Water Tanks Installation next to weatherboards

Thinking about installing a water tank down the side of one of my properties. There is sufficient space down between the boundary fence and the house. The property is weatherboard.

Question is, how are the water tanks installed, when the property is a weatherboard and you may in the future need to repair, paint the weatherboard. Is it simply allowing some small room between the water tank the property to allow access?

For those who have had one installed, are they placed on a concrete base or simply just on the ground?
 
We just had this one put on a shed yesterday. 100 thousand litres. Spose yours would be smaller than that?

Just need 250 mills of rain now to fill it up, that would be nice.

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See ya's.
 
For those who have had one installed, are they placed on a concrete base or simply just on the ground?

Hi Buzz,

I put in an oblong 4000 l tank down the side of the house. I think it has to be 100mm from the house and the base is a wooden frame just slightly bigger than the tank filled and compacted with finely crushed blue metal. Once it's filled with water it's not going to go anywhere.

Cheers,

Bazza
 
If they are round you don't need much space to reach the walls behind it. We have one down the side of my old house with about 20cm between it and the house and you can reach there just fine.

Square ones you'd either need more space or put them so close painting behind them is pointless.
 
If the water tank is installed correctly they will need to put a concrete base or compacted blue metal underneath for support. If it's a 3000L Tank (Like this - http://img.alibaba.com/photo/202575...nk_storage_tank__water_storage_tank_.summ.jpg), without the support you would have 3 Tonne (if full) on that small surface area, not only that - it also depends on the material of the tank. For example, if it's aluminium, then it has to sit on wood planks on concrete.

If you get one installed and need to carry out the work later down the track then it would basically be a matter of draining the remaining water out of the tank, disconnecting all connected pipework and slide it out of the way. One option anyway.
 
Gidday, plumber partner says he would always put a tank close to the house. Reality is, you are probably not going to get down between it and the house to paint etc, unless you empty it. Second, always on concrete - because that doesn't move when a hefty tank full of water is sitting on it (and water is very heavy, compared to its volume). We have one of about 1500 litres that is on concrete pavers - it has leaned over a bit, towards the shed it is next to. The other, of 3200 litres, is on concrete and is not going anywhere - even while full.
 
I have 4 tanks at one house and 1 at the other - 13500L, 9000L and 8000L each on a level, compacted pile of fine gravel (I got white not blue, cost more but looks prettier), one on an ancient sandstone tank stand, and one sitting on a concrete verandah. No issues with any of em.

The fun thing is, the tanks are very cold, they get condensation on them in the morning, water runs down the tanks and makes the gravel stands damp. All the gravel stands are now completely overrun with violets. It is very pretty, and has the bonus of preventing the stands from eroding :)
 
TC, can I ask what that cost you? How does expected life compare to say x4 25kL poly tanks?

To the OP, if it is Poly you can easily empty the thing and push it out of the way to do repairs on the house. Poly tanks aren't that heavy.


We just had this one put on a shed yesterday. 100 thousand litres. Spose yours would be smaller than that?

Just need 250 mills of rain now to fill it up, that would be nice.


See ya's.
 
TC, can I ask what that cost you? How does expected life compare to say x4 25kL poly tanks?
.


It cost 7k erected. But then that's not including the gravel. Add 100 tonnes of white gravel and 15 tonnes of blue metal. Didn't cost us much for the gravel and we carted it ourselves, but it might cost a heap in the city?

Life expected? Dunno. The things are a bit flimsey really, and they have a plastic liner. Maybe it might need a new liner one day. I'd be a bit worried if a wind storm hit it when the tank was empty.

We have a heap of 25,000 litre cement tanks. 11 in total on our houses and sheds, And we have even more on the sheds on land we lease. We use rain water in our crop spraying operations, as rain water gives us 20% more effective chemical usage compared to bore water.

Everyone around here used to put in 25,000 litre rainwater tanks, but now everyone is going for the 100,000 litre plus sized ones.


See ya's.
 
I guess if you did need to repair the weatherboard house at some stage in the future it would be better to get a water tank that is easy to disassemble or move. Depending on the size of tank you are after you may like to consider a modular tank rather than a round PVC tank. We recently took delivery of an flat pack slimline water tank. It slides tightly against the house and we chose a colorbond colour that matches our existing paintwork. Couldn't think of a better solution for our needs. Hope that helps. Good luck with finding the water tank that works best for you.
 
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Very slightly off topic, but what size tank should I be thinking about, for purely gardening purposes, and the occasional car wash with the Karcher.

I have a roof area of roughly 250 m2, but the tank can only go on one side of the house, where a slim line-type tank would fit well, so the applicable roof area is more like 125 m2.

The area where the tank will go would suit anything up to about 1m wide, 4m long and about 2m high, so up to a 5,000 litre tank would fit easily.

But, is it worth spending the extra to get a 5,000 litre tank, instead of say a 2,500 litre tank? Will it fill up in Melbourne? How much water do you get in a decent rain...10mls,50 mls, 100 mls?

And can anybody recommend a water tank plumber in the Northcote area?

Cheers
Jonathon
 
here's a handy link to calculate how much water you will catch:
http://www.superiorwatertanks.com.au/rain-water-caculator.htm

We have two linked tanks. One is 3200l and the other about 1500l - so 4700l all up. I can tell you that it has been an absolute marvel in getting our garden started - from nothing to a flourishing young garden in less than two years, all in the drought. It also keeps the vegies growing.
However, in a hot spell, such as we had in November, we can empty our tanks in a week. I would recommend you get as big a tank as you have room for - it's one of those things that, once you have it, you'll wish you had more.
One of our prospective purchases next autumn is another 3200l tank, so that we can move the 1500l to the front and water the garden there.
cheers.
 
The area where the tank will go would suit anything up to about 1m wide, 4m long and about 2m high, so up to a 5,000 litre tank would fit easily.
Check out the tank suppliers websites - we get ours through Elders but the tanks themselves are all listed on the teampoly.com.au website, where they have the full technical specs. I don't know if teampoly sell outside of SA. Either way you should be able to find a website with all the sizes on that you can have a browse of and see what fits your space. There's a lot of newer slimline modular designs from all the sellers that suit city type folk wanting to water their backyards.

Trick is to cruise past your local hardware store, take note of the brand tanks they have sitting out back for sale, and go to that manufacturer's website, then order in *exactly* want you want :)
 
I have a roof area of roughly 250 m2,

But, is it worth spending the extra to get a 5,000 litre tank, instead of say a 2,500 litre tank? Will it fill up in Melbourne? How much water do you get in a decent rain...10mls,50 mls, 100 mls?

Cheers
Jonathon


With a roof area of 250 m2, 10 mills gives you 2,500 litres.
......................................50 mills gives you 12,500 litres.
....................................100 mills gives you 25,000 litres.

With Melbournes average rainfall of about 650 mills, you have 162,000 litres running off your roof per year. It's just a matter of having enough gutter and downpipe capacity to catch it all.

Would a 5,000 litre tank fill up in Melbourne..??
It would be over flowing constantly. One problem with Melbourne though is that the rain falls mainly in the cooler months when your garden won't need much water. In the dryer summer months when you want to water the garden, your not getting much rain. No such problem in the more northern parts of the continent.



That 100,000 litre tank I showed at the start of this thread..?? I've had 150 mills and it should have caught 60,000 litres, or be 60% full, but since I've got it linked to a heap of other sheds and tanks, it's actually almost full now.:)


See ya's.
 
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