Alternative Water Supplies 

If a premises has any form of mains water supply, including a back-up supply, then the water fittings regulations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, byelaws in Scotland, apply. 

These legal requirements play an important role in protecting public health and safeguarding water supplies. Their purpose includes preventing the contamination and waste of water supplied by a water undertaker once it has entered a customer’s plumbing system.

Where mains water and other water sources, such as rainwater, recycled water, river water and borehole supplies, combine it is essential to notify the relevant water undertaker to ensure adequate backflow protection arrangements are installed.

Alternative water supplies should never be directly connected to the mains drinking water. The only legal and safe way to combine mains and another source of water is to use an arrangement called a break tank which enables separation of supplies. Typically, this is done using a Type AA (as shown below) or Type AB air gap the key features being:

• An unrestricted or weir spill over

• The pipework supplying the mains water must be external to the tank

• The mains water feed must discharge at a higher level than and maintain a minimum clearance (twice the internal diameter (2D) of the supply pipework or 20 mm whichever is the greater) from those supplying water from other sources

• The water in the tank should not come into contact with the mains water inlet for example as a result of splashing.