getting crook from drinking it. I have 2 x 30,000 litre concrete tanks with a pressure pump which the whole house runs off, 50KVA genset and enough biodiesel to run it for about a month. Up here in cyclone country it pays to be prepared to be without power for some time if one hits. I know some are going to ask why I have such a big genset, well when I was looking for one I was after one around 15KVA so I can run the whole house including aircons and freezers on it and a bloke had this one for sale very cheap - I figured it was a bit overkill but now I have one which will run everything including the shed and my neighbours can plug into it as well if they want.

The only real issue I've ever had with rain water going bad is when a possum crawled into it and died, completely contaminated it. Had to drain and get it refilled this was on a rental.
Kero won't hurt the water either, it sits on top and by the time it gets close to the bottom it's either evaporated or the tank has filled back up. These days they have the mesh on the inlet to stop them.
All the yummy bits like poo and dirt settle to the bottom below the outlet anyway, possum poos probably better than half the **** we put inside ourselves anyway!
Cheers Jim

Originally Posted by LRJim

Working at this Simmonds built house in sunbury, they have a rainwater tank and the tap says not suitable for drinking.
Do people really think town water is better for you than rainwater??
The only bonus in town water is the fluoride added to help your teeth otherwise you may as well drink from you local pool it's that feral.

I believe that's a Hume Council reg for water tanks - no drinking allowed, only watering... Stupid.

Go back only a few years and you weren't allowed to have a rainwater tank on a domestic house if there was mains available.

Originally Posted by bblaze

I reckon every house in aust should have at least 10 000l of slim line tanks, solve half of our water problems (not that we have any here on the nw tassie)
cheers
blaze

I would, but I need a building permit to install one, and it needs to be installed by a licenced Plumber. Tank cost for a slimline 5000 litre is around $1800 + transport, permit and installation I was quoted $3,700 and I can't put it down the side of my house where I wanted it even though there is plenty of room because the edge of the tank would be within 900mm of the boundary which is not allowed in my area, so it would have to go in the backyard where you can see it.

Guess who's NOT getting a water tank...

After the last drought one of our Maleny tanks didn't smell the best, so we opened the bottom outlet and let it drain for a while. Then it rained and all was good.