| Mean Daily Max Temp (deg C) | |||||||||||
| Jan | Feb | March | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 27.3 | 27.3 | 23.9 | 18.6 | 13.9 | 10.7 | 9.6 | 11.3 | 14.4 | 17.8 | 21.6 | 25.1 |
| Mean Daily Min Temp (deg C) | |||||||||||
| Jan | Feb | March | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 13.4 | 13.8 | 11.4 | 7.9 | 5.3 | 3.4 | 2.7 | 3.4 | 5.0 | 7.1 | 9.3 | 11.6 |
| Mean Rainfall (mm) | |||||||||||
| Jan | Feb | March | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec |
| 48.3 | 48.7 | 60.2 | 67.0 | 92.4 | 110.7 | 108.8 | 106.1 | 92.2 | 91.3 | 66.2 | 59.3 |
The above table was taken from this site and I have recorded it to refer to while I am researching. This week I have been looking into water supply and am happy to see reasonable steady levels of average rainfall for the area. The other figures on the site were from 2006 so I am assuming the rainfall are too… I know they have had a few dry years of late so I am certainly taking it as a guide only.
The table below comes from this site & I have added his to give a snap shot of what one group says we use:
| Wastewater source | Total wastewater | Total grey water | ||
| % Total | Litres/day | % Total | Litres/day | |
| Toilet | 32 | 186 | – | – |
| Hand basin | 5 | 28 | 8 | 28 |
| Bath/shower | 33 | 193 | 54 | 193 |
| Kitchen | 7 | 44 | – | – |
| Laundry | 23 | 135 | 38 | 135 |
| Total | 100 | 586 | 100 | 356 |
Now, assuming we are putting in composting toilets – yes we’ll need two as we would like an ensuite and yes, this may seem excessive to those who believe that a sustainable house should be small but we want one, we’ve never had one & the whole house is only about 20 squares anyway -we’ll immediately save 186 litres a day or over 67,000 litres a year (obviously these figures vary from site to site).
If we continue to use Table II we can assume that our family will need 400L of water each day (i.e. 586-186 for toilet).
This site gives you an idea of what you may use on a daily basis & will calculate how large a tank you may need to store water. However, being very conservative (probably wasteful) I calculate from this site that a family of 4 COULD use up to 722L per day WITHOUT flushing toilets – that’s worked out on the basis that there will be 3 showers a day, 1 bath, 1 load of washing, 1 cycle of the dishwasher, 4 tooth brushings & the estimated 24hr cooking amount (note – this will be our water supply so I want to over estimate). Based on this site calculations & assuming it can be 2 months between rain, we’d need to have a tank with a 46,000L capacity. If we go by Table II we need a tank of 32,000L capacity.
These guys sell tanks with a 46,000L capacity so I have emailed them for some prices – i think we’d end up getting 2 of these tanks so there is plenty of reserve. On top of tanks for the household we will need water for fire fighting & we are going to need pumps. So much to think about & that’s not including where to place all the tanks! There are lots of places to buy tanks so I think we’ll just go into a few and ask what they recommend!
Sticks and Stones 
27 November , 2008 at 2:10 pm
Bec, our housewater tank (all bathroom & kitchen) is 20,000 gallons. Not sure what that is in litres. It was built on site from concrete. The fire hose inlet is put at a certain spot on the tank to guarantee a minimum supply.
We also have a 10,000 litre plastic tank along the driveway presently supplied with water from FIL’s dam, but soon to come from our new bore. This tank, and another reclaimed metal tank are kept full, and gravity feed our yard hoses (x3) and our petrol fire pump which is in a little shed of it’s own about 5 metres from the back door. This then is manually connected if necessary to the rooftop sprinklers Andrew made last year.
The household concrete tank was full when we moved in, and the lowest it’s been, through 3 drought years, is half full.
We have one toilet, one shower, one washing machine, one dishwasher, double kitchen sink. We don’t flush the loo for every wee, unless we’ve been eating asparagus when even I make allowances! There’s an average of 2 wash loads per day in an Asko front loader. There’s always one full dishwasher load in an Asko also – they use the least water of all….at least they did when we bought them five years ago.
We have a homemade grey water system fed by the bath and shower only. We only use very basic soap and cleaning products in these. Occasionally some bleach. When I use the bleach, we have a ballvalve that diverts this water back to the septic.
We didn’t go with a bioseptic system when we built, unnecessarily wary as it turns out, of tricky sole servicing contracts. Wish we had.
We have a solar booster for our electric hot water system. It only works effectively from late Spring to early Autumn.
Umm…this is all a bit random isn’t it?
Lisa x
30 November , 2008 at 8:22 pm
Now isn’t the governmetn pushing the 155/person/day thing
The 4 of us use under 600 litres a day and that include watering the veg garden ( the lawn etc gets shower water,
the odd spa, daily showers for people not great with 3 minute showers, daily dishwasher, about 10 loads a week in the lop loading washing machine, lots of cooking and cleaning and of course flushing toilets.
28 January , 2009 at 6:55 pm
On Christmas Day I think it was I thought the valleys on the drive up to Beechworth looked nice and green.