City people realy are slow. We have been using raining water tanks to provide drinking water for decades. Including on Government housing it's only the bottled water set in cities that have issues. Some of the cleanest drink water in the world and they drink bottled stuff.

What about decreasing building block sizes? Blocks are shrinking as developers cram more people into every scrap of land they can get their hands on. Houses are now built boundary to boundary. Families need room in the house, with as little garden area as possible.

There is no room for rainwater tanks of any practical size.

I have a villa house, slap bang against the house of the neighbour on one side, and 1 metre from the boundary on the other side - just enough to get the wheely bin out to the front. The rear of the house is entirely glass. There is nowhere I could find room for even a 'skinny' tank, which would be dry in the summer time, anyway.

As an ex-employer of the my state's water authority, I've heard all the theories about rainwater tanks, and they are all impractical. And there is no way I would drink untreated rainwater.

Little of the average 250 to 300 kilolitres (water seems to be measured in litres by some people to make it sound more when they are pushing their "saving" theories) used annually by the average household is drinking water.

As rule of thumb, 1kilolitre (1,000 litres) is used by each person per week for personal use. At 52 weeks annually this is 52 kilolitres, which makes the 4.5 kilolitre tank mentioned in Greg's website pretty mickey mouse, particularly in SA where it rains only in winter.

Right..... and when the various governmental water selling bodies determine that the water savings are working and the cash flow reduces there will be a tax on water tanks comparable to the lost government revenue.

Since there is a big push for 2 levels of water piping in homes and business buildings why don't the various water boards just suck up a bunch of sea water and pipe it around. This would address a significant issue not revealed by tank proponents - when there is a drought and the dam levels are low there is no rainwater for tanks either.

Greg,

No worries mate. Just sit back over the next 5-15 years and watch your company fly. Your product is a winner, it is a no brainer practical solution and will be imlpemented just like a safety switch with new contracts for sale, and in new homes as the energy efficiency rating ups and ups.

You dont need partner or shareholder do you!

Kenny, i agree totally, i was brought up on the stuff. Even a rusty tin tank with sludge and sediment on the bottom can produce good water, nowadays with the new tanks we are laughing. i said to myself i would never buy water out of a bottle ever, but i did, only overseas though.

Greg, meet some developers and builders and position your product and the jobs done, if you havent already. Very exciting, especially coming form your target industry and watching the changes around us.

You are only part right, Leigh, but your numbers don't add up to the reported data. Average Brisbane household use is 0.7kl/day and the average household is 2.7 people per household. My household has 5 people (including a teenage daughter) and we only use 0.5kl/day or only on tenth of the 1.0kl that you suggest is used by each person per day.

We could drop that another 25% by using small tanks to divert shower water for use in the toilet. And that would be only 1/13th of your example. A 13,500 litre tank will make our house fully self sufficient in 9 out of 10 years.

I was raised on tank water and you could say that one of the major distinctions between urban people and country people is that country people think their tank water tastes like nectar of the gods while urban people think their chemically treated heavy water is of "high standard".

It is ONLY the urban water industry that is claiming that tank water is unsafe. There is no medical evidence to back up this fear campaign. Indeed, there is a much greater incidence of stomach bugs from food left too long in refrigerators than there is from bugs in tank water.

But apparently the urban water monopolists are of the view that urban people are to stupid to take care of a water tank, something much more simple and low risk than a refrigerator or barbecue plate.

I am confused.

The underlying cause of the problem with water availability is the excessive and rapid growth of human population, with each person demanding and extracting an excessive quantity of water from the eco-system - whether through retention at a house tank, a local dam or town/city supply. That retained water of course has not become part of the run-off, thus starving creeks, swamps and rivers of their sustainable flow requirements.

The solution proffered here is to give people MORE storage, thus encouraging them to use more water - the tank water first and then the town supply. It seems the problem this solution solves is 'how do I make more money for my tank company?' However the problem we need to address is 'how does humanity demand a smaller portion of the natural resources it shares with all other species?'.

