[PhantomGremlin]

> water tanks

I wanted to emphasize that, if it's what I think it is. I saw a TV show about Australian property (one of those shows that follow a couple trying to buy a house). One startling thing was seeing houses there with large, multi-thousand liter water storage tanks along the side of the house. I assume these collect rainwater.

Is that what you're talking about? If so, that's quite uncommon in the USA. I've seen older houses that had a way to store rainwater collected from the roof into a cistern in the basement. But that sort of thing just is not done here in new construction.

The problem in the USA is people (generally) don't understand anything other than price. Which means there's no way a builder can include an expensive "extra" such as this. At least not in a subdivision. Of course out in the boonies where there is one house in 160 acres, wells and cisterns are used.

In Australia are these water tanks required by building codes?