Drainage
Agricultural Drains
Agricultural drains (often called aggi drains) are used to: Drain waterlogged ground. Avoid soil heave by keeping your foundations dry (see this Link: Protect foundations) Keep the soil behind retaining walls dry. (see this link: Retaining Walls) Existing Drains In…
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Geotextile around Drainage Pipes
Many articles about installing agricultural drains recommend that you place a geotextile in the trench before the initial gravel surround and then wrap the geotextile over the gravel afterwards. You can also buy agi pipe with a geotextile “sock’ around…
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Balcony Drainage
If you are going to have a balcony don’t forget to consider the drainage. You need to make sure that you have a large enough drain, for example this. And the whole balcony slopes down to the drain. If the…
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Different Roof Drainage
Most of us are used to the traditional Australian roof drainage connecting to down pipes . . . . but this isn’t how everyone sees it. The Hawaii Solution Travelling around Hawaii I was quite surprised to see how many…
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Water Bills
I hear a lot of complaints about Water Bills . . . . . but Town Water is one of the ‘Great Bargains’ of our age! Don’t Believe Me? Well lets look at the facts. Typical Water Charges Well I…
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Soil Heave – Protecting the Slab During Construction
There has been a lot of talk in the Melbourne papers recently about ‘Slab Heave’ when Building on Clay so I thought I would explain how to minimise the risk during construction. A key issue when building on clay is to…
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Onsite Stormwater Dention – Why
If you want to redevelop or subdivide an existing urban house block, you might find that a planning condition is that you will need to provide On-site Stormwater Detention (OSD). You may also find it is a condition on individual…
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Stormwater – Kerb Discharge
If you are going to build on an existing house block you will probably have a planning permit condition that storm water must discharge to an approved point. If there is no surface water system one option can be to…
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Plumbing Acronyms
There are a lot of acronyms used on plumbing drawings so here are a few definitions: AG – Agricultural (Drains) B – Basin Bth – Bath BT – Boundary Trap DP – Down Pipe FW – Floor Waste HWS –…
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Protecting Underground Pipes
One of the problems that happen all too often during a new house build is that Sewers and Drains get filled with concrete. Its normally happens on: A knock down and rebuild project where the sewer connection wasn’t sealed during…
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