I would have thought the solution would be for there to be fewer people, each demanding less water.

Am I the only one who sees things this way?

Greg's idea is note worthy so my gob is some what smacked at those who poo poo his idea.

So what if some dwellings are too small to accommodate a tank, and some people are a bit wary of rain water - I've lived in Adelaide so what ever falls from he sky can't be worse than what flows from a tap - the only thing Adelaide's water has going for it is that the solids provide some nutrition and you can see what you are drinking.

Plenty of rain falls on this harsh land - we just need a few ideas and Greg's is one of them to harvest it more succesfully.

I spent a good while on Tasmanias West Coast - places like Zeehan and Queenstown are serviced with in excess of 2 metres of rain a year - once the less than 5000 people in the entire region have a drink the rest pretty much just flows to the sea - we 'll soon be sending wind generated power from the same region across Bass Strait - why not some water?

Part of the water problem is that Australians, much as we might like to think of ourselves as tough and laconic, are so fastidious. We want to flush away everything we can't wash. If every Australian male urinated on his lemon tree twice a day, I estimate it would save 20,000 megalitres of water every year, as well as improving the domestic lemon harvest.

Perseus,

I won’t quibble over 300 litres. There are wide discrepancies either side of averages. Notice what the average wage is these days?

I didn’t say 1kl per day, I said 1kl per week, and .5kl is half 1kl, not 1/10th. I don’t for one minute doubt your consumption. Many are the times I’ve had properties investigated because they were not using “enough” water – suspected water theft or bung meter etc. – but many were OK, so there are differences in use confounding all the theories and assumptions, but there is a yardstick to use, and that is as accurate as you can get.

Rainwater might still be OK (as it was in happier, pollution-free times) but there is no guarantee as there is with reticulated water which must be potable, no ifs or buts. The increased use of rainwater would also see an increase in dental caries, and if you are going to be unlucky enough to get crook drinking it, you have to wait 20 years to find out.

It will be compulsory for all new houses in SA to have, at a minimum, a 1,000-litre/1kilolitre rainwater tank. That’s the dinky little 3-module job. These will be bone dry most of the year. The Government suggests only that the tank be plumbed into the toilet, hot water service or cold laundry tap. Nothing about drinking the stuff. They cannot guarantee the quality or safety as they can with reticulated water.

Added to everything else, are the findings I read the other day intimating that the cost of tank/s and plumbing will never be recovered by any “savings”.

Of course, there would be advantages in country areas where more room means larger tanks; but in metropolitan areas, the tank theory is a furphy

Water that is sourced from a rainwater tank causes the same amount of water to remain in the dams. Even during drought, rainfall occurs along the coast, due to convection, when it does not occur in the (mainly inland) dam catchment areas. Most buildings in Australia therefore receive highly reliable rainfall. But when the dam catchments are saturated with water and good runoff into the dams is occurring, rainwater tanks allows this water to be stored for later use. Rainwater tanks therefore optimise water harvesting in the dam catchments. Before proceeding with my idea, however, it is essential to establish some legal facts. The state governments of Australia are reluctant to answer these questions--

Is the right to collect water from roofs for rainwater tanks vested in the building owner?

Is the right to use water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks vested in the building owner?

Is ownership of water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks vested in the building owner?

A 4 500 litre capacity rainwater supply system costs around $3500 to supply and install. When it is financed at the point of sale, this is about 1% of an average house’s value. This is the easiest, cheapest and most affordable way for every house owner, and every building owner, having their own, private, source of water supply. It will secure the nation’s drinking water supply.

Greg Cameron
www.urbanrainwater.com

Please, please can someone tell me why we go through all these convolutions to create more water, but cannot do what most of the world's great cities do and recycle sewage. Particularly as I gather that Goulburn Council currently recycles its sewage water, and puts it into Warragamba Dam, so we're drinking it already. There is a real smell (no pun intended) about this whole water business. First we have a desalination plant imposed on us, then it is withdrawn (but at a cost of $120 million), we have people employed as inspectors but can't prosecute offenders unless they are caught in the act, etc., etc.

