[Water] Rainwater Collection

RedStateGreen · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:57 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

I feel like a noob at this ... I just got my rain barrel array hooked up today. It comes to 275 gallons, but I also have a 950 gallon fish pond out front if worst came to worst, and another ten in the storm room. Would only get the five of us through a weekend with no water, but it's a start.

I also got some plans for making some larger redwood tanks, sort of like huge rain barrels. This would be perfect for my area (gated, HOA, yanno)... sort of stealth water collection Rolling Eyes

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PeakOiler · Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:38 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

BobWallace · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 01, 2007 Posts: 187

I grew up in East Tennessee and until I was in high school we relied on rainwater collected on the roof and stored in an underground cistern.

The gutters fed into a "cleaning box"which was a poured concrete box, about 2'x3'x2' deep, if I recall correctly.

Inside the box (from the top down) was a piece of screen wire (probably copper, now one might use fiberglass), then a layer of charcoal, then coarse sand, another piece of screen, and finally some medium sized gravel.

The top layer of screen caught leaves/etc., the charcoal (I assume) was to remove bad tasting things (?), the sand caught what got past the screen. The role of the gravel, I'm not sure. But passing water over a gravel bed can remove a lot of organics.

The screen had to be cleaned from time to time during the fall. And the sand was replaced, but no idea of how often.

People around here who have low flow springs as their water supply do a version of this. Usually a redwood collection box with a screen bottom (where the water seeps in) and a layer of sand on the screen. The water that makes it to the top of the sand layer is pretty sweet.

Then the water is piped into a plastic tank. The lucky ones have a spring that is higher than their house and can use gravity flow.

If you need to pump water there are 12 vdc pumps from Shurflo that can lift modest amounts of water 80 feet or so above the source. I used to run one with 100 watts of power. I could pump 500 or so gallons a day up 50 feet in the summer.

There are also some very efficient submersible low voltage DC pumps if one needs to pump higher.

(I'm currently using a Grundflos 120vac submersible to pump from my well to storage tanks about 80 feet higher than my house. That gives me 30+ psi at the house. Works well with a solar system. Low start surge and quite efficient.)

(1 foot elevation = 0.433 psi.))

Pops · Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:46 am Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

I’m sure I have posted some of this somewhere before but I’ll repost it here…

We get an average north of 35in per year here, which was one of the big reasons we chose this area. At this point we have 2 catchments, an existing stock pond about 150-200 ft diameter and no more than 3 or 4 ft, deep that many of our outbuildings drain toward, and the kitchen garden to which I have diverted runoff from the house and a couple of small buildings. Both are fed simply via grading with the tractor to create very gently sloped channels.

The garden I guess is about 200ft by 100ft and consists of about 4ft wide raised beds and about 6ft wide lowered paths, which can hold several in. of water without drowning the plants. During a couple of good storms this spring – 6in in an afternoon, the paths between beds held standing water for about 12hrs.before it seeped down. Even with that heavy a rain we saw no erosion due to the grass in the waterways.

We didn’t take a hose into the garden this year until almost August.

At first I thought I had diverted too much of the runoff that originally went to the pond toward the garden; after 2 droughty years it was almost dry last fall. The reason the pond is so important is emergency water for the animals in freezing weather. I’d rather chop ice than haul water and luckily we were able to use the generator several times during last years tough winter. But in this slightly above average year I have been renewing the channels that feed the pond and it is full to the brim.

Because it is in an unusual and precarious location – the land slopes away from it for about 300* and our climate is so variable, I am having a hard time judging exactly how much water to direct there. Luckily, the outlet is on a very gentle and mostly undisturbed original grade but if I send too much water in I think it could still be washed out.

I am trying to figure out how I can rig up the gutters from the 3 fairly large buildings that feed the pond so I can select whether the water is sent to the channels that feed the pond or divert it in another direction; because of the strange location of the pond and the fact the buildings are all on a slight rise, each could theoretically either send runoff toward the pond or away. All I gotta do is figure out how.

I have rigged the gutters on a couple of the buildings to fill water troughs for the animals, which is far and away the biggest water use we have and the least able to be interrupted. This has been successful during fair weather except I need to rig overflows to get the excess water away from the troughs.

Finally, we have a nice painted steel 40x40 shop that could be fitted to catch potable water. All the other buildings are either corrugated steel in various states of rust or comp shingles. Unfortunately, the shop is over 300ft and perhaps 10 or 15ft downhill from the house. It does have a 1-1/2in water line going to it so I suppose it wouldn’t be to hard to store water down there and pump it up here but this isn’t really very high on the list right now.
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BobWallace · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 01, 2007 Posts: 187

Why not set up an overflow system for the pond and give it all you can whenever the rain falls?

I've got a 6" flexible culvert that goes through my dam about a foot or so below the top. In the fall, before the winter rains start I lower the end of the culvert down into the pond and let the top foot or so drain off.

That means that I've got a 1' "buffer" to hold heavy rains before any water tops the dam.

The other end of the culvert takes the excess water about 20' from the dam and reduces problems around the dam.

When the spring rains slow down I raise the pond end of the culvert back up and let the pond fill for the summer.

--

How about a swale to handle your excess water? That would stick the unneeded into the aquifer.

PeakOiler · Last edited by PeakOiler on Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:34 pm; edited 1 time in total

Time for an update. I just got back from the HW290 Fence & Ranch Supply in Dripping Springs. They didn't have any 1,550 gal tanks in stock, but they will have them next week and will deliver them on Saturday, the 15th. The current price is $560 + $100 delivery charge. I bought two.

It is pouring rain as I type! Woohoo! (About time...)

Must be a karma thing...
Wink

Edit to add pic:

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Shannymara · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:58 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

PeakOiler · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:10 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

Thanks, Shanny.

What is the cost of bottled water from the grocery store? My "designer plastic water bottles" are 1550 gallons each! lol
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PeakOiler · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 6:44 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

pstarr · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:18 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

Hey PeakOiler thanks for the effort. You wouldn't have a schematic by any chance?
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PeakOiler · Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:45 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

green_achers · Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject: Re: [Water] Rainwater Collection

I'd be interested in seeing those, also.
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CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1420

I already posted this in the "today I..." thread, but I am so excited, I had to resurrect this thread too. Smile

For years I've been using rain barrels, whining about how I'd love to find a large storage tank so I could collect more rainwater.

Well today I found a 1550 gallon water tank for $300!! happy dance, happy dance.... Smile

It looks a lot like the one in your picture, PO.

Last summer we had a steel roof put on the house. Now I have to figure out how to hook the durn thing up to make it useable. (That is, after I figure out how I'm going to get the behemoth transported home. It's about an hour away...)

HELP!!
We live on the TOP of a hill... i.e., there will be no gravity flow to get water out of this thing (other than the pressure of 1500 gallons of water itself). And 1500 gallons of water weighs about 12,000 pounds. Someone help me figure out how to efficiently set this thing up so we can use the water. For now, it's not going to be plumbed into the house, but I plan to use it for my animals, garden, fruit trees, etc.

I need all the advice I can get! Smile

Thanks,
Kathy