Ask yourself one question - should you be using potable (drinking) water to flush your toilet?
Such a simple point... but yet we all do this every day, and never question it. If you meet anyone from South East Asia - they are horrified by the wastefulness of it - why? This is simply because in their countries water is a precious commodity and they have devised a more sensible way of using it appropriately.
In our case, water used to be cheap like other resources, so we have always used it for everything - and never questioned the logic of flushing the loo with potable water, but since the great recession of 2008, nothing is immune to a inflation busting ever increasing squeeze on our pockets which starts to make using a renewable technology to lower the costs highly attractive.
So I spent some of yesterday going back over the lovely eco-subject of Rainwater Harvesting, something that is very low on the eco-agenda for most people - as cost wise water bills normally doesn't factor into the horrific financial burdens of mortgages and energy bills.
Today was more about the practicalities of and the rationale of actually building the storage part of it - for me, living in a remote location in the driest part of the UK, modifying my house to use Rainwater Harvesting as a technlogoy is a "no brainer", as I have a private metered water supply that currently costs me £300 a year. And while the new water supply is brilliant - with a better pressure and obvious quality - after a year its proving to be rather costly, and with the fitting of a new hot water cylinder soon, my usage is going to go up, so a more cost effective solution is in order.
I'm sold on the idea and benefits, got an idea of where to mount the tanks but some common sense consideration needs to be applied to the setup and installation costs, even if you do most of the work yourself.
Like most renewable technology, investment is required, and unlike many other technologies, the return for me would be pretty quick, the R.O.I. (Return On Investment) would probably be less than a year, so in the year I've been thinking about doing it I could have spent the cash and saved it already for the coming year. In reality it might take two years in all to get done, but you get the idea of the savings involved.
This is always the barrier with renewables. You sit around pondering if its "worth" doing in financial terms, and effort, finally you do it, and afterwards you realize it could have been done years ago. Solar panels were a bit like this for me, I pondered for ages, then took the plunge and blimey did I see a difference in my electricity bills and bank account afterwards (ignoring the spend on the installation of course!)
My neighbour's rather drastic solution to our water supply issues (the entire community of Lee-Over-Sands had a threat of disconnection a few years ago which we dealt with by agreeing to metered payments) was to dig a well, which took him about 6 weeks, and it still wasn't drinkable, or at least he didn't want to take the risk after having the water tested! I've always been unhappy with the idea of drinking groundwater in an arable area, which ours is, mainly because pesticides and various other farming nasties must work their way downward into the groundwater - although Andy assures me most of the water seeps through from the hills in an underground aquifer During that process and discussing with him the costs of filtering water to drinking water standards etc, I said the best solution would be for him to just use the groundwater for everything around the home, toilet flushing, baths, showers, heating, hot water etc. A single tap in the kitchen is all you really need for cooking and drinking water. He eventually realized my common sense approach made sense, financially of course that "metered" amount from the kitchen tap in terms of usage is very low, compared to the amount used from the well for baths and flushing toilets and costs him and his family very little, coupled with a lot of peace of mind over healthy drinking water. For those of you considering having a well dug for you, you're looking at a couple of thousand pounds. So rainwater recycling is an attractive option - with minimal fuss - perhaps a little spend on improving your guttering to go into it, but the joy of this technology is that it requires nothing "out of the norm" in terms of normal work to the house itself.
Over the last few years I've pondered our use of water in this country as pretty daft, I'm sure people in other countries are horrified that we flush our toilets with drinking water.
Here's the big issue, like most things in our western lives, its all about convenience, keeping down infrastructure costs, and of course making money for big corporates and their shareholders.
In the old days of a nationalized water board, profits were non existent, and utilities such as water supplies were affordable. And then after World War II came de-nationalization, however appealing to the populace at the time proved to be a costly mistake. What are we left with now? Water companies increasing prices beyond inflation, just as the energy companies are doing - this of course is mainly to keep their stock market investors happy, who still expect double figure financial returns on profits irrespective of the state of the rest of their customer's financial situations.