What we need is:

1. A method of saving water that does not employ anyone because it is automatic.

2. Recycling of sewage as per London, Paris, etc.

3. A way of stopping politicians exploiting the situation to extract more tax. Remember item 2 of the australian political bible:

"No taxation with or without representation, with any deficiency in government spending being made up from the sale of politicians assets".

The best method to implement item 1 is to require all users to cut consumption by say 15%, but not to impose any specific restrictions. The cut would be encouraged by a tariff that reduced bills significantly for those who cut, and which would be financed by a very heavy levy on those who did not reduce consumption. There would be provision for hardship cases to be exempted, and this would also be financed from the levy.

Recycling of sewage should be left to the private sector, who would sell the purified water back to Sydney Water.

The third object could be achieved by capping the dividends that the governemnt can take from Sydney Water.

On a side note... Where I live in Melbourne, I regularly go for evening walks and see water flooding into the street from garden watering systems. The same systems are often run even when it has just rained - or is just about to rain.

Seems to me that those households that use more than a reasonable (or even a generous) share of drinking/washing water should be paying a higher per-litre fee. Ultimately, that would force greater considerations of various other options.

It’s the price of water that is the problem.

My urban water now costs 92.5 cents per kilolitre, 1 cent per10.8 litres, about $0.50 per day for my average household.
At this price there is no hip pocket incentive for any of us to change our way we use water.

If our spineless politicians would increase the price of water, then the good ideas put forward by these posts and others would happen.
The 10% leakage from Sydney Water’s pipes would be addressed, dad would be onto the kids running water to waste while cleaning teeth, front loading washing machines and native gardens would be all the go, developers would soon wake up that houses without water saving tanks would be discounted. And so on.

Public education and restrictions are of marginal effect while limiting population and stagnating this country in order to continue to waste cheap water is a poor option.
Government mandates with associated armies of bureaucrats, local Govt. inspectors and private loophole specialists we can do without.

So I say put up the price of water and let market forces and ingenuity supply the means by which we use our water more efficiently.

I live near Perth. Almost all our rain falls in the winter. In the summer our [small] tanks would probably be empty for much of the time.

How about quality? Birds defecate on roofs. Crows take the leftovers from barbecues onto roofs to pick them over. I used to work on roofs before I retired. I've seen dead rats up there. Will the public liability section of my home insurance cover me if a visitor claims sickness due to drinking a glass of water at my place?

Our local council virtually forces us to have verge lawns, whether we want them or not. If we put in an application for anything else on the verge, we're likely to be knocked back. If we do anything else without asking and someone dobs us in, we're likely to be threatened with legal action.

The justification for this is the council's supposed legal liability if someone hurts themselves by tripping over whatever we have done. I've pointed out that a person can fall over a recessed lawn sprinkler, trip over a buffalo runner or walk into a legally planted street tree.

These verges take a huge amount of water in our long, hot summer. The verge is my only lawn and I don't really want it. I have pointed out that the council can't force me to water it, cut and edge it or weed it. It could be a jungle of weeds in our wet winter and a dustbowl in the summer. But I don't want to do that to the street. I'd prefer a nature strip, good for the wildlife and economical on water.

I water off my private bore, but that's no justification for wasting water on a lawn I don't want.

I'd be happy to have a tank inside the ceiling, automatically topped up from the bore when it comes on for watering, and used for toilet flushing. This sounds neither complicated nor expensive to me, particularly if it had been done when the house was built.

I like the idea of water tanks but I don’t like forcing people to buy one if they don’t want it.

My water bill is 70% fixed charge and 30% usage. Why not make it 100% usage and 0% fixed? Even my gas bill has affixed charge of only 10 to 20%.

Increasing the usage charge and decreasing the fixed charge will make it more economical to install a tank and won’t increase your water bill. Proper use of market forces will encourage people to install their own tanks and they won’t need to be coerced. It will also reward people for using any other method that reduces water consumption.

