Barry Saddle water tank - has been replaced!

[Mr Bean]

Spoke to Vic Parks ranger Nigel (from Mansfield) and he has confirmed that the new, long awaited water tank replacement at Barry Saddle occurred last week (I think it was Thursday). Its of similar design to the other modern tanks in that area. They have topped up the new tank with 200L (that's all they had), so its got nice clean water as a start. No more filtering of the brown liquid from the old tank

[gmac]

Here It Is

[Mr Bean]

Thanks gmac, looks a beauty. Hopefully we will be trying it out next April when we head through that section.

[Lophophaps]

The new tank is good. The tap seems to be a butterfly valve on 32 or 40 mm pipe set horizontally, and if so this is disappointing. A far better design is to have a spring-loaded tap and a a 19 mm spout facing down. This would make it much more likely to avoid wasting water. Some water bottles have narrow openings, and holding a bottle horizontally to fill it does not work. Reports on this were submitted in late 2015 and six months ago.

[gmac]

Hi Lophophaps I have followed up with one of the guys from our club that did the instal re the issue you raised regarding the tap on the new tank. The intention was to put in place a tap the same as you mentioned however there was a problem with the fittings they had available and access too out there and this was the best working option at the time. Work to fit a more effective tap (as you described) will take place in the future. Thanks for raising the matter and I hope that update is helpful.

[Lophophaps]

Gmac, thanks. It seems to me that the correct spout should have been used at the outset, even if it meant delaying the tank being installed. It's a simple plumbing job, standard 19 mm OD pipe. The tank company may have been able to do this. My concern is that before the tank had water, albeit of poor quality, though viable. Now with not much water to start, a wide horizontal pipe, a valve that can be held open and summer approaching with low precipitation, there may be no tank water. It also costs more to have a second tap installed. Fitting a tap as I described is a high priority, and maybe also topping up the tank.

I would have installation of all replacement tanks in late April, thus allowing Barry Saddle and elsewhere to have water for the summer.

[msrlo]

I wouldn't rely on these tanks, I was at the one near the twins a few weeks back and it was practically empty after the winter period.

[Mr Bean]

I wouldn't rely on these tanks, I was at the one near the twins a few weeks back and it was practically empty after the winter period.

Interesting to know. When we came through the section from Barry Saddle to Mt Hotham in April, that's the only one we didn't go to. The other tanks in that stretch were full. As a rule, we tend to carry two days of water through that area, just in case.

[Xplora]

Large tank, small roof area. Will take a lot of rain to fill it and if new then it may not have had enough fall yet.

[Lophophaps]

Good point about the roof. Annual precipitation for Hotham and Buller is 1.5 metres. The roof looks to be about a metre square, so 1.5 cubic metres of water goes into the tank in a year, 1500 litres. The tank looks like it's about 1000 litres, could be 500 litres, so over time the tank will fill. there are about 60 AAWT parties a year, plus others going through the Barries, say 80 a year, may be more. If there are three people in each party then they use something like 80 X 3 people X 4 litres is 960 litres. With most of those in summer they will quickly drain the new tank, and others that are low on water.

The roof needs to be bigger. I hope that nothing adverse happens due to the poor design and planning of the new tanks. I wonder how PV feels about topping up the Barry Mountains tanks. Barry Saddle is close to the road, but the others are up a steep hill and off the vehicle track.

[Xplora]

It is quite possible the tanks are topped up by PV using slip on fire tankers but unsure if they are actually doing this. I arranged for a water tank to be put in at the horse yards at Langford West camp and a call to Mt. Beauty when it is empty sees a tanker come and fill it from the aqueduct. A slip on is about 400 litres so a bit difficult to fill all the tanks out in the Barry's. Size of the roof is restricted and that is as big as it can be. Pretty spoiled having this much put in for walkers. I may be able to direct you to the right person in PV to speak to if you want to discuss the tanks and filling them. If he is not the right person, he would know who is but he spoke to me some time ago about putting these tanks in.