How to Harvest Rain......

[Scenic WonderRunner]

How to Harvest Rain.

How to Harvest Rain...



Is anyone here, Harvesting Rain?


Things are getting real serious, water wise, here in Southern California!

I've considered doing this for way too long.

I have two gully's on each side of my house. I'm thinking I could direct the rain run off from my roof and driveway into a huge multi 1,000 gallon tanks. Then use a pump to irrigate my one acre later in the year during the hotter months.

Has anyone here done this? Does it work? How do I make it happen?

Please share with us.



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[RoundOut]

It wouldn't be much different than using river water. I have a buddy with some acreage on the Trinity River. He has a drip irrigation system on the trees he has planted around his trailer up there. He'll go up at least once per month and pump water from the river up to some tanks he has that hold somewhere between 500-1000 gallons each. He uses tanks from military surplus. The tanks are made of plastic similar to milk jugs, but thicker, and framed in either aluminum or steel. If I remember correctly, he uses 2 1/2 " pvc fittings and piping between the tanks.

One he uses for running water in the trailer by chlorinating it, and the others he uses for the drip system. Next time I'm up there, I'll snap some pics of his setup. He's actually engineered a mini water treatment plant using an overflow setup somehow. It has been a while since I was up there, so the design is a bit foggy.


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[CoastalDefender]

1000gal tanks cost $$$

Make sure your storage unit is sealed from exposure, don't want any evap over the summer months.

 

[LandCruiserPhil]

My wifes Grandma has used a Doughboy pool for water catchment storage for years living off-grid.

 

[FLYFISHEXPERT]

I was watching P. Allen Smith's gardening show on PBS a while back and they were adding a rain water harvesting system to their house. Here is the link:
http://www.pallensmith.com/index.php?id=1672

It actually looks like a great idea. They routed all of the downspouts from the gutters to the tank and used a pump to get the water out.

Pocatello is classified as semi-arid desert, and we don't see much rain in the summer and fall. When Krista and I began landscaping our new house, I picked up Ortho's Dry Climate Gardening as a guide. We have planted xeric plants and a low water consumption turf grass. I plan on building a rain barrel catchment system consisting of 6 55gal poly barrels for the side of the house and two more decorative barrels from Gardeners.com. These ones.

I am on 1/3 of an acre, and this should serve me well for the hottest and driest months.

I know the larger systems work rather well. I have been working with the Idaho Fish and Game on wildlife watering systems called guzzlers that are placed in the desert west of Pocatello. We have 1000 gallon tanks buried under ground fed from 20'x40' roofing sections called collectors. In the spring, they collect enough water to fill the tanks, and provide the water to elk and antelope herds for the summer months.

 

[durango_60]

Beleive it or not it is technically illegal to harvest rain in CO. Rarely enforced, but if one of your lovely neighbors complains you have to dismantle. Just across the border in NM it is being strongly encouraged, amazing to think NM is actually more advanced in this area...

 

[Pskhaat]

Beleive it or not it is technically illegal to harvest rain in CO.

If the populace were able to catch their own water, how would municipalies then make their money? How would the politicians get paid? More to the point however, how would they have enough water to sell to other states like AZ where we waste it in outside mister systems and in voluminous pools and fountains without restriction?

 

[Scenic WonderRunner]

I'm sorry my water saving thread is going ....Political Already!

I was hoping this thread could help myself and others with water conservation. Especially those with over one acre of land and huge summer water bills in the very dry southwest!


Thank you Texas...!


The Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvesting...




.....please excuse me, I'm gonna go search da net.:wavey:




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[ntsqd]

A frequent feature of pictures of buildings in the Australian Outback show methods for capturing rain water.
Some of the old "Mother Earth News" had articles on the topic. I recall one place featured in Architectural Digest an eon ago that was somewhere in NM. It diverted all roof drains into an underground cistern, that was then used to heat and cool the home via solar panels. The cistern was essentially a large rock filled basement to the house that was well sealed to prevent condensation issues inside the home.

 

[Pskhaat]

....Political Already!.....please excuse me, I'm gonna go search da net.:wavey:

SWR, I was politically making a self-jab as I live in the AZ desert and despite my best efforts at conservation know that I use more than I should. I also have lived in CO where we received daily (often significant) summer rainfall and several hundred inches of snow and had non-trivial restrictions on domestic water usage, go figure.

