Buildings & Environment
GIPS WATER HARVESTING SYSTEM
Who paid?
We were fortunate to receive a $50000 Green Voucher from the Australian Federal Government, which has paid for our system.
Who installed it?
We are very grateful to our plumbing experts, Gavin Hynes and Stephen Dance of Hynes Solutions Pty Ltd, who installed our system.
Where does the water come from?
Water is collected from an area of approx 1500 m2 namely the roofs of the portables, the covered walk way and about half of the Grade 1/Prep classroom building.
It is pumped from the south west corner of the school up to the tanks next to the rural classroom.
How full are the tanks?
Our tanks have a capacity of 100 000 litres.
There is a gauge showing the current level on the north side of the tanks. Each 10cm of tank height corresponds to approximately 3320l (π×230cm×230cm×10cm×2=3323389cm3~3320l)
Every 1mm of rainfall on 1 square metre of roof creates 1 litre of runoff.
Every 1mm of rainfall on our school creates about 1500 litres of water that we collect.
Melbourne’s annual rainfall is about 500mm à. 500mm×1500m2 = 750 000 litres collected annually
What is the water used for?
The water from the tanks flushes both sets of student toilets. We use about 1000 litres per day or 20 000 litres per month to flush the toilets.
We have also installed pipes to deliver water from the tanks to five different points in the school so that we can irrigate and develop our school gardens.
Click here to view a graph detailing our current water usage: Tank Graph August 2009
