Rain Water Harvesting

[TigerfaninAR]

Anyone do this? Watched one of those landscape shows and the homeowner decided to put in a 600 gallon cistern under the ground that is filled with rainwater from the roof via the gutters and downspouts. Said a simple pump was used to water the yard/plants when needed.

Don't look that expensive online and could not only use the water in the dry months but also help with water runoff if that was an issue.

 

[Egon]

In some parts of Alaska They collect rainwater for household use.

 

[777777]

Lots of neighbours in this area collect it in their cisterns and use it as potable water, washing, toilets, etc with filtration. .

Have a good one

 

[schmism]

I collect it but not in that large a quantity.

there is an old cistern on my property that used to have the gutters of the house running to it.

I use a smaller 30 gall or so barrel to collect water and use it to water container plants etc. The pets like it much better than the faucet water.

If you put out fresh rain water and fresh faucet water they will always pick the rain water. (what does that tell ya)

In the olden days (when you had a small 20' hand dug well) you would often use the cistern for "grey water" needs. washing clothes, showers, tolets etc.

Once the big house is built i also plan on haveing a large underground cistern to harvest rain water from my standing seam roof.

 

[scgargoyle]

When we build in SC, I'm going to have small pond- maybe 10,000 gallon or so, and will use that as a cistern. I'll keep a few fish and plants in it, and use a pump to use some of the water for irrigation. I'll put gutters on the house and barn to collect the water, and drain it into the pond. I've heard you have to be careful if you collect water from a shingle roof, due to the fungicides they put in the granules. My roofs will be metal.

 

[Tig]

Cisterns are quite common in the older homes in my area.

 

[Erik_in_Hoyt]

if you put it on a platform, say about 4' up, you can still use your gutters to fill it and gravity will deliver the water to your garden - no pump needed.

 

[sodamo]

Very, very common here. Our only water source for all uses. Here at the main house, we collect from 2 roofs that keep 4 poly tanks, each 4k gallons. At the small house, we only fill a 3K poly tank.

David

 

[marimus]

Every house within 20 miles of me uses it as their primary water source.

We have two concrete tanks total 17000 Gallons, which overflow into two poly tanks total 24000 Gallons.

The concrete tanks supply all household usage, including drinking. The poly tanks are used for our garden/orchard irrigation.

Summer is our wet season, during which all of these tanks are overflowing. Winter is dry, and we need enough storage capacity to carry us through from june/july through october.

 

[Redneck in training]

I collect it but not in that large a quantity.

there is an old cistern on my property that used to have the gutters of the house running to it.

I use a smaller 30 gall or so barrel to collect water and use it to water container plants etc. The pets like it much better than the faucet water.

If you put out fresh rain water and fresh faucet water they will always pick the rain water. (what does that tell ya)

In the olden days (when you had a small 20' hand dug well) you would often use the cistern for "grey water" needs. washing clothes, showers, tolets etc.

Once the big house is built i also plan on haveing a large underground cistern to harvest rain water from my standing seam roof.

I was in Australia few years back and read in local paper about a guy who collects rain water, filters it, bottles it and sels that as bottled water. Forgot the brand name but it was quite catchy something from heaven.

 

[hwp]

Even though we live in "the City", we do not enjoy some services such as water and sewers. We have a 5000 gallon cistern that is an integral part of the foundation of our house. We collect rain water from some parts of our roofs and not others (not from roofs subject to bird droppings, etc.). We use the collected water for everything, house and garden. If God doesn't provide us with enough water, we get it by the truckload. The water used in the house goes through four filters, two sediment and two charcoal, and a UV lamp. We get our water check by the Department of Health and have never had a problem with contaminated water. We have an electronic water depth gauge (made by Rain Water Harvesting in Australia and now distributed in the US and Canada) that allows us to monitor the water level in the cistern.

 

[teg]

I have it for watering the garden... only 500 gals... it fills up fast and when it rains you don't need the water. When you do need it, 500 gals is not very much... I wish I had more "need" for the water, but I don't. Make the design easy to by-pass when the tank gets full.

.

 

[allenr]

In South Australia I use winter rainfall for washing, bathing, drinking and garden irrigation, right through Summer and Autumn. (first pic)

At a rental property I own the drainage trench fed with water from the bathroom, laundry and kitchen became blocked.
So I dug a hole with the backhoe and dropped in a secondhand 1600Litre (about 400 US gl) septic tank and finally also connected up the gutters to this tank.

Tried an above ground pump but it wouldn't prime, so now have a large submersible sump pump sending the water (when it trips a float switch) to four wobbler sprinklers, which only require 10psi, watering four Walnut and one Mulberry tree. (pics two to five)

Not a good pic, but just shows one of two 5000gl concrete tanks on the right and behind the fruit trees in the chook run are two 5500gl poly tanks.

Rental House - top of concrete septic tank just visible

Catchment from gutters not shown here - added later

Small tee toward the back of this pic distributes the water to the trees

Trees to the left in this pic receive the water via wobbler sprinklers between the trees. (walnut trees not seen, one hidden behind mulberry and three to the left of camera

 

[The Dougster]

The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) offers an excellent publication that can be downloaded and would be an excellent source of information to anyone interested in rainwater harvesting....

http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publications/reports/RainwaterHarvestingManual_3rdedition.pdf

 

[scgargoyle]

I've heard it is illegal to save rainwater in Colorado- I guess they feel you are diverting it from the aquifer. I don't know if this is true anywhere else.