We live in a rather steep street in Sea Point in a house that will be 100 years old next year. (Before Photo #1)

In this house, we have survived the last drought and have always wanted and needed to install a JoJo tank to keep our garden alive and to top up our swimming pool, which we turned into a Koi fish pond several years ago. (Before Photo #2) We surveyed where to put the tank and it turned out that there was just one suitable spot in our small outside space, a utility area behind the house, where the tank would fit and gravity could do the work in distributing the water. This space is behind the lattice screen in Before Photo #3.

When we replaced our guttering two years ago, we specifically asked the gutter installer to insert a gutter junction which we could extend to fill the tank when we were able to get one (After Photo #4). Why the delay? Well, the local building companies were not delivering them until recently and we did not have access to a truck. When we discovered that Makro was selling them on special and was delivering, we went ahead.

My husband John is a very good carpenter (we submitted an entry last year showing the wall unit he built for our living room) and handyman and when at last we knew we could get the 1000L JoJo tank delivered in April, he built a brick and concrete plinth for it (bricks left over from previous building work) and tiled it with slate tiles which we had bought in 2005 to tile the floor of the wine cellar we built when we bought the house.

After the tank was delivered, he did all the necessary plumbing (After Photo #5) and even added a new piece of equipment that we know the wine industry uses, to see the level of the water in the tank (After Photo #6). This is a clear plastic pipe attached to a Tee-piece between the tank and the tap which shows the level of the water in the tank.

A hose attached to the tap, which goes under the deck behind the house, seen in Before Photo #3, takes the water down to the garden level. We do not need a pump, as gravity does all the work on our hill. The tap has come in very useful over the last few weeks; we have had so much rain that the tank has had to be emptied constantly into our pond or into the garden. I grow vegetables in our bottom garden and if we do get the next drought, which we are being told is a possibility, we now will be able to sustain the garden.

The position of the tank is fortuitous as it is behind a screen on our deck which already hides it well and we have bought some climbing plants to further mask it. (After Photo #7)