[Water] Rainwater / Rainfall Collection (merged)

[PeakOiler]

I hope that clarifies things.

No pun intended?

(sorry, couldn't resist)

lol

No, the pun wasn't intended!

[green_achers]

I hope that clarifies things.

Yes, thanks. I guess that I'm a little overwhelmed at the cost of treating just the household water part. Would it be possible to treat and store a smaller amount for drinking and use the untreated water for flushing toilets, etc?

[strider3700]

Yes just run two water systems within the house. Thats probably more expensive then setting up the filtration system in the first place though.

my system filters spring water but it would handle rainwater exactly the same. I may add rainwater collection in the future but last year I had no issues with the supply from the spring.

I bring the water in and place it in a 3000 gallon tank. The inlet is controlled by a float valve.

From there it's directly connected to a 300 gallon tank via a T. Both tanks maintain the same water level.

the 300 gallon tank has a small pump that circulates water out of the bottom into the middle of the tank. As the water goes through this loop ozone from an ozone generator is added and it bubbles to the top of the tank.

Water exist the 300 gallon tank and goes into a pressure pump via gravity and from there goes through a charcoal filter before going into the house.

the inlet to the 3000 gallon tank has a manifold before it that spits the incoming water letting me bypass the filtration system running the house directly off of the spring water which is pressurized by gravity. I also split it to run two taps outside for watering the lawn without bothering to filter it.

The system uses about 75 watts of power continuously not including the pressure pump which is a 1 hp model. It's possible that I could power this off of solar and or wind power to make it truely grid independant.

Brand new my system would be worth about $7,000 -$10,000. A lot of money but city water isn't available here. having almost endless fresh water that I know is safe because my system keeps it that way is entirely worth it.

[PeakOiler]

I thought I would relate some information regarding rainwater collection for homeowners from my own experiences.

See www.rainwatercollection.com for more information.

Time for an update.
The drought in central Texas continues, but we did get about 0.3 inches (0.76 cm) of rain today.
That equates to about 300 gallons with my current house rainshadow.

We've received less than 2 inches of rain in the last 4 months.

I had to put 500 gallons of city water into one of the cisterns to supply the house with water. I guess I could have pumped water from the small above-ground pool, (approx 3500 gallons), but decided against that. I'm not that desperate yet, lol.

So for the future, it looks like it's time to gutter up the carport and the storage shed and perhaps extend the roof collection area over the porch and decks to increase my total rainshadow.

What would really help is some rain!

[PeakOiler]

Wow! Has it been over a year since my last update on this thread?

Currently four of the 1550 gal tanks are overflowing with all the recent rains. The fifth 1550 gal tank collecting off the carport (and not connected to the other tanks) has about 700-750 gallons. I understand that Austin's rainfall total for the month of March set a new record. (An example of extreme weather conditions imo.)

I decided not to quit the local city water service yet. Having access to the mains water is still a good back up, (while it's available.) I can currently afford the "standby" fee.

I wanted to bump this thread so newbies have a chance to browse through it.

[TommyJefferson]

Very interesting and good info PeakOiler. Thank you.

Keep up the good work!

I'm on the lookout for good deals on used agricultural tanks.

[PeakOiler]

Thanks, TommyJefferson.
I appreciated some of the tips and suggestions others made in this thread too, such as not running the UV lamp 24/7.

Richard Heinichen at http://www.rainwatercollection.com has posted some QuickTime videos that offer more details regarding collecting rainwater, and his book, Rainwater Collection For the Mechanically Challenged is excellent.

Matt Savinar should contact Richard and see if he can sell some more of Richard's books! lol

[Rogozhin]

We're getting more rain here in the PNW-I'm going to implement your method Peakoiler

Thanks for the great posts!

Rogo

[PeakOiler]

Good luck with your rainwater catchment system!

You'll find rainwater collection very rewarding even if you just catch enough rain for your plants and garden.

I'm still not done yet with my system, because I keep planting more trees. I'm working on a catchment shed to house more tanks.

[buzzard]

Wow! Has it been over a year since my last update on this thread?

Currently four of the 1550 gal tanks are overflowing with all the recent rains. The fifth 1550 gal tank collecting off the carport (and not connected to the other tanks) has about 700-750 gallons. I understand that Austin's rainfall total for the month of March set a new record. (An example of extreme weather conditions imo.)

I decided not to quit the local city water service yet. Having access to the mains water is still a good back up, (while it's available.) I can currently afford the "standby" fee.

I wanted to bump this thread so newbies have a chance to browse through it.

Thanks, PeakOiler for keeping this thread live. Otherwise I might have missed it. It so happens that my wife and I have recently moved onto a quite rural 20 acre place where I intend to install a rainwater collection system. Coincidentally I have just ordered and received Richard's book "Rainwater Collection for the Mechanically Challenged". It is a complete and clear guide to setting up a successful system.

I have actually relocated my garden to take advantage of the collection possibilities from my new barn/shop building. Beginning to design our lives around the collection and storage of heaven's tears is illuminating.

