Water update...
We've recieved three water bills since moving in (how time flies)... for about
half that time we have been working from home and even had the kids at home for
six weeks. Even with all that we've done really well.
The top is daily rain fall. The bottom is median daily water tank level based
on hourly recordings (filled polygon), the lighter/darker shade around the
median line is the interquartile range of the hourly measurements. The tank was intentionaly emptied at the start of February in anticpation of the forecast rain. The dotted availabilty line is plotted based on the height of the tap.
City water: the quarterly bill from the "old normal" was 172L/day, the lock
down quarter was 198L/day, and the working from home quarter was 180L/day. So
not too much variance really, and 183L/day over three quarters is good and
puts us at 46L per person per day... about 20% of the typical Sydney
resident.
Rain water: Since moving in we have been able to supply our laundry, toilet
and garden needs for all but one week in January... without having to water
some of the new plants we probably could have made it 100% on rain water for
those needs. I plotted rain fall (from the
NetAtmo rain gauge
which is excellent) and water level in the rain water tank (using a
Vegetronix AquaPlumb
sensor, which the individual measurements (hourly) are kind of noisy and a
little cumbersome to download - but the daily average seems to be good) up
through the end of May. I also splashed out on the Kingspan SenSit system, but
it has yet to provide anything close to accurate or usable.