Early indications are that Adelaide and South Australia should experience average or better, winter rains. However water experts are advising that we need a metre of rain in the Murray Darling catchment to return the river to an average storage capacity and that this is unlikely. As a result the State Government announced on 17 June temporary resrictions on water use outside the home for July and possibly August.

Water restrictions remain a key element in the Government’s Waterproofing Adelaide Strategy. Options including an upgrade to Mount Bold, desalination and the river weir are being
considered.

This will make water saving initiatives for home owners more important for those who want to retain their gardens and maintain a reasonable moisture content in the soil around their homes to minimise cracking.

Demand for rainwater tanks and installation by plumbers will only increase. Indeed this is evident in the increase in calls to the PIA by plumbers unfamiliar with the regulations who have been asked to install a rainwater tank by a customer. These plumbers would benefit by enrolling in an Eco-smart plumber course and in the meantime can find out much of the information on our website
www.eco-smartplumber.com.au

If we have a good winter and given that water restrictions will be in place over summer again, the sooner home owners install a rainwater tank the more benefit they will receive from the current rain. This raises the other problem that of supply.
Manufacturers are responding but there are unfortunately considerable delays in supply from many manufacturers. The next problem home owners are experiencing is finding a
plumber to carry out the work. One member of the public rang the Eco-smart plumber number in late May as a result of being unable to find a plumber prepared to plumb his new tank into his house. We’re pleased to say that an Eco-smart plumber has now done the work.

The feedback from plumbers about what homeowners are installing is interesting. Few believe it is worthwhile installing anything smaller than 2000 litres and are installing 2000 or 3000 litre tanks. There are a significant number of home owners installing 20 30,000 litres storage capacity.

Christine and David Siddall at Gawler have installed two tanks with a storage capacity of 26,000 litres with first flush diversion and mosquito barriers as required under the legislation and are piping it into the whole house. Rice Plumbing Pty Ltd has installed a dual cartridge filtration system to remove solids and chlorine, when on mains water, from the water used in their kitchen.

Christine and David still have another 25% of the property’s roof area from which they can opt to collect the water from in the future if required. Their objective at present is to eliminate their excess water bill.

They are also on a septic tank and plan in the future to upgrade the system so that they can use the water more effectively to maintain the garden. Like many early adopters of sustainable plumbing solutions Christine and David are not prepared to wait and hope but are acting now to have some control over their water supply and to insulate themselves from radical increases in the price of water that they believe will occur.