House 🏡 hold need ? Would 20000 litres be generous or marginal
martin11,
Dec 11, 3:52am
Depends on the supply to the tank .
strathview,
Dec 11, 4:35am
We have a four person household and have two concrete water tanks of around 22500 litres in each plus we also have a plastic water tank of 25000l off a shed. Where we are one water tank has to be fill year round for fire fighting purposes. We have only had to fill up twice and that was during a bad drought year and that was the year we also used the fire fighting water too . We also use a front loader washing machine and do not use the dish washer. We also have water to the stock paddocks and during the drought we bucketed water to the paddocks as we had to ration the water.
lythande1,
Dec 11, 4:52am
Neighbours had a 20000l tank, family of 4, a lot of washing due to farm jobs and they never ran out. Of course rainfall was good there. Auckland? Get 2 to be safe,.
tweake,
Dec 11, 5:12am
marginal. typically these days you would have at least two of those tanks. that also assuming you actually know how to conserve water. add at least another tank if your a townie.
really common here to have people move up from auckland and they run out of water constantly. it gets really expensive to truck it in.
loukirby,
Dec 11, 6:05am
Depends on what your rainfall throughout the year is like. We have two 25000l off the house, and another off our shed for my garden. There is only two of us, so there is more than enough but we are coastal. 10km away and near the foothills my mate has one 10000 for a family of five and that is sufficient.
joanie32,
Dec 11, 6:10am
We have 30,000l storage Planning on doubling that as we do get very low in summer Two people living here, but a few visitors that don't quite understand about having tank water supply.
kittylittle,
Dec 11, 8:36am
this. I have eight people in my house and one old large concrete tank. Low pressure system and a large roof area. buy water once every year or two.
tweake,
Dec 11, 8:46am
you should only be buying water in if its a drought, you should not be buying it in every year or two. even then i would be inclined to oversize it as well. no one ever complains on having to much water storage. highly recommend dual tanks so one can be emptied for cleaning repairs etc.
strathview,
Dec 11, 9:12am
Check council bylaws. Many areas have to have a water tank for fire fighting purposes now. If you apply for a bullding consent for any reason this is when they will query about the number of water tanks.
elect70,
Dec 11, 11:20am
If got the space put 2 200000 t tanks in et I had 1x 20000 l but in dry years ran out luckily have a bore as well . so put in an extra 5000 l tank
ira78,
Dec 11, 6:41pm
We have 2 people and a 20K (I think) tank. A few years ago when we didn't have any appreciable rain for like 5 months we were down to about 1/4, and that's with a spa, big fish tank, etc. So I'd say you'd have more than enough capacity. But some people use ridiculous amounts of water, I don't know how.
harm_less,
Dec 11, 9:30pm
Easy to calculate the amount of rainwater that can be harvested off of a set area of roof catchment. 1mm of rainfall produces 1 litre of water per square metre of roof area. For example a 200m2 roof area will fill that 20,000 Litre tank from 100mm of rain.
We have 2x 25,000 litre tanks fed from 280m2 combined house and shed roof areas. That 50,000 litre sees us, two adults, through summer including watering of spring crops and livestock requirements. Our usual rainfall is around 2,500mm/year.
phoenix22,
Dec 11, 9:43pm
does the council fill the tank? or are you solely reliant on what you collect and store yourselves?
I have a 20,000 litre tank on our property, for a family of 4. But, we are on a water scheme, so there is a supply of water coming in.
We've run out of water once. I couldn't tell you why that happened, as it hasn't happened since, suspect a supply issue. Have a pool, dishwasher, use the bath, have fish tanks etc. the storage is enough, but if I were collecting my own supply, I'd want more than 1 tank
snapperheadrkp,
Dec 11, 11:08pm
If you put in 2 x smaller tanks rather than one large tank and plumb them correctly, you can then drain one and clean it without having to buy water. Don't listen to these Clowns that clean tanks by pumping water into a large bladder they bring and then claim to filter it back into your cleaned tank. Great way to shift winterbourne Bugs from tank to tank and job to job.
shanreagh,
Dec 11, 11:09pm
Me too. Good advice.
