Drains

All our internal plumbing was roughed-in, but we had no drains to connect it to. Fotunately, I had slected a plumber who can do both inmternal and external plumbing (some plmbers specialised in only one).

Onece again, the energy-certiciation system required for new homes in Australia had an impact here. As part of our energy certification, we had to have rain-water recycling (or solar energy assisted heated water supply). I chose to have rain-water recycling. So this means we have three types of external drains:

1) "Potable" rainwater from roof-areas only
2) Surface water collection and sub-surface cut-ff drains
3) Sewer

All-up, this amounted to about 400 metres of drains, circum-naviagating the house. Cost was around A$1000 (US$7000).

The rainwater system doesn't have the collection sump, or sump-pump installed yet, but we allowed a space for it in the layout of the system.

My electrician also installed the power-feed for the rainwater-sump-pump, and sewer-sump-pump at this time (our off-site sewer is not a gravity system, instead it is a pressure sewer get the stuff up the hill near us).