Converting Rain Water to Drinking Water

[Wagtail]

Nah.....you're using too hot water....or it's those cheap Vietnamese sheets...

I wish, Mate. Top of the line 1600 thread count "bamboo" linen. I never had the problem whilst living on the mainland on 'town water'.

However, you could be right on the hot water temp... I had to replace the hot water heater a couple of years back so, perhaps the 'warm' setting on my washing machine is too hot due to the hot water supply.

 

[/pine]

...I had to replace the hot water heater a couple of years back...

How hot do you need it??

 

[npalen]

Always drink upstream from the herd.

 

[Gunny]

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Yeah, but how do you know for sure that you're upstream from ALL the herds?

 

[Garandman]

You can buy pH testers inexpensively and litmus paper for even less.

 

[oldballs]

If you catch rain water off the roof, the gutters would be full of bird poop, especially if there are many trees around. Starlings by the hundreds and many Robins and other birds perch on the gutter edge and sometimes take a drink for themselves. Such water would definitely need to be treated with some kind of antimicrobial agent...........just sayin'. I've drunk that city water as well as many city dwellers who live into a ripe old age............It can't be that unhealthy even though it would taste different that other "natural" sources of water......Detroit being a possible exception.

 

[MossRoad]

If you catch rain water off the roof, the gutters would be full of bird poop, especially if there are many trees around. Starlings by the hundreds and many Robins and other birds perch on the gutter edge and sometimes take a drink for themselves. Such water would definitely need to be treated with some kind of antimicrobial agent...........just sayin'. I've drunk that city water as well as many city dwellers who live into a ripe old age............It can't be that unhealthy even though it would taste different that other "natural" sources of water......Detroit being a possible exception.

Detroit's water is fine.... its what Flint was using before the fiasco. They switched back to Detroit water.

 

[TnAndy]

I've set up a couple off grid water catchment systems for folks. They are some complex pre-filter systems (Vortex filters) that separate out the first few gallons from the roof and gutters, those having the most leaves and bird poop, but we simply used a 6" PVC T turned sideways....the upper part being the inlet from the gutters, the lower part being a 'trap' that catches the first few gallons (you can extend that with pipe as much as you want to trap in terms of gallons), and the side part of the tee leading into the tank.

A hose bib is mounted in the trap part, and left cracked open so it drains the tee slowly between rains and leaves it ready to receive water at the next rain. Also a plug clean-out at the bottom of the trap lets you remove collected stuff from time to time.

After the first few gallons, the tee fills (hose bib is running real slow) and spills over into the tank. You still want to filter and sterilize tank water. We used a 12v pressure pump, a T in the line with one line going out to water garden/etc (unfiltered), the other to a whole house filter with a 5 micron element, then a UV sterilizer light rated for 5gal/min. You end up with real clean water.

 

[5030]

Detroit's water is fine.... its what Flint was using before the fiasco. They switched back to Detroit water.

Not exactly. Seems there is questionable levels of lead in the water of quite a few Michigan water supplies (and Ohio). What happened was they had Detroit water and Detroit Water and Sewerage adds phosphates to the water which coats old lead pipes and keeps them from leeching. Flint switched to Flint River water which was more corrosive and flint never added the phosphates so the pipes started leeching lead. Then They switched back to (Detroit) water but the damage was already done.

Who is to blame? You decide. If the Flint water department had added the phosphate in the first place, there would have never been an issue.

 

[5030]

We have a high level of calcium in out well water which is not conducive for washing equipment or cars so I got 2 empty IBC totes from the shop and I run the gutters on the shop into them with leaf strainers in line and use that for equipment washdown. Works real well. We used to have a cistern in the basement for roof rainwater but we never drank it, Just used it for washing clothes and bathing. Rainwater is excellent for that. Sometimes I wish we still used it instead of a well.