Rainwater harvesting part of BER program
The Commonwealth Government’s $42 billion commitment to Building the Education Revolution (BER) program is funding a diverse range of capital works projects for school facilities around Australia.
Major projects are creating new facilities for schools, while minor capital works with an environmental focus such as the installation of rainwater tanks are underway. The rainwater tanks will enable schools’ amenity blocks to use harvested rainwater for toilet flushing rather than municipal water supplies.
Glossop Primary School in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia near Renmark has recently installed its rainwater harvesting project employing BER funding to supply water for its 90 pupils. Rainwater is harvested from the school building roof and stored in two 22,000 L capacity tanks.
The water is filtered and then pressurised using a Davey RainBank Pro pump system, which was selected as it seamlessly selects rainwater when there is sufficient water in the tank and switches to backup mains water supply when there isn’t.
The power of the pump will also permit future expansion for watering the gardens surrounding the school. Provision has been made in the design of the pumping system for this purpose.
“Skid mounted by Davey as a ready-to-install pumping system made it an ideal choice,” notes project contractor Kim Bennett of Bennett Builders of Renmark.
“Our local plumber found the entire pumping and filtration system fitted together with ease and the whole water supply project was up and running very quickly,” Bennett says.
The system’s hydraulic design was undertaken by Andrew Williams from the Adelaide office of Lucid Consulting Engineers.
“We designed the water harvesting and delivery system as a simple, straightforward and easy-to-install pumped supply, drawing on the water held in the two tanks which harvest the rainwater,” Williams says.
Similar rainwater systems are proposed for at least two other school facilities in the local Murray Mallee region of South Australia as well as elsewhere around Australia as part of the Commonwealth’s BER program.
For more information on Davey rainwater harvesting solutions, go to www.davey.com.au.
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