I find it repugnant that people like Greg Cameron would consider lobbying government to force people to buy their product. It sounds like the Cross City Tunnel all over again. Making tanks mandatory on the transfer of title is a dumb idea. What happens when a rundown property is sold to a developer? You would have to install the tanks on a building about to be demolished.

Water conservation is a great idea but maybe the carrot is better than the stick.

Brisbane

Spot on. The continuously increasing demand caused by continuous population growth is the overarching issue.

Greg Cameron writes; “Australia’s drinking water supply could be permanently secured when every building is required to reduce mains drinking water consumption, with the use of rainwater tanks being an acceptable way to achieve this.”

No it couldn’t. Not for as long as we as a nation are hooked into the absurdity of continuous growth without even the slightest thought of it coming to an end.

Brisbane writes; “The solution proffered here is to give people MORE storage, thus encouraging them to use more water - the tank water first and then the town supply.”

Yes. In fact the concept is very dangerous, because in times of drought when the tanks are empty, the draw on town supplies will be just as great as it is now, and a whole lot larger as the population grows. It is all very well to encourage home collection and storage, but it won’t lessen the need for large supply systems capable of supplying whole population centres or regions as if there were no private, business or apartment block tank set-ups at all.

The promotion of tanks, as with the promotion of water conservation, will allow the population to grow larger without increasing the communal resource supply. For as long as we have continuous growth, all water conservation measures will serve to promote or facilitate this growth. The continuous increase in demand threatens to cancel out all the gains that could be made by improving water conservation, usage efficiency and alternative collection and storage.

We absolutely MUST look at sustainability and strive for limits to growth, instead of the warped idea of continuously striving to increase the supply and/or improve efficiency without doing anything about the ever-increasing demand.

I’m not against water tanks in urban areas but they are not the solution, unless they are so large that they drought-proof the users. They would be part of the solution if we addressed the growth factor as well.

Leigh got my figures wrong, my 0.5kl/day was for five people which makes only 0.1kl/day per person which is 1/10th of his figure. Robb88 is absolutely correct in highlighting the problem of the fixed water charge. It is a tax not a charge. It is the main factor in undermining the economics of urban water tanks as the more you save the higher the rump water charge becomes. It is a tax levied by a type of institution that has no taxing powers under the constitution.

The other major issue is the protection of our right to capture our own water that falls on our own land. This is a very sinister threat that will have serious and unforeseen implications right across the community. Until now, the only water rights under threat have been those of the farming minority but, rest assured, any erosion of those property rights will serve as precedents for a similar erosion of urban rights.

And the principle is quite simple and clear. If the state owns the water the moment before it falls on my house then it is the state that must pay for, and repair, my roof. And when that water comes through my open window and ruins my photo album then the state is clearly responsible for the damage done by it's water. This is clearly not the case so the water must be the property of 'God', in the legal sense. And if 'God' or nature made it fall on my land then it was clearly God's or nature's intention to give it to me, not the state.

So forget all the this population smokescreen, Ludwig is employed by one of the country's worst water thieves, and make it very clear that the water on your roof belongs to you, not shonk central.

Here is a question for Brisbane and Cairns City Councils, which prohibit house owners from using their own rainwater in their own household plumbing.

Do the following statements correctly reflect rights of ratepayers?

The right to collect water from roofs for rainwater tanks is vested in the building owner.

The right to use water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks is vested in the building owner.

Water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks falls within the ownership of the building owner.

The water supply system from a rainwater tank may be plumbed in accordance with clause 14.3.3 of the applied provisions of the Standard Plumbing and Drainage Regulation 2003 (AS3500.1:2003/Amdt), as follows--

14.3.3 Connection between service pipes
Where a water supply system from a rainwater tank is connected with the water service from a network utility operator’s water supply, the following applies:
(a) An appropriate backflow prevention device shall be provided to protect the network utility operator’s water supply.
(b) Where the rainwater is being used as a supply to a flushing device, either a backflow prevention device, as shown in Figure 14.1 (a), or an air gap within the cistern as shown in Figure 14.1 (b), shall be provided.
(c) A suitable device (e.g., single check valve) shall be provided on the pipeline from the rainwater tank to prevent water from the network utility operator’s water supply flowing into the rainwater tank.

