ronb wroteI read all the above with interest. Like others, I was brought up in rural Australia depending on rain-water. We only had three 1,000 gallon tanks - about 14,000 litres - but I am sure our daily use was less than 200 litre a day. Rain water is quite clean, does not need any special filtering or sterilisation as there is nothing there to be killed. If dust and stuff washes in, it then settles to a sludge at the bottom, and the tank needs cleaning maybe once in 5-10 years.
If you want to be independent of town or well water, then the challenge is to store enough for the dry season. If you had a concrete storage tank that was say 3 x 3 x 2 metre giving a 18,000 litre capacity, and if you use the 200 litre usage per day figure then it can last 90 days between heavy rainfalls. Probably OK for an average dry season, but would be a bit short for a real El Nino year in North Bali.
I know one person who has a storage under the house - she says in earth tremors you feel the sloshing.
Anyhow, I think a few 1,000 litre tanks will not be enough.
Hi all. First post here, enjoying all the info and insight. Like Ron, I also grew up in rural Australia with rainwater tanks.
We had a 10,000 gallon concrete in-ground water tank at a house we built around ten years ago. We went through a solid 12 month drought several years ago and didn't run out of water even though it was our only water source.
We had the "first flush" system, and the outlet was around 250mm up from the base which prevented contaminates that settle in the tank from entering the pipes.
Water quality was brilliant!
We're currently building here in Bali.
Just completed a bore down to 62m at a cost of 10.8 juta, and the water is beautiful. Certainly good for everything but drinking.
My 2 cents is, go deep with a bore, and install a smaller rainwater tank which feeds to the kitchen for cooking and drinking.
Regarding the black polypipe solar hot water idea, I discovered this exact system at a temporary caravan I was living in whilst building, really only because I was too busy to bury the 100m long pipe! The water was so hot that we had to wait until an hour after the sun went down before we could use the water for bathing.
