Rain water collection

[teamnelson]

In bad weather, the fresh water system on island can go out. So as an experiment, my son and I jimmied a quick rain barrel together just to measure how much water we'd get. We took the mandatory bright yellow recycling can from the old failed state program and fed one of the drainpipes into it, lashed it with bungee cords. No valves or filters - just an experiment. The barrel is on wheels so we figure we could tear it down in a jiffy if need be.

My wife laughed, I mean how much could you really hope to get? We filled up a 45 gal barrel overnight with normal winter rainfall. That was just one of 4 drainpipes off a 50x30' (1500) roof. I'm sold. If you find the food grade blue barrels free, and know how to use basic tools, you can set up a permanent cachement with a screen for the big chunks, overflow, and a spigot. I figure two of those on the back of the house (don't want to ruin curb appeal) could give me 100+ gallons of renewable fresh water. I'd be fine drinking it, but a little chlorine wouldn't hurt, or boil it if it smelled funny.

Here's a how-to: http://www.cityofbremerton.com/content/sw_makeyourownrainbarrel.html

[mannyrock]

  Team Nelson,

      The standard way to provide for fresh drinking water throughout the Mid-South and Appalachians for more than a 100 years was to build a cistern, and keep it full by diverting rain water into it from the roof.

       When I lived in Memphis, I met dozens of people who were born and raised in rural Mississippi in the 1950s, who all said that that is how they got all of their fresh water growing up, and they never got sick from drinking it.  No chlorene or other chemical was ever added to the water.

        If you drive through small southern towns in the mountains of Virginia, you will see lots of old homes, where this system was plainly in effect.

    This system was popular in areas where the soil was so very sandy that you couldn't hand dig a decent well, or so rocky that it was impossible to hand dig a well.

     A cistern is nothing but a round or square concrete vault, built underneath the ground about 6 feet from the side of the house.  It has a removeable concrete cover (at ground level for cleaing the whole thing out once in a while).  It also had a round spout hole for filling it up, with a small cover over that as well.

    The roof from which you get your water has to be metal.  Nothing else will do.

    The guys who grew up with this system said that keeping the cistern full was assigned to one kid in the family about 10 years old.   The gutter spout on the side of the house was not kept hooked up to the cistern. It was made so that you could swing it out from the house, and then have it pour down into the cistern.

    Whenever it rained really hard, it was the kid's job to wait five minutes (to let all of the bird poop wash off of the roof), and then run out in the rain to the side of the house,  remove the small cover over the fill pipe, and swing the gutter spout out from the side of the house so that it lined up over the fill pipe, to let the cistern fill up.  The water in the cistern was then pumped into the house with hand pumps or electric pumps.
 
   If that cistern ever ran dry though negligence of the kid, . . . he got the tar beat out of him!

Regards,

Mannyrock
       

[teamnelson]

The good old days I would think that growing up that way would create a conservationist mind set for clean water.

Just heard Mexico City is on water rationing, no water 3 days a month. Folks are freaking out - 20 million of them. Place used to look like Venice.

[Winter Hawk]

A cistern of some sort is the standard water system for most folks in SE Alaska.  When I lived in Ketchikan, we owned a duplex with a 10,000 gallon fiberglass tank fed off the roof.  Every week I would dump a cup of Clorox in.  Had a shallow well pump and pressure tank to provide water pressure.  We did fine except during the summer when the rains slowed down, and then I could count on needing two or three 3500 gallon loads of water be delivered.  For the rest of the year it was fine for two families.

The roof was three tab shingles.  I was up there at least monthly to spray the moss with bleach.

-WH-

[Oldshooter]

In the 50's my Grandparents had a cistern that was fed from the roof and was elevated and that also was the source of pressure. That water was cold even in the hot summers of Louisiana. 

[efremtags]

if you wan potable water, you should consider your roof material. Asphalt is a cancer casing material. Metal is best or a green roof (grass on your roof) is an option. I think the green roofs require a very shallow pitch, usualy near flat. I have seen several on the green network. they use a light substrate like a lava rock for drainage.

[Cornbelt]

Around here we can figure on getting 30" of rain a year, but in some places, it is near impossible to get a good well, so cisterns have been used in the past, though now it is easier to get county water and avoid both expences; more grid. But another alternative an uncle used in "poor well country" was to hire a trackhoe to dig a pit in a natural hollow and fill it full of gravel. Cost was about as much as a drilled well, but he has never gone dry yet. Two-family system and they even filled a swimming pool by letting the tap run three days. Might be worth considering.

[Ahshucks]

Nice video on this rain barrel construction:

http://rainbarrels.info/

[Hairtrigger]

In January I worked in Australia for a week. Many of the houses in the country had large tanks (10000 + gallon) in the yard. It was explained to me that if you have your own well the govt will put a water meter on it and you end up paying for water out of your own well!

[Oldshooter]

There is rumor that is in the forecast for Texas. We have plenty here in the east but the west seems to be on permanent drought!