SUPADIVERTA - syphonic rainwater diverter

BEFORE SUPADIVERTA

CONVENTIONAL PLUMBING DIVERTS ADDITIONAL DOWNPIPES BY TWO METHODS

(1) Plumbing the downpipe horizontally along a wall to the tanks inlet strainer.
This DRY SYSTEM is ugly, expensive and not always possible due to `inconveniently’ located windows and doorways!

UNFILTERED DRY SYSTEM DOWNPIPES also deposit debris and pollutants onto the tank’s top meshed inlet and many pollutants, for example solid bird droppings, will wash through the inlet mesh. This debris adds to the sediment layer and provides nutrients to thriving bacteria colonies.

Mosquitoes often gain access through inlet mesh screens when screens are damaged after owners run their hands over the mesh to remove larger debris. Another cause is when owners puncture clogged and difficult to clean overflow mesh to prevent tanks overflowing. After just four months (May 2011) into a two year survey of 10,000 rainwater tanks across Brisbane, a Queensland Institute of Medical Research study has found that up to 5% of Brisbane’s 100,000 tanks could be mosquito breeding grounds.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/tanks-for-that-dengue-fears-spiral/story-fn6ck45n-1226024702874

2) Plumbing a downpipe horizontally along or under the ground, then vertically to the tanks inlet strainer.

This is called a WET or CHARGED system and results in:

• Expensive and ugly pipework.
• The pipework’s low velocity will not transfer most sediment up the vertical riser. Unless drained and cleaned, this results in an accumulation of sludge inside the pipes.
• If a wet system’s outlets are not mosquito proofed, the exposed water is at risk of becoming a mosquito haven with mosquito eggs and larvae flushing into the tank the next time it rains!
• Diverting through a tank’s top meshed inlet has one major drawback. Water falling even a short distance generates pressure waves that are referred to as impacting vortex rings after they reach a boundary layer. For water falling into a tank, the boundary layer is the bottom sediment layer.
• Tanks are often cloudy after heavy rain and many think it is due to more dirt having been washed from the roof whereas the cause is most often due to sediment resuspension caused by impacting vortex rings. A tank does not need to be at a low level for impacting vortex rings to cause sediment resuspension but if the tank is at a low level, the effect can be significant.
• The diversion of multiple downpipes to a tank with only a single outlet MAY not be compliant, for further information, see Water Tanks / Overflow Pipe

HOWEVER: By diverting harvested water from additional downpipes with each SUPADIVERTA plumbed with its overflow below the level of the tank overflow, SUPADIVERTA can legally and dramatically increase rainwater harvesting at very low cost. High velocity flow also self cleans the internal pipework.

WARNINGS:
AQUATREK has seen DRY systems that have a mid path WET system. This occurs when the pipework is diverted under an obstruction, for example an air conditioner, then re-plumbed to the original height to flow to the tanks meshed inlet. This creates a SEDIMENT TRAP that can become stagnant and block!

AQUATREK has seen many wet systems that have buried 90 mm PVC pipe to transfer water to tanks. This pipe has flimsy 2mm thick walls and should never be used for this purpose.

IT IS EASY TO REPLACE A SUB STANDARD OR UGLY INSTALLATION WITH SUPADIVERTA