And so the bills increase, that's what you can do with a localized utility monopoly!
So here's yet another example of a renewable concept - something that is essentially an "eco-friendly" move, but one which can actually save you a lot of money in the long term: Rainwater recycling.
While I admire my neighbours tenacity and engineering skills in digging his narrow bore well, I think rainwater is a better solution. In my case, I own a bungalow with a massive flat roof - an enormous surface area perfectly suited for collecting rain.
Of course there are the usual issues, pigeon feces, moss, dirt etc getting into it, but thats the brilliance of having a standard water supply, you just use the rainwater for washing and flushing toilets - so the filtration process is vastly simplified. It helps too not having a metal roof which presumably would further contaminate the water, which might not be a good idea for bathing.
One of the main issues with this technology is where you actually put the water. As we all know the UK's weather is unpredicatable, yet we do have cyclical periods of having too much rain and too little - so water storage is key. And this is where the complex calculations become a reality. Thankfully there are a lot of online resources to help you calculate this. I would say though that one of the benefits to a modular system using smaller tanks is that you can easily add more capacity at a later date if yours become full and you empty them regularly through day to day usage.
To work all this out, You first need to calculate your roof size, how much you use per day, week and month, and even yearly etc (which is fairly easy with a water meter), then go online and look at the rainfall figures from the met office based on your location, consider the units being used (e.g. litres) then use an online calculator to work out the avergage figures you can gather for each month. Then factor in your usage per month. From this you should be able to work out a monthly surplus of water for each month. After that consider a cyclical approach (e.g. March's surplus water adds to Aprils) and so on, you can start to get an idea of the amount of storage capacity you need in cubic metres based on rainfall to cover you for the driest periods (e.g. spring / summer).
So if you have a big roof (this can even be on sheds or outbuildings if you can run a pipe betweeen them) there is a lot of collection potential - but similar to any energy resource it then has to occupy space on your property.
This is your next problem to conceptualize Where are you going to store 20 cubic meters of water (in my case). You might then look at commercial rainwater harvesting systems, essentially a 3000-8000 litre plastic underground tank and pump. Such off-the shelf kit runs to about £2500-£5000 plus installation costs - great for those cash rich, but for most of us, this is a big investment, and when you compare this to your yearly bill, as soon as R.O.I goes beyond 10 years, most homeowners eyes glaze over and it never gets done, whatever the good green intentions!
Modular Tanks
So then you look at YouTube, and discover the IBC water tank approach. IBC tanks (Intermediate Bulk Containers) are plastic tanks housed in a steel cage, and are often used for delivery of liquids, and are frequently recyclable. Incredibly these things are on ebay second hand and "cleaned" for about £60 pounds (excluding delivery) - as long as they only contained foodstuffs! Much, much cheaper and stronger than the equivalent water tanks and water butts. This makes you consider storage at the side of your house, perhaps in a side alleyway that is not seen from the garden or frontage of the home.
The modular tank approach is a great one, as you can build capacity fairly easily, adding more tanks and connecting them together as you can afford more, if you have the space.
You then start to realize that there are issues using this approach that many people in these videos don't consider - algae growth on the opaque/translucent tanks, which you realise can be countered by using a black tank above ground or burying it to avoid sunlight. As for underground usage of IBC tanks - a great idea if space is tight - but there is the issue of collapse of tanks underground if empty after the cage rusts away, then the big one - frost damage to exposed pipework during cold spells, or even from groundwater surrounding the tank. You suddenly realise those videos you watched were in American gardens near Mexico or in Australia - the British winter would kill your water storage system during one cold night. You then contemplate insulating it and building an entire building around the tanks to keep them warm. Those tanks now don't look quite so attractive cost wise... even if you can make the container look like a shiplapped shed to blend into the garden design.
