It isn't like I have not been gathering rain water for years. I just have not been doing it in 'serious mode'. But it is time. I have some repairs to do on my roofs and gutters to replace, so it is about time to make the plan on how much and where. The old ice chest and 5 gallon buckets just are not enough.
As an experiment, I placed a three gallon bucket under one of my down spouts that is barely hanging on. This one is so bad off that it only grabs about 30% of the water pouring out. To top it off, the gutter is such a mess that it only catches about 20% of the roof run off. You can see how important this project is going to be. There was a good storm heading my way so I set the bucket up, in it's almost non-functional position and watch for it to fill. Can I tell you that I didn't have to watch for long. The rain hit, pretty steady and some what hard. With in 3 minutes the 3 gallons bucket was full. I now know, for certain, that I always loose most of the rain with over flow.
I know that I should be starting at the top and working my way down, but the gutter issue is going to be a bit difficult, and plenty annoying. The current, really non-functional and poorly designed gutters are built into the frame of the porches. So I will have to find a way to attached the new gutters to the roof, with an extended piece of metal to reach over a narrow opening of the current gutter. AND - the roof is corrugated. It will be a real project just to find the answer and I am more than willing to accept any and all suggestions.
Note the 3/4 inch opening for rain flow.
Who does that?! Not cool.
Also note that it fills with debris which is impossible to remove.
Unless you have hours every month to mess with it.
With this construction, how would I add a functional gutter?
So I will start with the planning of rain barrel placements and decide on just how much rain I want to hold on to. I am often unrealistic and sometimes a bit greedy when it comes to what I would like to be prepared with. My ideal number, in my head anyway, is 1,000 gallons. The cost of storage containers is the only thing that will prevent this since we get a nice amount of precipitation each year. My little experiment with gathering a mere 3 gallons was very encouraging. The monthly cost of water is pretty high so having a garden is a bit expensive for what we yield. With this much stored water, we could use some of it during the dry season and feel that the gardening is worth the reduced cost.
I have two buildings with pitch roofs so I hope to set up four storage tanks. That's easy enough. But what is the right kind for me? This is sort of confusing. Do I go with a galvanized steel storage? Or the polyethylene tanks? A larger number of 50 gallon type plastic drums? (It'll take a lot of those drums to make it to 1000 gallons) There is the weather to consider also. We do have some pretty serious freezing here during the middle of winter. I don't want to worry about tank damage or drains and fixtures leaking. And there is the cost to figure in. I don't have a money tree that is sprouting dollars so there is a budget here. I don't want it to take 20 years to recoup my cost, only to have the tanks ready for replacement. There's a lot to consider.
Here's where I reach out and say that I will take any and all advise on this subject.
I have found a site that seems to be pretty complete with great advise. On Harvest H2O, I found a great run down of tanks. In a simple language that I could understand. Unfortunately it does not help with the weather questions. Calling local stores who 'specialize' in rain harvesting, I get the guys who want to sell more than help. Not happy with that thus far.
So this is just the beginning. The thoughts are here and I will be continuing to fill you in as I go.
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