Tanks in 10 years or 100 years?

All houses in Australia will have rainwater tanks in about 100 years, as State Governments’ building laws are applied for renovating and replacing the nation’s housing stock.

Governments mandate rainwater tanks/reduced mains drinking water consumption, for new houses and major renovations, because they believe this is in the best interests of the community.

In making these laws, one expects that DCF/NPV of rainwater tanks has been considered and signed-off by State Treasuries.

Sylvia comments that “Governments are being pushed down a needlessly expensive path” by their support, both legislatively and financially, for rainwater tanks.

An alternative view is that Governments recognise that water collected from roofs for rainwater tanks is a large and valuable source of urban water supply and they are looking for ways to make it more affordable and accessible. Perseus’ rainwater tank fence is one example of the myriad opportunities for innovation that are available if, as Hon Frank Sartor said, we can overcome that “familiar enemy, the strangling hand of administrative inertia”.

It is also true that there is a needlessly high cost structure for rainwater tanks necessitating subsidies. For example, the Queensland Government provides a $1000 subsidy for installing rainwater tanks in existing houses of which there are 700,000 in southeast Queensland. (The subsidy fund is capped at $84M or 12% of eligible households.)

However, subsidies for rainwater tanks will not be required if all houses have rainwater tanks.

This is because the cost savings from economies of scale in manufacture and installation, are worth more than the subsidies.

The building laws passed by State Governments will see rainwater tanks in all houses in 100 years. Why not 10 years?

Greg Cameron

Perseus, you wrote;

“Ludwig, my reference to you not having heard of rainwater tanks was in relation to the fact that you have been told on numerous times that population growth is not a threat to water stocks or existing supply if every new house is required to install a decent tank.”

And yet you knew that I supported the concept of rainwater tanks! That’s pretty whacky Perseus.

As I said on another thread (link given in my last post), even if every new residence has a tank, we will still need to maintain a healthy public supply network, due to not all tanks being large enough to drought-proof people, health scares and a tendency to increase water-usage once people have installed a large tank.

So, the implementation of tanks certainly does not neutralise the population growth factor.

“All you do is distract people from more important aspects of the water issue.”

This is extraordinary! I could more legitimately say that you provide the distraction here, by attempting to focus debate on one small aspect of water-provision and security, rather than looking at the overall issue. However, I do think that discussion on tanks is important. What is really unfortunate is that you are so intolerant of population / growth / sustainability aspects even being mentioned in relation to water. I just can’t understand this.

I have no problem with your economies of size. But let’s just be aware that the most economic or practical tanks for many people are not necessarily going to be the most drought-proofing.

Not all rooves are stinkin’ hot all of the time. Bird and bat droppings can easily get into tanks before they are ‘cooked’. Disease IS an issue. We could easily find a situation where a very large portion of the population suddenly stops using tank water and greatly increases demand on the town supply

Rainwater tanks on urban buildings are indeed an easy solution , However the difficulty lies in finding ways to encourage voluntary adoption .

The practice of charging a set fee for mains water supply regardless of the quantity utilized by the is probably the greatest deterrent to installation of tanks .

Why pay for a rainwater tank if you still have to pay the same water fee ?

Ok some municipalities may offer reduced water charges where tanks are installed & that’s good but not nearly good enough .

In the interest of promoting the concept of self reliance I personally wouldn’t suggest an installation subsidy from the state , Unless perhaps it could be in the form of a deduction against taxable income as with farm water improvements .

Worst solution would have to be compulsion of any form as compulsion only ever leads to more bureaucracy & red tape .

Best solution in my view is that mains supplied water only be charged for on the basis of quantity utilized as per meter reading . Plus perhaps an annual service fee to cover meter reading . The option of no mains connection should be available so that no fees are incurred at all .
Also rainwater tank installation should not require approval if installed in accordance within sensible guidelines .

This type of approach would provide the opportunity for those who choose to be self reliant to easily save on utility expenses as well as providing a fair financial incentive to be frugal with mains water .

continued ;

From above ;

Additionally the above may create a degree of competition for reliable supply of water , Firstly between state/council water utilities & tank suppliers , Then after many tanks are installed the sky’s the limit , Water could be purchased from farmer Fred with his large dam & filtration system but no crop contract or maybe the power generation industry , They produce plenty of steam so why can’t that be from salt water ? Or of course from a desalination plant operator .

Simply change the way existing water supply entities charge for their water & rainwater tanks will be sought voluntarily , or I’ll eat me hat .

One wonders if there would in fact be a supply shortage now if there had been some real competition in the past .

Ps ; I prefer the term utilize to the term use when talking about water as it is more accurate . The word use somehow suggests exhaustion & is likely the cause of much of the misunderstanding & heat that exists in the debate .

Good point, Jammo. The sole justification of regulation is to prevent foreseeable harm. So what sort of harm, to either the homeowner or his neighbour, do these councils think will be inflicted by an unregulated water tank?

They are not known for jumping the fence to hump the neighbours hot water system. At their very worst, they will leak. But even this will have most impact on the owner's property rather than the neighbour's. If the footings are innadequate then the worst that will happpen is that one side will subside and the tank may only last 15 years instead of 30 but again, this is the owners loss, no-one else's.

And what are the dreadful consequences if a tank has to be fixed? No shock horror here either, just let the water out (not much in dry season) disconnect the pipes an push the empty tank aside to make the repairs.

And as for the misguided fears of health risks, where is the evidence? All of rural Australia has lived on tank water for more than a century and there is NO EVIDENCE of any variance in the incidence of waterborne infection or disease between the two communities.

If the metropolitan public is so stupid as to be incapable of ensuring that the inlet and outlet mesh is in good order then I would be the first to tell them to avoid tanks. But you tell me, are they?

Have discovered this site in the wake of the 7.30 Report a couple of nights ago on similar subject.
Will not tarry long, except to say I am from Adelaide, the cloarca maxima of the Murray-Darling. And grew up in a housing trust semi-detached, with rainwater tank and no end of consumed bird sh-t ever killed me. Sweet water; rainwater!
Firstly, Toowoomba. Had the the Feds been dinkum over the recycling facility they surely would have been dealt with it firmly, instead of in the gormeless, namby-pamby way they did. It was almost as if they WANTED to kill the precedent.
Which brings me to KAEP.
I have to agree with much that KAEP said, and sense his and other's writer's frustrations both with cretin state ALP governments, for a start. What a classic paradigm, I am ashamed to say, is Tripodi- so typical. Worst since Carr's (and Griener's?) tunnels and Lennon's and Liberal Robin Grey's despicable woodchipping decade in Tassie and Bracks'PPP's (and Liberal Kennett's privatisations before that)and Nat/ALP land clearing and Cubby Creek in Queensland ... and so on. Heavens, what's the point- its an entrenched culture!!
Then there has been the devious and destructive Fed Howard government and effeminate ALP opposition.
Consider Tory Regional Forestry "agreements" to begger-up the catchments as an unconsidered (wilfully ignored) consequence of ratchetting-up woodchipping.Then there's been regional rural grants rorting, deliberate inaction on serious issues like water purification, lies over urgency of needed change, funding "failures" and trumpeting of neo liberal "small"- read impotent- government and cult of self, etc.
The point is, with all the various legal traps installed in privatising everything, over the heads and behind the backs of a complicitly apathetic public, you can't get water conservation schemes up any more than you can stop get traffic funnelling, because the privatised companies now in control will demand compensation- the damage has BEEN DONE!!
The best we could do as consolation is grab a stack of merchant bankers, "developers" and politicians within a prospective radius of five million miles and HANG them !