Another idea is to build it under decking - or use it cleverly as a design feature in your garden, which is another way if you could do with a raised decking area.
This leads to more pondering - should I build it in a tower you wonder, so you research how high IBC tanks can be stacked when full... 3 apparently, but at a tonne per tank do you really want to risk one falling on you if the bottom tank becomes empty first due to poor pipework? Or should you just put them back on the ground and use a lot of groundspace... arrghh....then there is the consideration of the weight of the tanks on the supporting ground - can it take the weight.
You then start to think about "heads of pressure", just as your own is realizing how such a simple idea can suddenly get so complicated. For a while the IBC approach stacked 2 high looks good - then you realise your shower head will be above that height wise, so a pump is required - then if you need a pump you don't need to stack them!
There are other commercial examples of modular rainwater stores, which are more "coffin shaped", such as the rainwater hog tank. The downside of course is that these are £200 per tank, so although they are perfect if you can't use IBC tanks due to volmetric limitations in your garden - they might be costly, I'd only recommend using these if you have a side passage where you can mount them vertically or low decking and you have absolutely no other alternatives.
Ferrocrete tanks really are the most cost effective to build (per litre) and are even suitable for a biogas processing plant... but that is another blog entry for another day on a different subject!
Of course this is wonderful if you live overseas in America or Australia, where groundspace is not an issue, I even saw an example of where someone made a ferrocrete tank look like a boulder!
But even on my generously sized plot, I don't really want to have a massive above ground tank - of course this could be built underground, but then you have the issues of making it load bearing for people to stand on.
At this point I suddenly realized that I found myself going back to my original ideas for building an extension with an underground water tank incorporated into the foundation slab. This is an idea I had a year ago when contemplating having a fresh water swimming pool as the overflow to such a system.
A recent project I've worked on reminded me of how easy fibreglassing is, which helped to confirm this as an approach in my mind - this coupled with yesterday's examination of my partner's blockwork based garden pond made me quickly get out Sketchup, and confirm the plan in terms of calculation of volume, a wider shallower tank would be a damned sight easier to build.
Sketchup allows you to draw a rectangle and it gives you a quick visual readout of an idea of size and area, then its just a matter of multiplying by height for volume. Its now looking that perhaps an underground fibreglass water storage tank under the extension would be the perfect option - it would also save space too - no dedicated land used soley for water storage, it could be integrated into the design of the building.
So... a half metre high crawlspace (which the older part of my home already has) if used for water storage would cover the area the size of an 10 metre extension projecting 4 metres would yield 20 cubic metres of water storage, which equates to far more storage than 4 or 6 IBC tanks, and it would be very easy to keep warm and insulated. It would be a damn site more useful than the crawlspace in my main building, which seems to be only useful for mice 2 years ago during a cold winter! Of course it would need to be "sealed" above its lid (which would be the floor) - but this is reasonably easy to do these days with modern building methods and arotec foil on the inside , a hatchway somewhere for access for cleaning every 10 years and maintaining the pump. The last consideration of course is an overflow pipe.
This method of water storage is much cheaper than any solution, uses less space, easily integrated into a real usable building and would be easy to build an airtight insulated flooring over the top. (I saw something similar in Spain once under a garage on a property development ten years ago...)
There are also ideas to be pondered with regard to it being used as a "thermal store", but thats another subject for another day.
Funny how your ideas take you full circle.
Pretty amazing to think that I had this idea 6 months ago, last time I thought about it all - This as I told my partner, is part of the process - rationalising a technology and the circular logic usually proves an idea is sound and the best most efficient result if you find yourself unable to dismiss it, or it re-presents itself as the best option.
Using the water - connecting it all up
So now the water storage method is considered, you need to think about some other aspects, such as getting the water into the house and using it.
If you have a massive garden and plan on growing your own food, you might not even want to do any internal plumbing - it could be used just for your garden - or why not do both, one at the end of your garden as an overflow from your household tank?
