rain water collection system

[DieselPower]

I got one of those 500 gallon tanks from TSC a couple of years ago and stuck it on one of the down spouts on the garage. A good rain fills it up in as little as 15-30 minutes. I'm planning on getting a 2,000 tank next year and installing a pump on it (using buckets currently). If I get a chance tomorrow I'll take a picture of what I have now.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

What keeps the stored water from becoming stagnant or green with algae?

 

[Tororider]

I will second the searching craigslist. I was able to find a 425 tsc model pickup bed tank for I think $75. We don't have a well at the property yet so we filled it at my parents and brought it out in the truck to water newly planted evergreens, about 700 of them. This spring I hope to put some gutters on our 80x30 pole barn, shouldn't take but a bit of rain to fill the tank with that square footage. I would like to make an underground system, we will see. I love this thread.

 

[Ranger Rick]

Here is a link to our local Virginia Soil and Water conservation district "Homeowners manual to collecting and utilizing rainfall runoff". http://www.tjswcd.org/rooftopmanual.pdf
You can get .62 gallons of water from every square foot of you house. It adds up fast. It is no wonder some people have large cisterns instead of rainbarrels.

 

[sodamo]

Catchment is the way of life for us. We have 2 systems. The small house has a 3000 gal tank, the new house has 4 tanks ganged together (4K each, 16K total). We have metal roofs, the tanks are food grade poly. Use a series of filters, sedimentary and carbon before line comes into house.

This is our only water, including drinking as municipal water isn't available. Of course we normally get 100 plus inches of rain per year, so supply isn't a great concern.

Here is a great publication, kinda our "bible" hereabouts:
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/RM-12.pdf

David

 

[coppertop808]

Wow! Great info sodamo and Ranger Rick. Thanks!

To add my short story.. We had an old plastic 55 gallon drum sitting in the garage for a couple of years so I finally put it to good use catching rain water from one downspout not too far from our small garden. It worked great and as others said, it doesn't take much rain to fill it up. I simply put in a faucet at the bottom, hooked a hose to it and let it gravity feed to the garden (about 2' drop). About $10 worth of parts and little labor gave us a good backup for dry spells (which here in TN was allot this year!). My wife thought it was ugly at first until she saw the beauty of having good rain water for the garden. The plants seem to respond to it even better than using the well water. After the success of having this very simple system, I plan on investing more time/money into a bigger/better system to be able to water the garden, blueberry bushes, grass, etc...

I was excited to see this thread as I'm always wanting to do more 'green' projects around the house. I find the more 'green' we go at our house, the more self sufficient we become and the better we feel about our impact on the world... great thread guys!