When you pay for your water, you garden, you are in a drought, and the water company is requesting a large rate increase, a rainwater collection system is suddenly very appealing. Our collection system involves collecting the rain water that falls on the roof of our house. It uses the existing gutter and down spouting system. You really can't tell that we are doing anything different by just looking at the house.
The down spouting then runs into PVC pipe and then to the tank. Our pipe is buried, but I have seen systems that simply attached the pipe around the foundation of the house. In my opinion, having PVC wrapped around your house is not all that attractive, but it does save you from digging up your yard. The PVC runs to the tank and fills from the top. The other PVC is the overflow pipe for when the tank is full. We've talked about creating a small duck pond at the end of this pipe.
Our tank is about 2000 gallons. Probably more than we need, but this is a tank that we already had. It is what we used before we had water lines to our house. No, it is not exactly attractive either, but it is out of the main view of the house, tucked in some trees by the rabbit hutches. We don't have neighbors, so who is going to complain? A small building is also planned for the area in front of the hutches. That will help hide the tank even more.
Does it work? I tried to find how much rain we've gotten in the past few days. According to one source, it has been less than 1/4 an inch. It seems to me that we have gotten more than that, but I don't have a rain gauge up. Let's be generous and say we've gotten double that; an 1/2 inch. From those rains we have collected over four hundred gallons of water.
Our system is not yet complete. A small pump still needs to be added. That will enable us to easily get the water up to the garden. Currently the water would have to be hauled by bucket to the garden. We may use the water for more than just the garden too. I'm thinking of it for the animals, the kid's sprinkler, and I'm wondering if I could finagle the hose up to the washer for laundry.
*Update*
The down spouting then runs into PVC pipe and then to the tank. Our pipe is buried, but I have seen systems that simply attached the pipe around the foundation of the house. In my opinion, having PVC wrapped around your house is not all that attractive, but it does save you from digging up your yard. The PVC runs to the tank and fills from the top. The other PVC is the overflow pipe for when the tank is full. We've talked about creating a small duck pond at the end of this pipe.
Our tank is about 2000 gallons. Probably more than we need, but this is a tank that we already had. It is what we used before we had water lines to our house. No, it is not exactly attractive either, but it is out of the main view of the house, tucked in some trees by the rabbit hutches. We don't have neighbors, so who is going to complain? A small building is also planned for the area in front of the hutches. That will help hide the tank even more.Does it work? I tried to find how much rain we've gotten in the past few days. According to one source, it has been less than 1/4 an inch. It seems to me that we have gotten more than that, but I don't have a rain gauge up. Let's be generous and say we've gotten double that; an 1/2 inch. From those rains we have collected over four hundred gallons of water.
Our system is not yet complete. A small pump still needs to be added. That will enable us to easily get the water up to the garden. Currently the water would have to be hauled by bucket to the garden. We may use the water for more than just the garden too. I'm thinking of it for the animals, the kid's sprinkler, and I'm wondering if I could finagle the hose up to the washer for laundry.
*Update*
We've been using this system for almost two years now. At the end of the overflow pipe we put an old barrel cut in half long ways. It serves as a watering trough for the animals in the pasture. We also attached the pump and are able to water the garden and most of the livestock with this collected water. We do need to add a small amount of bleach to the tank every so often to keep the algae from growing. This system has worked out wonderfully!
How do you keep twigs and bugs and things like that out of the tank? Do you have trouble with mosquitos breeding in the tank? My husband and I had these issues when we attempted rain water collection. I imagine a 2000 gallon tank is pretty hard to clean if there are problems.
ReplyDeleteHow do you keep twigs and bugs and things like that out of the tank? Do you have trouble with mosquitos breeding in the tank? My husband and I had these issues when we attempted rain water collection. I imagine a 2000 gallon tank is pretty hard to clean if there are problems.
ReplyDeleteJessin,
ReplyDeleteWe have gutter guards on the gutters so that keeps out twigs of any size. Small things do still get through, but for the purpose of feeding animals and watering the garden it really isn't a problem. As for mosquitoes breeding, I haven't noticed that being a problem either maybe from adding the bleach to the water?