Water Pressure & flow rates
There are of course other technical details to be researched, such as how you arrange the pumping of the water from storage into your household pipework, e.g. the changeover from your own water storage to the mains when (and if) it runs out - and the various bylaws involved in keeping mains water separated from stored water to prevent contamination. A ball cock or solenoid valve (acting as a water supply switch) is needed - perhaps with a servo control so it "latches" in each position, then a float switch sensor on the rainwater tank to control it, so when the tank's amount of rain is low, the servo activates and the house runs on mains water. Sounds complicated, but it is pretty cheap to do, solenoid valves seem to be somewhere in the order of £15 - all you'd need is a small transformer to power it and its switch plugged into the mains. The bugbear is that most solenoid water valves generally are irrigation valves - which involves purchasing from overseas - as nobody does irrigation in the uk - from what I've seen on ebay some seem to have 25mm pipework fittings which results in the usual headscratching about thread standards between metric and imperial.
So are there any other "cost benefits"?
Another side benefit to installing Rainwater Harvesting equipment in the UK aside from reducing your metered water usage of course, is some hidden financial encouragement in the form of a "S.U.D.S." allowance. I found after doing a few searches that you can bargain with your water company for a reduction in surface drainage calculations, which happens if you incur sewage charges per cubic meter of metered water - should also go down as you are deemed to not be requiring as much public drainage for the water coming off your roof. This is called "SUDS" (Sustainable Urban Drainage System). Here's a link showing that you can reduce your water bill by £36 if you are an Anglian Water customer. In terms of the urban infrastructure benefits for SUDS and its wider impact on communities - You can read more about a study on this made by Sheffield university here. SUDS of course this doesn't apply to my situation, but will happen for my partner's house if the same system is used there.
So In Conclusion...
After all this research, pondering and procrastination - I'm pretty convinced on the best approach now. The only barrier now is to do some research on water supply pumps to "pressurize" the rainwater into my system when a tap is opened - which is what happens in a caravan's water supply - This is the only downside - some extra electrical power will be required for this to make pressure for the shower, taps etc to work - remember the tank is below the height of all the appliances using the underground tank methodology.
So all in all well worth the research certainly - I aim to build this sometime next spring... watch this space...
Such a simple point... but yet we all do this every day, and never question it. If you meet anyone from South East Asia - they are horrified by the wastefulness of it - why? This is simply because in their countries water is a precious commodity and they have devised a more sensible way of using it appropriately.
In our case, water used to be cheap like other resources, so we have always used it for everything - and never questioned the logic of flushing the loo with potable water, but since the great recession of 2008, nothing is immune to a inflation busting ever increasing squeeze on our pockets which starts to make using a renewable technology to lower the costs highly attractive.
So I spent some of yesterday going back over the lovely eco-subject of Rainwater Harvesting, something that is very low on the eco-agenda for most people - as cost wise water bills normally doesn't factor into the horrific financial burdens of mortgages and energy bills.
Today was more about the practicalities of and the rationale of actually building the storage part of it - for me, living in a remote location in the driest part of the UK, modifying my house to use Rainwater Harvesting as a technlogoy is a "no brainer", as I have a private metered water supply that currently costs me £300 a year. And while the new water supply is brilliant - with a better pressure and obvious quality - after a year its proving to be rather costly, and with the fitting of a new hot water cylinder soon, my usage is going to go up, so a more cost effective solution is in order.
I'm sold on the idea and benefits, got an idea of where to mount the tanks but some common sense consideration needs to be applied to the setup and installation costs, even if you do most of the work yourself.
Like most renewable technology, investment is required, and unlike many other technologies, the return for me would be pretty quick, the R.O.I. (Return On Investment) would probably be less than a year, so in the year I've been thinking about doing it I could have spent the cash and saved it already for the coming year. In reality it might take two years in all to get done, but you get the idea of the savings involved.