Greg Cameron
www.urbanrainwater.com

I would be happy to drink recycled waste water - I survived 25 years of the stuff in the UK. However judging by the disgusting black dust that accumulates on our outdoor furniture I can say for sure that any water that runs off our roof would not be fit for drinking. I dare say in country areas that pollution is not such a problem and the water is far cleaner. However, in urban areas surely some sort of treatment would be necessary. Although it would be fairly simple to incorporate water filtration so I can see it may work but would be quite expensive. Rainwater tanks are great for other uses however eg. garden, car washing, swimming pools, flushing toilets etc. so should be encouraged. They are still far too expensive to install as yet. I would also like to see better sytems for collecting stormwater and grey water - especially from showers and baths which is pretty clean and perfectly useable for the garden or car. Also top-loading washing machines should be banned!

We need to do every thing we can from now, even small things. I recently found a waterless car wash product from www.waterlessdirect.com.au which are very good. I just tried and it worked very well without using any water. I mean everyone can contribute in saving water.

Effective today, the state controls the use of water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks in Queensland. It is unprecedented that the state should claim rights over water which, by its own admission, it does not own.

From today, however, any person in Queensland who will not collect water from their roof for a rainwater tank can be denied permission to build a house under section 51 of the Standard Building Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2006.

More importantly, any person who uses rainwater for purposes not nominated by the state can be denied permission to build a house.

The Queensland government is unwilling to substantiate its claim to have the legal authority to amend the building regulation in this manner.

Rights to water in Queensland are established under section 19 of the Water Act 2000 which is “all rights to the use, flow and control of all water in Queensland are vested in the state”. The meaning of water does not include water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks. Based on this meaning, water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks is not owned by the state.

Under section 19 of the Act, all rights to water collected from roofs not for rainwater tanks are vested in the state. The state owns all water collected from roofs not for rainwater tanks.

The Premier, Hon Peter Beattie, was asked today if he will answer the following questions:

Is the right to collect water from roofs for rainwater tanks in Queensland vested in the building owner?

Is the right to use water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks in Queensland vested in the building owner?

Does water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks in Queensland fall within the ownership of the building owner?

Will the Queensland government substantiate its claim to have the legal authority to pass into law section 51 of the Standard Building Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2006?

Greg Cameron

Toowoomba City Council is the first Council in Australia to propose sewerage recycling. The contribution by rainwater tanks to the water supply is dismissed as impractical and unaffordable.

Rainwater tanks can immediately provide 30 per cent of Toowoomba’s water supply if installed for every building even at current record low rainfall of under 600mm a year. Rainwater tanks will provide 40 per cent of Toowoomba’s water supply with 800mm rainfall a year.

It will take two years to install rainwater tanks into every residential, commercial and industrial building in Toowoomba. The cost for an average house will be $2,500 for a 5,000 litre rainwater system consisting of between one and four tanks to ensure that all downpipes are connected. This will yield 77,000 litres of water or half of annual indoor water use.

But rainwater tanks are dismissed as an option by Toowoomba City Council. The City estimates that the cost is $5,000 per house and the yield is 25,000 litres. These estimates bear no resemblance to commercial reality or rainfall.

The low cost is achieved by large scale manufacturing and by employing teams of highly trained installers to install in 50 houses per day.

A single machine to make 1250 litre rainwater tanks costs about $8 million and makes one tank every five minutes or 70,000 a year.

1250 litre tanks are rectangular, slim and low. They fit neatly and unobtrusively beneath the eave of a house.

A machine will supply 175,000 households between Toowoomba and Brisbane over 10 years. A rainwater supply system is 1% of the cost of an average house. Including rainwater supply into the cost of a house has a neutral effect on the water bill.