When I first moved to the Phoenix area I saw a truck cleaning many miles of the highway with a high-pressure water hose, 116degF in June.

FWIW, I built a rainwater reservoir in the hills of Jamaica for a children's school for the deaf and blind in 1990. It was constructed with concrete blocks and bamboo. It was very shallow, and cost-effective and captured water only from its own roof and a small overhang. It was maybe 900sq.ft. in area and held about 16k gallons. I don't know what the annual rainfall was in the area.

 

[The BN Guy]

I've done some moderate to in-depth investigating on rainwater harvesting for some clients.

All sorts of questions and answers can have a serious effect on cost. But as a rule of thumb that was passed onto me was...turnkey costs about a dollar a gallon. This is product, installation, etc.

There are many sites with great information.

http://www.catchrainwater.com/homepage.htm

I found tanks run from 1500 to over eight grand. Just depends on size.

Filters depend on HOW to filter. Simple screens, sand, filters, UV...the list goes on and on. All of this does depend on usage. What are you going to use it for? Simple irrigation, drinking water, etc.

I think another rule of thumb is something along the lines of for every 1/2" of rain you receive close to 2000 gallons.

You'll need to get the system engineered as there are some simple equations needed to estimate how much you need. Most of the companies around here estimate it on number of persons living in the house, annual rainfall, roof area, and some other factors.

Also check with your local and state governments as well as your water company. Many do offer some sort of rebate.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Beleive it or not it is technically illegal to harvest rain in CO. Rarely enforced, but if one of your lovely neighbors complains you have to dismantle. Just across the border in NM it is being strongly encouraged, amazing to think NM is actually more advanced in this area...

It is not illegal to collect rainwater in Colorado. It is illegal to divert water and not replace it into the watershed. So if your rainwater collection system can be augmented by legally achieved water so that downstream users get their legally allocated water, then you are fine. If you collect rainwater and don't do that, then you are stealing someone else's water.

I do understand that Colorado is behind most other states in having specific rainwater laws, but was not aware that NM had a rainwater exception to the prior appropriation rule. I figured most of the west, and in particular Colorado River Compact states, would regulate rainwater collection the same any other incidental moisture. Every drop is owned by someone who has more senior water rights than the average home owner who is leasing water from a municipal or other public or private water company. So collecting rainwater is diverting someone else's water, no different than drilling a non-permitted well or building a dam. If your water collection impedes the flow of water, then you are breaking the law. In the case of storing and irrigating with rainwater, you might be very likely causing some significant amount of water to /not/ flow into a stream, mostly because of evaporation and the plants' use. The size of your barrel or cistern is probably going to the largest hitch. If you are storing a lot of water, then someone is going to make a stink about it, but a couple of 55 gallon barrels are going to be hardly enough to drag you into water court over.

FWIW, most western states will have a water resources board and they will advise to legalities of rain and other water and plans for such use.

Colorado's:
http://www.water.state.co.us/org/faq.asp

http://www.water.state.co.us/pubs/policies/waterharvesting.pdf

 

[RoundOut]

300 gallon tanks

If any of you guys want some, I may have access to a Houston area source for FREE 300 gallon metal framed poly tanks. Problem is, they CANNOT be used for drinking water. The poly plastics absorb some of the chemical and never really clean up, even if pressure washed. One could use them safely for irrigation, especially xerigation (sp?), as there would be no surface water collection available to thirsty critters. These tanks are used to ship feedstock chemicals to a manufacturing facility owned by a friend of mine, and I understand they are discarded as waste. Another buddy of mine has a landscape company and uses them to irrigate work in progress before a sprinkler project is complete or when sprinkler systems are down for maintenance. Pick up locally, of course.

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[Co-opski]

It sounds like you have a plan, post some pictures up when you have it done. I have some friends in Seward harvesting rain for their gray water system in their home. They have two tanks one 1000 gal for the rain gray water and one 500 gal for potable drinking water that they truck in. This system in heated with wood and oil and built under their house for use in the winter months. Many people here don't have water for the winter months or any at all. It has to do more with the cost of wells and ground water quality vs the amount of rain we get. +150 inches a year, this year it is looking more like 200-250 inches.

 

[Brian McVickers]

I'd say that using the roof to collect the water and route it to a tank is your best bet. Not sure if the Houses in HI have sisterns but in St. Croix almost every house is built on top of a 10 - 30K gallon water tank. Water is collected from rooftops and collection awnings.