Tanks and HSTP installation

We were due to have our water tank and HSTP installed this Friday 25th Sept. Because we live on acreage and don't have full pressure town water we need special tanks to cope with this. The water tank is 31,500 litres and is what they call a trickle feed town water system. This means that the only place in the house with full pressure town water is the kitchen sink. The rest of the taps are run off the tank water and topped up overnight by the trickle feed. The HSTP (home sewerage treatment plant) treats all of our waste and sprays the effluent on our land which is a good way of watering our plants.

Anyhoo.....on Thursday J received a call telling him that if they hit rock it was going to cost us $190 per hour to use a rock breaker. Almost all of the blocks in the street have hit rock. The guy next door to us had to pay for 7 hours of rock breaking. So we decided that J better take the day off work to make sure they didn't rip us off. We weren't prepared to pay for their lunch breaks etc. and J wanted to make sure that they really did hit rock if they were going to charge us.

In the morning the truck rocked up with the excavator and rock breaker on board. The guy starts digging the holes for the tanks and hits shale but no rock. Luckily for us this means no extra charges, but I am not convinced I would be telling the same story if J hadn't been on site.....

Then the truck showed up with the tanks. The water tank went in first. It is in 2 bits because it is so big and sealed together with bondcrete.

Then in went the HSTP.


The the excavator dug the trenches for the effluent hoses that will water our plants.

A water truck arrived that afternoon to half fill the tanks with water so that they don't start to float.

All in all I think we have been very lucky. We didn't hit rock so no extra charges and we had a good operator so our tanks are sunk the lowest in the whole street. The HSTP is pretty much flush with the ground and the water tank is only high enough so that the pumps and pipes are just out of the ground (these will be installed later so they don't get nicked!).