John Savage wrote:

Making a good reason for having a gravity-fed tap in the tank in addition
to the popular electric pressure pump. In the event of a bushfire, loss
of electricity could make the water inaccessible unless you have a tap
already fitted to the tank.

What would you do with it?
I don't fancy playing bucket tag with an approaching fire.


An electric pump is no good because more than likely you will loose
electricity in a bushfire (you also loose street water pressure as
well). My understanding is that a diesel would be better, based on the
volatility of the fuel (but if that becomes moot, then you would not
want to be around anyway).

The $64,000 question to me is "how much water do you need to make have
any effect?"

I have 2,000 + 800 litre tanks, which according to one pump (yamaha
YP205HP) would suck this all up in 5minutes at 420 litres/min. Maybe
longer becasue any that falls on the roof would be recycled anyway.

Given that all I would want to do (suburban street) is to wet down my
roof and gutters to prevent leaf, etc material in/on them from catching
a light and being blown into my roof cavity (colorbond roofing is NOT
air tight), this might be okay.

Just curious if anyone can provide some hard figure?
How long would you start the roof pumps before the fire is
expected?/visible?
How long/how much water does it take to soak surrounding vegetation?
etc.