Nice tank, shame about the water
August 26th, 2007 - Posted in Building, Kaimata Croft - by Sarah|
26th August 2007
We made another significant step on our way this week when our water tank arrived. As there’s no mains water here at the Croft we will be collecting rainwater off the roof of both house and garage. This will be our only water supply so the tank is quite large (25,000 litres / 5,500 gallons). It arrived on a specially designed truck…
My God that’s BIG!
The choice of tank was quite difficult as there is no particularly sustainable material for making large water tanks (that we could find anyway). The choice is between concrete and polyethylene. Concrete keeps the water cooler and also conditions it, ie raises the Ph level and makes it ‘harder’. Polyethylene is 3/4 of the price of concrete. Our local concrete tank maker 2km away imports his cement from the North Island. The polyethylene tanks the same people sell are made just across the mountains from us. We decided that the carbon footprint was probably about the same so we went for the cheaper plastic tank.
But it fits.
Once we’ve got nothing better to do we plan to cover it with netting and plaster it. Probably with lime plaster left over from the house. This will help to keep the tank cool and protect it from UV degradation – greatly extending its lifespan.
The only problem we have now is that the tank is empty and we don’t yet have a roof to use to collect water! A special licence is required to deliver drinking water and we’ve been told that no-one on the coast has one. The most helpful suggestion so far has been to call the fire brigade…
on September 12th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
[...] Nice tank, shame about the water [...]