There has never been a better time to install a water storage tank in New Zealand. Catching the rain when it falls, or 'rain harvesting', and storing it for when it's needed is a logical investment being made by more and more people in cities and rural areas. The hesitation is rarely about whether to buy one. It is about when, and at what price.
The town and country divide has gone
There is no longer a town and country divide when it comes to buying water storage tanks, and for several very good reasons. The forecast for the summer of 2023/2024 was hot, long, and dry, in keeping with the often-brutal conditions the country had experienced in the years before it, and weather like that does not respect a city boundary. A rural buyer may have no alternative supply at all. An urban buyer has one, but it is metered and periodically rationed. The two arrive at the same purchase from opposite directions, which is why tanks now go up on suburban sections as readily as on farms.
What changes when restrictions arrive
Council water charges don't apply to the water you catch yourself, which is the first line of the argument and the reason a tank can reduce your water rates bill. The second line matters more. When local authorities impose water use restrictions, an annual inevitability it would now seem, tank owners can access the water they have harvested to use for irrigation or other household activities that restrictions usually curtail. The value of a tank is close to invisible in a wet year. It shows up in the third week of a hosing ban.
The environmental case
Rain harvesting has significant environmental advantages, too. The more water collected in privately owned tanks means less reliance on water treatment plants, fostering a more sustainable water supply for both urban and rural communities. Every litre a household draws from its own tank is a litre that did not have to be treated, pumped and piped across a city to reach it. Multiplied across a street of new builds, that is a real reduction in load on infrastructure that is expensive to build and slow to expand. This is a large part of why rain harvesting is important.
Three things that make buyers hesitate
Sitting uncomfortably alongside all this positivity is a level of anxiety. At the time of writing, that unease could be linked to three major issues affecting the tank industry:
- Lead time fear in the market, with tank delivery schedules tending to blow out across the industry every summer, primarily because of increased demand affecting production turnaround and output.
- Price uncertainty, with tank raw materials continuing to rise in price and plenty of shifts in the market.
- Talk of drought that emphasises the importance of storage tanks and sounds alarm bells at the same time.
What the rainfall record showed
Can New Zealanders afford to wait for their tanks? In their 2022 company story, Together Making a Difference Today to Sustain Life Tomorrow, poly tank manufacturer Promax quoted some troubling data from Stats NZ. The average annual rainfall for the five years to 2020 was 3.1% below the previous five-year average and 10.7% below the five-year average for 1996 to 2000. Seven of the nine North Island regions endured drought-like conditions in 2019 as they recorded the lowest precipitation over the 25 years to June 2020. Meanwhile, Northland, the home of Promax, recorded just 64% of the region's average annual rainfall in the year to June 2019.
Why the numbers argue against waiting
With these numbers in mind, it's clear that the prospect of lead time blowouts and paying more for storage solutions won't ease the minds of Kiwis who want their tank delivered and installed as soon as possible. In a drought, every drop of rain is an invaluable resource, and the thought of missing out on a decent downpour reflects much of the uncertainty throughout the marketplace. A tank that arrives after the dry has broken has missed the season it was bought for. Working out what size water tank you need is the easy part of this. The rain not waiting for the delivery schedule is the hard part.
The Promax Promise
Promax moved to eradicate this doubt and bring certainty to the industry. The company launched the Promax Promise, a two-pronged pledge designed to provide peace of mind for their customers. First, it allows customers to lock in the delivery of their Promax tank. Second, the original price is set in concrete, regardless of rising material costs in a shifting market. That means no delays and no nasty surprises. Both halves of the pledge answer the same objection, because the reason people put off buying a tank is not that they doubt they need one. It is that they cannot be sure what they will pay, or when it will turn up. Check current Promax lead times to see where things stand today.