Rainwater harvesting and reuse
Rainwater harvesting helps a project when catchment, storage and end uses add up. We help you decide what the tank is for, where it sits, and which uses it can honestly serve, before landscape and services freeze.
Send us your drawings and the end uses you want the tank to serve. We'll confirm the scope and the fee.
This page is part of Water Design.
Send the drawings, roof material and area if known, project address, occupancy, irrigation, and a list of each proposed end use.
This service covers yield, end-use selection and siting. Detailed pipework, pumps and treatment design stay with the hydraulic consultant, and with a water-treatment specialist if drinking or food-preparation use is proposed. We coordinate that work; we do not replace it. A Blue Factor tank entry is a stormwater-assessment input, not a completed rainwater design.
Rainwater use is fit-for-purpose. Public-health sources in Australia do not support a blanket statement that potable rainwater reuse is illegal, and they also do not say it is straightforward in every building.
The Victorian Department of Health notes that roof-collected rainwater can be used for many purposes at homes and at commercial and community facilities, and that a well-maintained system helps protect quality. For multi-residential, commercial and community facilities where rainwater is used for purposes other than drinking and food preparation, Victoria points to a separate urban-communities guideline.
NSW Health notes that a well-maintained tank can provide safe drinking water, and recommends that people in urban areas use the public water supply for drinking and cooking. Businesses that serve rainwater in food or drinks to the public have extra quality-assurance duties.
The usual design-development starting point is non-potable reuse: toilets, laundry cold water, irrigation and some process uses. Potable reuse, especially in multi-residential or public buildings, brings extra health, plumbing and sometimes water-authority requirements. Local council, water authority, building surveyor and licensed plumbing practitioner roles vary by state and by end use. We do not assume that every council accepts rainwater to toilets.
Volume and location are architectural decisions. An ESD report that assumes a tank without reserved space usually surfaces too late.
Connected demand matters as much as roof area. A tank sized to catchment but not to actual toilets, laundry or irrigation will not deliver the savings or the stormwater benefit claimed for it.
[Sound familiar]
Volume and location are architectural decisions. A tank without reserved space usually surfaces too late.
Connected demand matters as much as roof area. Sized to catchment but not to actual toilets, laundry or irrigation, it will not deliver the savings or the stormwater benefit claimed for it.
That is treated separately. Drinking and food-preparation uses bring extra health, plumbing and sometimes water-authority requirements.
Send the catchment and the intended uses.
We match yield to demand, treating drinking or food-preparation uses separately.
You receive a memo, siting options and an issues list for detailed design. Timeframes are confirmed at quote.
Public-health sources in Australia do not support a blanket statement that potable rainwater reuse is illegal, and they also do not say it is straightforward in every building. Potable reuse brings extra health, plumbing and sometimes water-authority requirements.
Non-potable reuse: toilets, laundry cold water, irrigation and some process uses.
We do not assume that every council does. Council, water authority, building surveyor and licensed plumbing practitioner roles vary by state and by end use.
No. Detailed pipework, pumps and treatment design stay with the hydraulic consultant, and with a water-treatment specialist if drinking or food-preparation use is proposed.
No. It is a stormwater-assessment input, not a completed rainwater design.
Send us your drawings, the project address, and the end uses you want the tank to serve.