This is always the barrier with renewables. You sit around pondering if its "worth" doing in financial terms, and effort, finally you do it, and afterwards you realize it could have been done years ago. Solar panels were a bit like this for me, I pondered for ages, then took the plunge and blimey did I see a difference in my electricity bills and bank account afterwards (ignoring the spend on the installation of course!)
My neighbour's rather drastic solution to our water supply issues (the entire community of Lee-Over-Sands had a threat of disconnection a few years ago which we dealt with by agreeing to metered payments) was to dig a well, which took him about 6 weeks, and it still wasn't drinkable, or at least he didn't want to take the risk after having the water tested! I've always been unhappy with the idea of drinking groundwater in an arable area, which ours is, mainly because pesticides and various other farming nasties must work their way downward into the groundwater - although Andy assures me most of the water seeps through from the hills in an underground aquifer During that process and discussing with him the costs of filtering water to drinking water standards etc, I said the best solution would be for him to just use the groundwater for everything around the home, toilet flushing, baths, showers, heating, hot water etc. A single tap in the kitchen is all you really need for cooking and drinking water. He eventually realized my common sense approach made sense, financially of course that "metered" amount from the kitchen tap in terms of usage is very low, compared to the amount used from the well for baths and flushing toilets and costs him and his family very little, coupled with a lot of peace of mind over healthy drinking water. For those of you considering having a well dug for you, you're looking at a couple of thousand pounds. So rainwater recycling is an attractive option - with minimal fuss - perhaps a little spend on improving your guttering to go into it, but the joy of this technology is that it requires nothing "out of the norm" in terms of normal work to the house itself.
Over the last few years I've pondered our use of water in this country as pretty daft, I'm sure people in other countries are horrified that we flush our toilets with drinking water.
Here's the big issue, like most things in our western lives, its all about convenience, keeping down infrastructure costs, and of course making money for big corporates and their shareholders.
In the old days of a nationalized water board, profits were non existent, and utilities such as water supplies were affordable. And then after World War II came de-nationalization, however appealing to the populace at the time proved to be a costly mistake. What are we left with now? Water companies increasing prices beyond inflation, just as the energy companies are doing - this of course is mainly to keep their stock market investors happy, who still expect double figure financial returns on profits irrespective of the state of the rest of their customer's financial situations.
And so the bills increase, that's what you can do with a localized utility monopoly!
So here's yet another example of a renewable concept - something that is essentially an "eco-friendly" move, but one which can actually save you a lot of money in the long term: Rainwater recycling.
While I admire my neighbours tenacity and engineering skills in digging his narrow bore well, I think rainwater is a better solution. In my case, I own a bungalow with a massive flat roof - an enormous surface area perfectly suited for collecting rain.
Of course there are the usual issues, pigeon feces, moss, dirt etc getting into it, but thats the brilliance of having a standard water supply, you just use the rainwater for washing and flushing toilets - so the filtration process is vastly simplified. It helps too not having a metal roof which presumably would further contaminate the water, which might not be a good idea for bathing.
One of the main issues with this technology is where you actually put the water. As we all know the UK's weather is unpredicatable, yet we do have cyclical periods of having too much rain and too little - so water storage is key. And this is where the complex calculations become a reality. Thankfully there are a lot of online resources to help you calculate this. I would say though that one of the benefits to a modular system using smaller tanks is that you can easily add more capacity at a later date if yours become full and you empty them regularly through day to day usage.
To work all this out, You first need to calculate your roof size, how much you use per day, week and month, and even yearly etc (which is fairly easy with a water meter), then go online and look at the rainfall figures from the met office based on your location, consider the units being used (e.g. litres) then use an online calculator to work out the avergage figures you can gather for each month. Then factor in your usage per month. From this you should be able to work out a monthly surplus of water for each month. After that consider a cyclical approach (e.g. March's surplus water adds to Aprils) and so on, you can start to get an idea of the amount of storage capacity you need in cubic metres based on rainfall to cover you for the driest periods (e.g. spring / summer).
