What it’s all about

An unofficial investigation carried out in 2018 on a 13 stories high residential building with around 120 apartments confirmed what most professionals in our industry suspected in relation to the outdated method of sizing pipes; they are being significantly oversized.

Using the monitored flows rather than the table in the Australian Standards, the pipe size would have been 40mm instead of 100mm, the build cost would have been around $120k cheaper, and the heat loss in the hot water system would have been reduced by around 30-40% which is an approximate saving of $2k per year.

Based on the emphatic results, HCAA, a non for profit organisation, set up a sub-committee with the aim of updating the Australian Standard with a modern and accurate process of sizing potable water pipes.