Greg Cameron

The only answer to the water problem is to find the solution to the various Government ways & means to Tax the water used - or the tanks or the ground they stand upon etc - We have plenty of water - called rain - but until the Tax problem is solved we will have restrictions & be forced to accept sewerage recycling etc - So - all you enterprising Aussies - put your collective thinking caps on & find the solution - then the only issue is which branch of government will police the impost - now that will be interesting to watch develop.

Governments currently use tax revenue to subsidise the installation of rainwater tanks. By maintaining a high cost structure for rainwater tanks Governments ensure the need for subsidies. By requiring every building owner to reduce mains drinking water consumption with rainwater tanks deemed to comply, Governments will be unable to afford subsidies but people will be able to afford rainwater tanks. Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting over (Mark Twain). Water is money but money isn't water (Greg Cameron.

Celiac

I disagree that we (each individual) need to do everything we can to conserve water.

We have every right to reasonably freely use this resource. Not in a profligate way, but not in a highly restricted way either.

It is not necessarily true that everyone can contribute to saving water by using less themselves.

The trouble is, under the current mindset of rapid population growth – if we are all frugal, we will be facilitating more and more people becoming established under the same water-provision infrastructure. We will be playing along with this grossly unsustainable momentum, just as our government and big-business minders want us too. We will be rapidly worsening the problem.

In fact, it is very dangerous to think of the answer, or a large part of the answer, as progressively less per-capita usage, because this impinges more and more on our safety margin – the margin we need in really dry times. I mean, the more frugal we are under the current continuous growth regime, the more we are hooking ourselves in to always being that way and the less we will be able to further reduce our usage when we really need to.

It is good to have a large safety margin. That is, to be able to fairly freely use water, and to be able to become much more frugal when we really need to, during drought.

OK, so you will argue that we are in drought and need to be particularly frugal right now. But are we in drought? Firstly, we have to view the declining rainfall as the new norm, and develop a water-use regime on that basis. And secondly, rapid population growth continues. The number of consumers is still rapidly increasing, and in SEQ, Sydney and other places, directly in the water-stressed areas! So what’s the point in us being individually frugal?

What is the best the thing that we can all do to solve the water issue? Call for genuine sustainability, of which limits to population growth (nationally and in various cities and regions) is a primary necessity.

Part 1
Its interesting reading all the pros and cons on the debate of our dwindling water supply. Maybe if people took the " I am 100% responsible for myself " attitude they would realise that if you want something in life you need to create it for yourself. Australia is know globally as a dry place. Can I ask the question here. If you lived in a rural environment, who's responsibility is it if you don't drink. Does the Federal government or State government or Local government or whoever are they responsible for you .The answer is obviously NO. None of the above. So who is. Maybe you should look in the mirror and ask the same question again. I live on the Central Coast. Yes our water supply in our dam is running low ,currently its at 14%, although I should say only due to mismanagement, You see our local council decided to dump 25% of it out of the storage dam a few years ago, and yes since then we haven't had a lot of rain in our area, everywhere else but not in the dam. Part of the Central Coasts problem is we have a storage dam and not a catchment dam.
If you want to guarantee your own water then do something that will guarantee it. You have to catch your own supply, filter it and then life is not a problem for yourself and your family anymore. I'm sure 95% of the urban dwellers will not do this, as they tend to never take responsibility for themselves. Its always someone elses fault or responsibilty to take care of them.
My parents have been living in the country in a drought area, not on town water ,so they have to collect their own supply, for the last 15 years and they have never run out of water, although consistantly their neighbours do. How can that be so, could it be that they just manage it a little bit wiser and smarter, YES ,I think so.

Part 1
If you think your town water is clean, then do yourselves a favour. Put a filter on it and have a look at the filter element in a months time. It will absolutely disgust you what you will see. A black scummy slime. mmmmmmmmmmm sounds tasty doesnt it , but yes that is what you a currently drinking

So the real question is this ,what are you going to do about it yourself. Are you going to do something the day you turn on your house tap and nothing comes out , or are you going to take 100% responsibilty about your own personal life threatening problem and take steps today to solve it yourself.