Do you have a backup water system?

Do you have a backup water system?

  • Yes

    Votes: 153 46.1%

  • No

    Votes: 95 28.6%

  • No, but looking into it

    Votes: 73 22.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 11 3.3%
  • Total voters
    332
soulie said:
ok and when you sit with no water for days on end ,dont you think a 260 lt tank will help you ?
Click to expand...
Have a little faith...
Burning-South-Africa-flag-600x400.jpg
 
soulie said:
ok and when you sit with no water for days on end
Click to expand...
I'll use the rain water I harvest in a Jojo tank and the 300 odd litres of drinking water stored in the garage. I'll be ok.

Reminds me I need to top up the fuel storage for the generator.
 
pinball wizard said:
I'll use the rain water I harvest in a Jojo tank and the 300 odd litres of drinking water stored in the garage. I'll be ok.

Reminds me I need to top up the fuel storage for the generator.
Click to expand...
Why would you need this if you have 100% faith in the government, rely on eskom, and rand water.

That's apparently all a man needs.
 
Borehole filling 2 x 5250l jojo tanks, pump with filter system (5mic, carbon, 1mic, siliphos) into the house for everything. Solar system for whole house. Fire pool if required. Need to start looking at septic tank system by the sounds of it.
 
Installed this last year and it's been one of the best things I've done.

Ours feeds the main house from municipal supply so the tank water is constantly being replenished. It was installed with a manual changeover to bypass the tank (for loadshedding) but I automated this using electronic solenoids and an ESP32 for home assistant and installed a submersible tank pressure sensor to measure volume.

Here's a breakdown of what the tank cost (excluding the electronic solenoids/pressure sensor):

Screenshot 2023-05-24 122027.JPG

Manual Changeover:
Screenshot 2023-05-24 123044.JPG

Electronic Solenoids:
Screenshot 2023-05-24 123453.JPG

Tank with pressure sensor:
Screenshot 2023-05-24 123126.JPG

Home Assistant:
59a40c01-b5f2-4968-9153-84484c7b2fc8.JPG

The installation of a manual system is dead simple to do.
 
Is the extreme filtering of rainwater really necessary if you are not drinking it? I wait for winter to wash the worst of the gunk off and then plumb it into the house with only a 5 micron inline filter. Are you saying more is needed?
 
Add .75KW allowance to inverter spec for water pump.

Added a 5KL jojo to family property on South Coast in Dec because the municipal water there goes out for months at a time. It harvests rain water with basic gutter filtration and is plumbed in and topped up by muni supply when working. The pump is 750W which I believe is quite standard for a single storey setup.
 
Last edited:
I live in a complex and am looking at installing a 5000L tank. I want water to run through tank to house, so water is constantly cycled. No rainwater collection. I only want it as a backup, as our "naughty corner" of Moreletapark have constant water and electricity outages. Tank will be installed after solar. Any advice appreciated. I have 10 thumbs, so will be having it installed - any advice regarding installers also appreciated
 
I installed my 2X2500l Jojo tanks and pressure pump more than 10 years ago after my wife started nagging for a backup system when the municipality had water shedding a few times. The pump is plumbed in to the house piping, only need to switch on the pump if municipal water goes offline.
 
MartinGB said:
Many experts have warned that the next major crisis in South Africa will be the supply and availability of clean water. Do you have a backup water system to mitigate this?
Click to expand...
We're at the KZN South Coast. We've had municipal water for maybe 3 days in the past 6 months (if that) and so far things are only looking to get worse. Everyone subsists on tanker truck water (which costs around R350/kL on average).

I installed a 5,000L rainwater harvesting tank last November and we haven't used a drop of metered water since. I did the work myself (for an IT guy turned brewer I'm not a bad plumber at all, not to mention one heck of pool boy) and I broke even on the investment months ago.

Since the rainwater quality at the coast is excellent we're even drinking it. I've got leaf traps and a first flush diverter to get rid of most of the contaminants, and I'm chlorinating the water in the tank with Calcium Hypochlorite. (No, NOT pool grade HTH!) I run the water through a 3 stage filter (one 5um sediment filter, one GAC filter and one carbon block filter) and it's excellent.

If you are located in a different area (closer to industry, power stations and/or major traffic) I would not recommend drinking it, though. The risk of toxic pollutants in the water is just too high. Here at the coast, though, we're lucky. (Not that tap water, when it was still available regularly, was safe to drink, either!)

Chlorination remains the biggest pain, though. After the rain I've got to put the step ladder next to the tank and drop in more hypochlorite, but over the next few weeks the amount of available chlorine gradually drops. I'm looking into an in-line chlorinator but that requires an additional contact tank which I haven't installed yet.

I'll install a second 5kL tank first, though, so as to make sure we're never caught short during the dry season. It's a no-brainer, really.
 
Academic said:
Is the extreme filtering of rainwater really necessary if you are not drinking it? I wait for winter to wash the worst of the gunk off and then plumb it into the house with only a 5 micron inline filter. Are you saying more is needed?
Click to expand...
Also what I'm trying to ascertain.
 
Solar powered filtered borehole water, haven't paid joburg water for the past few years and the filtered borehole water is cleaner than what joburg water provides.

Dylan_G said:
What "level of filtration" do these devices provide?

Like, can you hook one of these up to the pump from the rainwater Jojo tank and supply:

Kitchen tap (washing dishes, etc)
Washing machine
Geyser
Drinking water

Right now I feel like they are underutilizing the Jojo... and in the event of a water shortage/supply issues, they'd just have a cache of rainwater which only does so much.
Click to expand...

You should do a water test to determine what needs to be filtered out.
 
Last edited:
Our backup is the municipality but our main supply is borehole water that is tested frequently and is clean as can be.
 
I have a borehole that I've tested - it is perfectly safe to drink. Just very hard, so I need an ion exchange before I can hook it into my geyser.

But I probably need to lay down a slab, put up a jojo and put in a variable power pump so that I can more easily hook it up to my solar system - don't want to run the borehole every time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X