If no town supply or water supply link up, to me, one 20,000l supply would not be enough especially if you have plants, orchards and even just one stock water trough or want to water your lawns.
You can run tanks off outbuildings for plant, orchard or stock water troughs as these do not need to have any treatment (as drinking water does).
shanreagh,
Dec 11, 11:10pm
Good advice re smaller tanks.
elect70,
Dec 13, 7:16am
Agree idid this . Climmed into the tank & scooped out the 250 mm thick muck washed walls with chorine bailed it out & let it refill , only way
tegretol,
Dec 14, 9:59am
We have 3 x 25000 tanks off the building roofs. Three adults, one takes 2 showers a day and we never scrimp on water, all long showers, dishwasher once a day etc. Never run out, not even thru last years apparent 'drought'.
argentum47,
Dec 18, 5:40am
Had a 6000 gallon tank ,for 24 years , 3 person household , had to top it up 4 times over all that time ( twice because of overseas visitors staying with us) 1’s because we left an outside tap on , and ones we actually did run short of water . then we went traveling around Aussie for a few years (in a camper) and water is like gold! We now use about 300lr w week between the 2 of us , as it’s sometimes a 250km+ drive to the nearest water tap, so a 24000 lr tank would last you ? . 🤔
benthecat,
Dec 18, 8:17am
we have one 30,000L tank for 4 adults and 2 beefies. We get around 1.5m of rain a year. We've run out three times in 10 years, once our goat turned a tap on, once a beefy stood on a pipe which had been uncovered, and once we actually ran out due to lack of rain. At this point it's still cheaper than buying the 2nd tank, but if you can afford it, the advantages of the 2nd tank - being able to empty and clean one, not losing 2 tanks when you have a catastrophic failure, peace of mind. well that's for you to decide. If you do choose to only have one tank, strongly recommend that you have two outlet taps, and hook up the higher one at around say 20% of the tank, so that if you do have a catastrophic loss of water, you will retain that bottom 20% and be able to switch over the outlet and not run out.
apollo11,
Dec 18, 8:26am
We have two 25000l tanks. I should have asked the installer to put a shutoff valve in between the two tanks so we could shut one off for cleaning, but didn't know anything about tanks at the time. I'm hoping to run the water low enough this year so that I can get in and block off each end of the linking pipe so I can install a valve. As far as water use goes, we have only ever managed to get to 1/3 from empty, and that's after a few months of no rain. One torrential downpour can fill the tanks pretty quickly.
tegretol,
Dec 18, 8:33am
No need. Mount a hoover attachment and a waterproof LED on the end of a length of pipe and hook that pipe to a 5m length of flexible hose and a pump in suck mode. The light lets you see where you've hoovered and the shit can easily be lifted off the tank floor without any disruprtion to service.
apollo11,
Dec 18, 8:39am
I did think of this, using a pool cleaning system or similar, but would probably want to get in and scrub the sides too. Our tanks don't have a lot of silt in them as we have debris filters on our downpipes, but I'd like to have clean tanks just for peace of mind.
gamefisher,
Dec 18, 9:16am
I’m in the process of buy a rural block and my setup will be 1*2,000 litre then 2*25,000 litre tanks. Water catchment will flow into 2,000 litre first with a mesh filter and the fine solids should settle in this tank, then from this it will overflow into one of the 25,000 litre tank with a dairy filter sock. Then from the first 25,000 litre tank it will overflow into the second 25,000 litre tank which will be the main supply tank. There will be an interconnect between the two 25,000 litres with a valve shut most of the time and only opened if it gets low in main supply from usage or accident over usage. This way we shouldn’t run out accidently and should always have fire fighting supply ( a requirement now). When it comes to catchment 1 inch (25mm) of rain from every 40 square meter of catchment will give you 1,000 litres and I am working on an average rainfall of 1,500 annually in Northland. Going by my Watercare bill the average usage high end for three people is 405 litres per day (5 is 675 litres).
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