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• Many areas of Australia are operating under severe water restrictions
• Architects and builders throughout Australia are incorporating advanced water-efficient measures that U.S. water experts point to as practical solutions for our own looming crisis
  

  The collection tanks feed into the main 32,000-liter tank at the back of the house, where the water is filtered before use via the chemical-free Ecotrol-Radfire system from Australian manufacturer Puretec. The ultraviolet-light treatment destroys microorganisms found in unchlorinated water such as bacteria, viruses, mold, and fungal spores. It operates at a flow rate of 91 liters per minute.

• Builder Joe Mercieca produced a user-friendly and extremely water-conserving house that won last year’s GreenSmart Award for Water Efficiency from the Australian Housing Industry Association
• The house, completed last April, captures and treats 100% of its own water, making use of it twice inside the house before employing it for irrigation
• The whole-house water processing system cost $54,000 (about $55,300 in U.S. dollars)
• For emergency purposes, the house is tied in to the municipal water system
• But the reservoir tanks hold a 250-day supply of water so that even with no rainfall his family of five could live in the home for more than six months without tapping into the town’s water supply
• Rainwater collects on the 3,700-square-foot home’s four slanted and curved corrugated metal roofs and flows into three tanks
• It is screened and gravity-fed into a 32,000-liter main tank at the rear of the house
• There are four tanks are capable of holding 90,000 liters
• The water in the main tank is pressurized and pumped into the house for showers, cooking, drinking, and dish washing
• To bring it to drinking water standards, it is cartridge particle- and UV-filtered before entering the house
• A compact greywater system re-treats wastewater from this first round of use and prepares it for washing laundry or cars, toilet flushing and above-ground garden watering
• A 3,000-liter polyethylene tank at the back of the house holds the treated greywater
• Once it is utilized a second time, the water diverts into the blackwater system’s 1,500-liter underground tank
• This water undergoes a sanitizing process with the wastewater irrigating the site’s 5 acres of lawns and gardens
• The house has no access to the municipal sewer system
• The home is also miserly in how much it uses, with dual-flush toilets, low-flow faucets and showerheads, and an ultra-efficient washing machine and dishwasher
• The fixtures are certified to a minimum 4-star rating out of 6 in the country’s Water Efficient Labelling and Standards (WELS) initiative, a joint program of federal, state, and local governments.

For more:  http://www.ecohomemagazine.com/water-conservation/self-sufficient-down-under.aspx