Water Crisis!!

[Iain]

What storm drain?
It just runs across the paddock and into a trench carved out along the boundary, called a swale I think, and it's my job to dig out the weeds and allow drainage.
You don't (or didn't) need a plumber unless you were connecting to mains water and a lot of mud brick builders did their own legal plumbing providing it was from a water tank.
This is my pet peeve with council telling me what I can and cannot do, bit like state gov with their business advisory service, a public servant telling me how to be a success,Ha.

[jackiew]

Where I live pretty much everyones garage gutters discharge straight out into the back laneway - which has a large metal grille set into the surface at the bottom of the slope to take the run-off. Just what you want on your motorbike in the dark - cobblestones, metal grille on the bend and a river heading down the slope towards you

I don't think its rocket science to stick one end of the drain pipe over the top of a water tank and connect the tank overflow to the bit of pipe that sticks out of the fence but obviously the powers that be disagree.

Even if I was connecting to an existing drain I don't really see how inserting a water-tank between an existing drain-pipe and an existing drain is going to cause any problems to anyone and I'd be interested to hear a justification for the legislation other than to generate jobs for the boys.

[simon c]

Even if I was connecting to an existing drain I don't really see how inserting a water-tank between an existing drain-pipe and an existing drain is going to cause any problems to anyone and I'd be interested to hear a justification for the legislation other than to generate jobs for the boys.

That's the rules of the country we live in. If you want to do anything to your house relating to plumbing, electricity, building etc it has to be approved or untaken by a licensed contractor. Most of us believe we know when we are out of our skill range and feel confident doing work even though we should use a professional but there are plenty of situations where that isn't the case. What would happen if you ended up flooding a neighbour's house because you diverted too much water into the overflow or connecting to the sewerage instead of storm water.

But getting back to your originial point, I was also quite disappointed too when I worked out that my rebate would just cover the cost of plumbing. Maybe they shouldn't call it a rebate in this circumstance - if they had said "buy a water tank and we'll pay $150 towards the cost of getting a licensed plumber to install it for you" then I think that would have been fair enough.

[jackiew]

What would happen if you ended up flooding a neighbour's house because you diverted too much water into the overflow or connecting to the sewerage instead of storm water.

agreed ... but if you cut an existing pipe and directed it into a tank and you direct the overflow into the other bit of the pipe and all the pipe dimensions are the same I fail to see how you can stuff up. If too much water goes into the overflow in a heavy rain shower then too much water would have gone into the overflow regardless of whether you had a tank in the system or not.

If I really want to flood my neighbours house I'll just put plenty of hard paving on my side of the fence and gently slope it into their garden.

As I've said in other discussions I do find it interesting the different approach to regulation of citizen's activities .... there's the "they're all thick" approach where information on how to do things the right way is closely held in the hands of the few and the ... well they're going to have a go and do it anyway so we'll make the information on how to do it the right way readily available to anyone who wants it approach.

I do begrudge paying for stuff which I feel is within my capability - especially when its a total lottery over whether they are actually going to be competent to do the work in the first place. Can't remember where I read it (don't think it was this forum) but I recently saw a suggestion that a kind of e-bay type reputation register be kept for tradespeople ( and for their customers ). That way we'd all be happier when employing people to do jobs for us ( and tradesmen would be able to avoid the customers who find it hard to put their hands in their wallets ).

I have actually had a quote(from a specialist company) on installing a tank under the house ( which would connect to the storm water drain) and additionally installing connections, pump etc for water from the tank to flush the toilet.

The quote for the tank installation was quite reasonable for the work involved. The quote for the connection to the toilet was a p**s off price ( about 4 times the going rate - maybe because information on tank prices is much more widely available than on the price of added extras). If the installer had come clean and said .... "look I can't be bothered with the toilet connection but I'm happy to do the tank installation" then I'd have a tank under the house now.... but I wasn't prepared to employ someone who was taking me for a mug.