Water Supply

While we have so much rain and no building activity it might be the right time to explore what size water tank we will install.

The property has no town water, natural gas or sewage.
Water will be supplied by rain water caught of the roof and stored in tanks (see below), gas will be LPG bulk tank and sewage will be via our own worm treatment plant.(I'll explain that some other time).
It is our intension to add solar power after handover, currently we only have solar hot water. The house is designed with a large roof area facing north for solar panels.
The average rainfall  for Arthur Seat for the last 7 years is 807mm pa. One of the highest in Central Victoria.

The driest month is March with an average of 45mm, while the wettest month is July with an average of 86.6mm.

Proposed Colourbond Water Tank

Our catchment areas:

• House 375 sq mtrs
• Shed 90 sq mtrs
• Tank 38 sq mtrs (the tank will capture it own water ave 30000 ltr pa) 

NB 1 sq mtr = 1 ltr of catchment per mm of rain.


The house has a closed storm water system where all water caught on the roof is directed to the water tanks.
The house will deliver an average collection of 302,000 ltrs and the shed 72,600 ltrs per annum.
If the house was to use 620 Lt per day the total annual usage would be 226.000 litres per annum. Even in the drought year of 2006 there would have been enough water supply.

Gardens and orchard will be watered by the dam.

A 60000 ltr tank would give 100 days storage, the worst case in the past 7 years was 2 month with as little as 6mm.
And a smaller 20000 ltr tank onto the shed.
Tanks will be able to transfer water between them, both are proposed to have CFA connections for fire protection.
The current 2000 ltr tank will hold dam water for irrigation.