Buz

"I've been dazed and confused for so long its not news"
Led Zeppelin

[WisJim]

I'm in the process of adding a 1550 gallon poly tank to my system.. Putting eavestrough etc on a 24 by 44 foot outbuilding with a metal roof, so that I will have gravity feed to the orchard and garden. Probably will have to incorprate a pump to pump from a filtering barrel (after the eavestrough) to the storage tank, but it will run only intermitently during a rainfall. If this works out well , I can add more storage if I want to put up the eavestrough on a 40 by 100 foot building even further up the hill.

I want to get drip irrigation to as much of my gardens/berries/orchard as possible.

[Earthclan]

It seems that Australia has been very innovative in the area of rainwater collection, perhaps driven in large part by necessity due to their ongoing extreme drought conditions. A friend who lives there says that conservation of water is no longer a 'future-oriented dream of the greenies' but rather has become integral to survival there.

So in my ongoing research of various types of large underground cistern/storage tanks it did not surprise me to find this new product is from Australia.

http://www.rainreviva.com.au/default.asp

Any thoughts about this product - the longevity of materials or function?

Also would appreciate any info about underground storage tanks and systems. Thanks!

[burtonridr]

Does anyone here know how to calculate how much rain water you could potentially store. Something that takes into account the average annual rainfall for your area and your total collection surface (your roof, shed, etc.)

[anthem]

Here is a link to one rainwater collection site:

www.rainwatercollection.com

Quote from the first question on the site FAQ:

How much can I collect?

A one-inch rain on 1000 square feet of collection surface will yield about 550 real world gallons of rainwater.

[DrLeg]

Hallo,

1. get your monthly (!) local rainfall numbers.
2. multiply with surface of collector (e.g. parts of the roof feeding the tank.)
In metric units: for example 130 square meters

__________________ Jan _ Feb _ Mar _ Apr _ ... _annual
rainfall (mm): ______ 80 _ 24 _ 10 _ 60 _ ... _ 522
raw (cubic metre) : _ 10,4 _ 3 _ 1,3 _ 7,8 _ ... _ 68

3. Now some questions :
What do ou want to do with the water?
- gardening
- .. + toilet
- ... ... + washing machine
- ... ... ... + shower, cooking, ... 100% autonomy

4. estimate consumption
___________ Jan _ Feb _ Mars _ Apr _ .... _ annual
garden cbm : ______ 0 _ 1 _ 1 _ 30 _ ... _ 50
toilet (cubic metre) : _ 1 _ 1 _ 1 _ 1 _ ... _ 12
compare with your water bill!!!

5. Make a 2years !! time series In-Out :
__________________ Jan _ Feb _ Mar _ Apr _ ... _annual
rainfall (mm): ______ 80 _ 24 _ 10 _ 60 _ ... _ 522
raw (cubic metre) : _ 10,4 _ 3 _ 1,3 _ 7,8 _ ... _ 68

garden cbm : _______ 0 __ 1 __ 1 __ 30 _ ... _ 50
toilet (cubic metre) : _ 1 __ 1 __ 1 __ 1 _ ... _ 12

Net in tank : ____ 9,4 _ 10,4 _ 9,7 _ 4,5 ..... _

The maximum is the "normal tank size" now you may want to add a factor to better resist dry periods and thunderstorm... . 1,5.


6. The problem will occur if you have long dry periods that will demand a very large tank. Review your objectifs.


Best
CL

[Pops]

Very nice Dr., this should be copied to the appropriate thread and posted to the downloads page.

[Ludi]

We just bought two more polyethylene tanks, a 2500 gal and a 550 gal. These are Norwesco brand, the same as our other tanks, which we've been very happy with. We get the black tanks.


http://www.norwesco.com/page.cfm?menu=9


This brings us to 8050 gallons storage capacity once we get them set up.

[Earthclan]

LUDI

Thanks for the info and website. I've got a couple of questions.

Are you collecting your water for all these tanks from the same roof or have you added additional roofing? What is your setup like?

And have you placed them underground or above ground?
If underground, I'm curious what was involved.

thanks!

[Ludi]

So far we only have two 2500 gallon aboveground tanks off one side of our workshop which has a covered parking and work area. The new 550 gallon tank will be on the opposite side of the shop which just has a small roof and no awning. The new 2500 gallon tank will be installed off our new storage building adjacent to the shop, this will also have a covered outdoor work and storage area. The workshop is about 12' x 28', with a similar sized covered parking area. The new storage building and covered area will be about 12' x 29' when finished.

We hope eventually to put gutters and tanks on our house also, with separate tanks for that building. I don't think all the tanks in a rainwater system should be connected to each other in case there's a leak somewhere, you don't want all your supply leaking away.


We may set the house tanks up for potable water use, at least one of them which will be fed by the metal roof of our future veranda. The house itself has asphalt shingles so may not be suitable for potable use.

[Ludi]

The new tanks:

small tank 550 gallons installed





2500 gallon tank, not connected to gutters yet