So if you have a big roof (this can even be on sheds or outbuildings if you can run a pipe betweeen them) there is a lot of collection potential - but similar to any energy resource it then has to occupy space on your property.
This is your next problem to conceptualize Where are you going to store 20 cubic meters of water (in my case). You might then look at commercial rainwater harvesting systems, essentially a 3000-8000 litre plastic underground tank and pump. Such off-the shelf kit runs to about £2500-£5000 plus installation costs - great for those cash rich, but for most of us, this is a big investment, and when you compare this to your yearly bill, as soon as R.O.I goes beyond 10 years, most homeowners eyes glaze over and it never gets done, whatever the good green intentions!
Modular Tanks
So then you look at YouTube, and discover the IBC water tank approach. IBC tanks (Intermediate Bulk Containers) are plastic tanks housed in a steel cage, and are often used for delivery of liquids, and are frequently recyclable. Incredibly these things are on ebay second hand and "cleaned" for about £60 pounds (excluding delivery) - as long as they only contained foodstuffs! Much, much cheaper and stronger than the equivalent water tanks and water butts. This makes you consider storage at the side of your house, perhaps in a side alleyway that is not seen from the garden or frontage of the home.
The modular tank approach is a great one, as you can build capacity fairly easily, adding more tanks and connecting them together as you can afford more, if you have the space.
You then start to realize that there are issues using this approach that many people in these videos don't consider - algae growth on the opaque/translucent tanks, which you realise can be countered by using a black tank above ground or burying it to avoid sunlight. As for underground usage of IBC tanks - a great idea if space is tight - but there is the issue of collapse of tanks underground if empty after the cage rusts away, then the big one - frost damage to exposed pipework during cold spells, or even from groundwater surrounding the tank. You suddenly realise those videos you watched were in American gardens near Mexico or in Australia - the British winter would kill your water storage system during one cold night. You then contemplate insulating it and building an entire building around the tanks to keep them warm. Those tanks now don't look quite so attractive cost wise... even if you can make the container look like a shiplapped shed to blend into the garden design.Another idea is to build it under decking - or use it cleverly as a design feature in your garden, which is another way if you could do with a raised decking area.
This leads to more pondering - should I build it in a tower you wonder, so you research how high IBC tanks can be stacked when full... 3 apparently, but at a tonne per tank do you really want to risk one falling on you if the bottom tank becomes empty first due to poor pipework? Or should you just put them back on the ground and use a lot of groundspace... arrghh....then there is the consideration of the weight of the tanks on the supporting ground - can it take the weight.
You then start to think about "heads of pressure", just as your own is realizing how such a simple idea can suddenly get so complicated. For a while the IBC approach stacked 2 high looks good - then you realise your shower head will be above that height wise, so a pump is required - then if you need a pump you don't need to stack them!
At this point I stated to move away from the modular tank approach.
Large Tanks
For me, storage of a lot of water for a lower cost makes more sense - less pipework to worry about interconnecting them, less issues with insulation etc, Then you look for cheaper ways of building big water tanks, which includes the amazing low cost solution to building water tanks, something new I discovered today - the "ferrocrete tank" - essentially a tank made from A142 road mesh reinforcing bars and chicken wire covered in cement.
Ferrocrete tanks really are the most cost effective to build (per litre) and are even suitable for a biogas processing plant... but that is another blog entry for another day on a different subject!
Of course this is wonderful if you live overseas in America or Australia, where groundspace is not an issue, I even saw an example of where someone made a ferrocrete tank look like a boulder!
