Liz & Matt’s Home Extension Blog

a journal by Liz & Matt Coates



Rainwater Tank

by Liz & Matt Coates Apr.01.2007 11:12:46 pm


The tank arrived as expected on Tuesday and sat on the drive until the digger appeared on Thursday.  The weather had fortunately been relatively dry for a few weeks so that the ground was not too wet, but it proceeded to drizzle all day on Thursday while the work was going on.  Apparently this is what usually happens when they have the digger on site and it didn’t seem to be a problem.

By lunch time the channels for the pipework and the hole for the tank were all excavated and several lorry loads of soil and clay had been removed.  A bed of sand went in first, followed by the tank itself, which then had to be filled with water from the mains to prevent it from floating to the surface before filling the rest of the hole with sand.

3300 litre rainwater tankYes.  It’s a fridge door (to keep the sand out)
Useful things, diggersRainwater inflow connectedAccess cover fitted (showing eventual ground level)

By the end of the day, all of the rainwater drains had been laid and routed into the tank and a new soakaway had been created to take the overflow from the tank.  They came back briefly on Friday to add some more sand, so that the tank is now covered over up to the level of the service duct which takes the rainwater return pipe and wiring for the pump.  They should be back to put these in place sometime this week.

Also on Thursday the electrician came and installed the rainwater system control box under the sink in the utility room.  Ours is one of the simpler systems, so this just consists of a pressure gauge, a switch to control the pump (which lives in the tank) and a valve to top up the tank from the mains if the water level gets too low.  The plumbing to connect this to the tank and to the rest of the house is still to be done.

rainwater control unitEmma’s nearly-bedroom-floor

I’ve spent this weekend putting down the laminate floor in Emma’s bedroom, but only managed to get 2/3 of it done.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get this finished during the week.

Oh yes!  Nearly forgot.  I finally got to speak to the engineer from Huppe (the shower door company) during the week and he now seems almost completely convinced that the problem is a manufacturing fault and not an installation error.  However, the only option he can offer is for him to come out and inspect it before finally making a decision.  If he does agree that it is a fault, then he will have to order a whole new door and frame and then come back to remove the old one and put in the new.  Providing a replacement for the one faulty part is apparently not an option.  Since I can fix the problem myself in 20 minutes with a fairly simple (if unauthorised) modification, I may well decide to just do this.  Anything for a quiet life.

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