paulry

What is the water like in Canberra? Is it hard/soft? Is it pleasant to drink or do people prefer to drink bottled water? Are water rates high there?

Thanks.

Graham and Maria

Soft water here in Canberra, we use a Brita water filter that we have in the fridge which is essential for summer and it tastes fine to me. A lot of bottled water is sold in Australia but I think thats also true for England.

Not sure about rates as we rent and the landlord has to pay for water to a certain amount, we do have to pay the difference if we go over the amount but that has only happened once in a year.

quoll

Soft water, lovely not to have scale build up in your kettle and to need just a tiny bit of shampoo to get a lather, still, on some days you can smell the chlorine coming through. Our water rates hover between $200 and $300 per quarter and we have a very big rainwater tank which we use for drinking water and also for watering the garden. It collects off the garage roof and generally doesnt go too low even though we havent had that much rain recently. Our dams are sitting at around the 43% mark according to the signs today and we can but hope that they fill up somewhat over the winter otherwise we will be in a sticky position come next summer.

POW148

We live about 40 Kms south of Canberra and are on Tank Water. Great taste and at no cost. (if you dont count the replacement of pressure pumps - only brought one in 5 years ($300))

Our tank is 120,000 ltrs and hasnt dropped below one foot from over flowing in all that time.

Barney

UncleKev

yes I can confirm that the water is drinkable and fine for cooking and for bathing in.

But, there is some sort of scam going on though with the storage of water here.

We just had a boom month for rainfall, yet each day on my way to work I am made to feel guilty because the dams are less than 45% full.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/curren.../summary.shtml
I suspect that the water is being diverted to some industrial site and the ordinary house holder is being made the scape goat. I really expected to see the water levels back over 50% after the rain we had in
April.

The good thing is that there has been enough rainfall that I have not had to water my garden for months.

gordy01

To those with rainwater harvesting tanks - do these complete supplied with UV filters etc to kill any bacteria etc in the water?

I presume they do but just wanted to check.....

paulry

Thanks for all of your responses. It's great to learn that the water is soft and very drinkable.

Faircity

Thanks for this - it was something that I thought about but didn't want to ask - glad you did! 3 months to go and counting!!!

MartinLuther

If you've had a hot summer (like us down here) then most of the rainfall to date will just be soaking into the ground. There's always a lag before the dams start filling.

paulry

Scary isn't it! I've been busy getting the house ready to put on the market. I know, I should have done the work (painting, cleaning, decluttering) yonks ago but somehow it didn't seem possible that what I've worked for over this past 10 years would ever finally look within grasp. We still have the final hurdle to get over - medical, PCC and visa grant but I don't expect a problem with any of them. So it looks like it's finally going to happen! ...I pray to God that it does.

Good luck with settling in Canberra!