Rainwater storage (pics)

There are several ways to handle your grey-water, the most simple being a difuser pipe/hose being run below the soil surface.

Another way, which also treats the grey-water effectively, is to first run it through a series of several small ponds, tanks, or old bath tubs that contain plants that filter the water. There are a number of reed species that are excellent for this purpose, and water hyacinths are also an attractive option. (I think James Dilley has them in his water barrels.) Duckweed is another good filter which also has the capacity to remove a certain ammount of heavy metals from the water.

Properly treated grey-water can safely be used on fruit trees and vegetable gardens, though maybe you might not want to use it for root crops such as carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips, etc.

I advocate the use of grey water in this manner, regardless of whether there is a drought or not.

Almost forgot - you can also use the grey-water to fill the cisterns of flush toilets, thus saving more drinking water from mis-use.

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BIDADISNDAT: Aiming to Live a Good Life of Near Self Sufficiency on a Permaculture Based Organic Home Farm

There is a lot of information available on this topic. I’ve been reading about this quite a bit, and it doesn’t seem like it is all that complicated to set up a good system. My primary interest is in a drinking water safe system. Obviously, a system just used for irrigation would be even simpler. Here are two sites I’ve found that should give you a good foundation of information if you want to pursue this further.

The first is a research article and is a bit detailed, but at the end it has a lot of recommendations about how to set up and maintain a system that is safe for drinking water. The first half is interesting too, because it talks about what they found when they surveyed existing systems in an area where there are lots of them in use. The article is at:

http://www.vwrrc.vt.edu/pdf/sp3-1998.pdf

The other site is one home owners experience in setting up rainwater collection system. He had his system certified by the county where he lives. He gives a detailed explanation of a 1500 gallon cistern collection system that incorporates all the primary features for a whole house use rain water collection system.

http://ersson.sustainabilitylane.com/rainwatr.htm

He says it cost him about $1500. The only thing I see that I would do differently is have a larger roofwasher system. I think the recommendation is 10 gallons /1000 sq. ft. his is only 7.5 gallons total. But you could just replace his pipe system with a 50 gallon rain barrel and be safe.

We bought that style of tank, only 1550 gallons, when the local Fleet Farm had them on sale. On advice from a friend with a similar tank, we painted it with 2 coats of latex exterior paint. Should extend the life of the tank, and help reduce algae. Our present tanks are an open top 200 gallon plastic tank, and a 500 gallon stainless steel bulk mulk tank that we got free (years ago) from a dairy farm that replaced theirs. The covered stainless tank doesn't get much algae, but the open tank gets pretty green, but then we only use the water for garden and other outdoor uses. The new tank is uphill, collecting water from a different roof, the hope is that we can gravity feed water to the orchard and garden, using buried pipe and drip irrigation. I decided, after testing emittors, that the low pressure the system will provide should be adequate for drip irrigation purposes.

Neat looking system. Thanks for sharing the pics.

That looks great, John!

I've been trying to get my husband to set up something like that for a while. I'd like to set one up at the house for flushing, etc. and one down at the barn for watering the animals and garden.

Jim S., In the event of no potable water, the water in the tank would be fine for drinking after running through a Berkey.


Beth

Can I ask - what happens if the water freezes in the tank? How does that affect the plastic - meaning will it expand and shrink during freezes and thawing?

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Shinsan, can you give details for the diverter that you mentioned in your post? Thanks

Looks great!

I have been brain storming a way to do something just like you have done for a cistern. Locally a 1550 gallon tank is going to cost me about $600- plus what ever piping I need to get from the gutters to the tank. As you said the peace of mind will be worth the cost. So far this year we are at a 22 inch deficit of rain and I worry about the well running dry . My pond is already bone dry.

Thanks for the pics!

heres a link to some good information of h2o collection

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Water/Water.htm

We have 28,000 gallons of storage. The bible for setting up a system is:

http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publicat...3rdedition.pdf

I'm trying to do draw up a diagram that I can scan and post, and am also going to the hardware store today for the parts to make a new one, which I will then photograph and also post. I'll PM you when it's done.
In the meantime, the diagram on page 9 of the Texas manual, which is referred to in YuccaFlatsRanch's post, is pretty close to my design.
BTW, I had a read of some of that manual, and it's pretty good.
Thanks for the lead YFR

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BIDADISNDAT: Aiming to Live a Good Life of Near Self Sufficiency on a Permaculture Based Organic Home Farm

I have a tank exactly like that and it has sat outside all winter without affecting it at all structurally. The outlet valve can and does freeze though. Of course it can get real cold here, but doesn't stay that way real long. One weak point on these tanks is the valve. If you leave it in the closed position, the core of the valve has water trapped in it and it will freeze and bust. For cold weather, I put a plug in the outlet and then open the valve and leave it that way thru the winter. This way if it freezes, the ice can expand into the tank.

Very interesting post...I have been think about doing this for a gray water system, just to water the lawn and garden.

As for a rain water system, what about bird droppings on the roof?

Thanks!
Clove

Clove, that's why we install first-flush diverters: the initial fall of rain washes the debris, including bird droppings, into a separate pipe/chamber, then allows clean water to run into the tank.
In outback/country Australia, nearly all of a household's water supply comes from rainwater tanks. I remember that, as a kid, we sometimes found dead birds in the tank, and many was the time we'd get a glass of water and have to take the 'wrigglers' out before drinking it. (The 'wrigglers' were actually mosquito lavae.) Dad said not to worry about the wrigglers; they were very small and didn't drink much. Now that's what's missing in your city water: Protein! LOL
I don't consider rainwater from a tank to be 'greywater'. Greywater comes from laundries and bathrooms. The water from kitchens and toilets is 'blackwater'.

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BIDADISNDAT: Aiming to Live a Good Life of Near Self Sufficiency on a Permaculture Based Organic Home Farm

This is a very interesting thread. I have been thinking about this ever since we moved to our place. My biggest concern is freezing. Can anybody who already has a water catchment system comment on this?

We catch about 5000 gals and it is our only water supply.We used the Texas codes to install it and have not regretted it one bit.All our pipes are under ground and the tank above ground won't freeze because of thermal mass.Water is an excellent holder of heat and in massive amounts will emit this heat slowly.If it is cold enough to freeze it will only freeze the top and the water in the bottom still enters the house filtering system.This is a quicky of how it works but gives you the idea.We catch 1140 gals per inch of rain and during this drought we have never run low on water.The system also causes natural conservation of water since you don't know when it will rain again or how much.Our house has 32psi water pressure.

we do run our drinking water through our Aqua Rain filter,just to be sure our small children are safe.NO additives of any kind,just good filters.

This has been working for us for two years now and I love having my own water.It never touches the ground.

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Pro Libertate!

I thought I'd include a photo of our water tank system, since so many are interested in this topic. This the back of the house, with each gutter going into separate tanks. The first pipe going down to the ground is the roof washer which cleans the roof, before the rain starts going into the tanks. We also have leaf guards on the gutters and sediment and charcoal filters that the water goes through before coming into the house. Then we use an Aqua Rain (like a Berkey) for bottling up our drinking water. Everyone who has tasted our water loves it.

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Pro Libertate!

Backwoods, is the pipe coming out from the side, going up, over and down to the base, the overflow?

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BIDADISNDAT: Aiming to Live a Good Life of Near Self Sufficiency on a Permaculture Based Organic Home Farm

Yes, it is. We are going to hook up another tank to this one soon, to catch the overflow. For now, we let it fill up containers for the dogs and cats to drink.

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Pro Libertate!

Wonderful post, thanks for the pics!

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