But even on my generously sized plot, I don't really want to have a massive above ground tank - of course this could be built underground, but then you have the issues of making it load bearing for people to stand on.
 |
| A large koi carp pond under construction using blockwork and fibreglass |
A recent project I've worked on reminded me of how easy fibreglassing is, which helped to confirm this as an approach in my mind - this coupled with yesterday's examination of my partner's blockwork based garden pond made me quickly get out Sketchup, and confirm the plan in terms of calculation of volume, a wider shallower tank would be a damned sight easier to build.
Sketchup allows you to draw a rectangle and it gives you a quick visual readout of an idea of size and area, then its just a matter of multiplying by height for volume. Its now looking that perhaps an underground fibreglass water storage tank under the extension would be the perfect option - it would also save space too - no dedicated land used soley for water storage, it could be integrated into the design of the building.
 |
| Sketchup is great for quick visualizations of size, volume and scale, although it doesn't actually calculate volume, only area - but you can do the rest if you paid attention during basic maths. |
This method of water storage is much cheaper than any solution, uses less space, easily integrated into a real usable building and would be easy to build an airtight insulated flooring over the top. (I saw something similar in Spain once under a garage on a property development ten years ago...)
There are also ideas to be pondered with regard to it being used as a "thermal store", but thats another subject for another day.
Funny how your ideas take you full circle.
Pretty amazing to think that I had this idea 6 months ago, last time I thought about it all - This as I told my partner, is part of the process - rationalising a technology and the circular logic usually proves an idea is sound and the best most efficient result if you find yourself unable to dismiss it, or it re-presents itself as the best option.
Using the water - connecting it all up
So now the water storage method is considered, you need to think about some other aspects, such as getting the water into the house and using it.
If you have a massive garden and plan on growing your own food, you might not even want to do any internal plumbing - it could be used just for your garden - or why not do both, one at the end of your garden as an overflow from your household tank?
Water Pressure & flow rates
There are of course other technical details to be researched, such as how you arrange the pumping of the water from storage into your household pipework, e.g. the changeover from your own water storage to the mains when (and if) it runs out - and the various bylaws involved in keeping mains water separated from stored water to prevent contamination. A ball cock or solenoid valve (acting as a water supply switch) is needed - perhaps with a servo control so it "latches" in each position, then a float switch sensor on the rainwater tank to control it, so when the tank's amount of rain is low, the servo activates and the house runs on mains water. Sounds complicated, but it is pretty cheap to do, solenoid valves seem to be somewhere in the order of £15 - all you'd need is a small transformer to power it and its switch plugged into the mains. The bugbear is that most solenoid water valves generally are irrigation valves - which involves purchasing from overseas - as nobody does irrigation in the uk - from what I've seen on ebay some seem to have 25mm pipework fittings which results in the usual headscratching about thread standards between metric and imperial.
So are there any other "cost benefits"?
Another side benefit to installing Rainwater Harvesting equipment in the UK aside from reducing your metered water usage of course, is some hidden financial encouragement in the form of a "S.U.D.S." allowance. I found after doing a few searches that you can bargain with your water company for a reduction in surface drainage calculations, which happens if you incur sewage charges per cubic meter of metered water - should also go down as you are deemed to not be requiring as much public drainage for the water coming off your roof. This is called "SUDS" (Sustainable Urban Drainage System). Here's a link showing that you can reduce your water bill by £36 if you are an Anglian Water customer. In terms of the urban infrastructure benefits for SUDS and its wider impact on communities - You can read more about a study on this made by Sheffield university here. SUDS of course this doesn't apply to my situation, but will happen for my partner's house if the same system is used there.
So In Conclusion...
After all this research, pondering and procrastination - I'm pretty convinced on the best approach now. The only barrier now is to do some research on water supply pumps to "pressurize" the rainwater into my system when a tap is opened - which is what happens in a caravan's water supply - This is the only downside - some extra electrical power will be required for this to make pressure for the shower, taps etc to work - remember the tank is below the height of all the appliances using the underground tank methodology.
So all in all well worth the research certainly - I aim to build this sometime next spring... watch this space...
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