A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 Collecting Rainwater

I live in Southern California, the land of green-green lawns and 7-day-a-week sprinklers, and frankly, I hate the idea of watering. But hey, it's a desert, and if you want non-desert palnts, you gotta water, right?

So I've read about systems where you can catch rainfall off you roof in a big vat, and use it for watering, and I love that idea. But I don't have the first clue how to go about it.

For example, would it even work in LA, where it rains maybe twice a year?

Is the system something a do-it-yourselfer could set up?

Would it be better (or even possible) to use it in conjunction with a drip-irrigation system?

How much space would such a system require?

If I were going to put up a retaining wall, and have plantings on the higher and lower levels, should I put the more water-greedy plants on the higher level, or the lower, or would it matter?

Sorry if I sound like an idiot. If anyone has any info, I'd love to hear it.

I know of a house here that has a cistern system like you were talking about. Here's how it works: Most houses have gutters which collect water at the edge of the roof and channel it down a pipe. Usually the pipe dumps out at the base of the house somewhere, but in this system the pipe leads to a closed barrel so the water collects there. The barrels have a spigot so that a garden hose can be attached.

If you wanted to make a similar system, I guess all you'd have to do is divert the pipe into a closed container, it doesn't have to be a barrel but it must be closed so that you don't lose your water to evaporation. It also might be more useful if you can rig soem convenient way to get the water back out since the barrel could get quite full. A spigot, or a plug that could be pulled out would work well.

As for whether it would work in LA, all I can say is that it works here in Kentucky but we get a lot more rainfall than you guys.

*smile*
applescruff

I found a picture but it's a bit hard to see. Here's the link anyway:

http://www.berea.edu/sens/ecovillage/senshouse.asp

If you look at the picture of the house toward the top of the page, you'll see a door and to the left of the door, there is a black barrel. You can see where the gutter pipe runs down the side of the house (between the door and the barrel) and then jumps over to the top of the barrel.

Hope this helps!

geegeeburr....I personally don't think we get enough rain for that but who knows .... I have heard you can hook up your kitchen sink, bathroom sinks etc. to some system and reuse the water from it. There is some kind of a diverter thing~a~ma~jig under the sink you can switch it to divert from going into whatever system to store water and go straight down the drain....if you have soapy water, dishwasher going, etc. you just flip the switch. Thinking pretty expensive to set up but can't remember for sure.
We have had enough water the last couple days to fill several barrels full....but how long would that water stay good???

Hey, Apple, thanks for the link! That barrel doesn't look too large- it might actually fit where I was thinking to put one.

Catlover- I love the idea of using household water, too. Will have to look into that system. You wouldn't happen to know who makes that would you? Well, I'll try Googling it. Thanks!

geegee....sorry...not a clue...suprised I remembered that much about it!

Hi GG,
we're in a pretty dry place here too and a rainwater tank is great. It's not the number of times a year you get rain, it's the total rainfall and the amount of roof area you use to catch it and the volume of storage space. The average house, if an inch of rain falls, will lose a couple of thousand litres of water that just went down the drain. It's common here for people to have raintank. Mine is 10'000 litres. (3000 gallons) is 3m across and 2.4metres high. See foto.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/m.longstaff/dam.jpg
(Not the dam, have a look at the shed behind it.)
Because it's only getting the water off my shed it takes 12 inches of rain to fill it. My house would fill the same size tank on about 3-4 inches of rain. Not much is it.
A barrel is a bit of a waste of time unless you get regular rainfall to top it up. Go with more volume. Barrels can harbour mozzies and get abit smelly because they're not real big.
There are some clever designs about if you're short of space. One is a tank which is rectangular and fits under the eaves of a house. You can join another one on the end and another one to that etc. Also a tank on a stand is good esp if the roof is high like a 2 story house. You get a shady cool area underneath and you get water pressure for nothing. Google rain water tanks.

Oh by the way, plant the water lovers to the bottom of the retainer and the dry tolerant plants to the top. Water goes down.
If you do go with a water bucket-barrel-tank-whatever, remember that when it's full the water needs to drain away. So if you have underground stormwater pipes or whatever the container needs to overflow into this as it was originally. You basically just interrupt the flow with a tank then when it fills it goes to where it did before. Look closely at my foto. You'll see there are 2 pipes coming in to the top off the roof and a pipe coming down the side which goes out . That vertical one is the overflow(it goes to my dam actually but that's got another overflow pipe too)
Get the picture? Goodonya!

I should mention that the house in the link I sent you actually has two or three barrels on different sides of the house. Also, the house is on a college campus so the water gets used a lot for landscaping and for gardens. We also have a similar system on one of the academic buildings, it provides all the water to the toilets in the building and for much of the landscaping on the main part of campus.

applescruff

Thanks, guys, excellent information!
I'm particularly interested to learn about these rectangular collection systems, since I have very little space. Longy, by the looks of your pix, I'm guessing my entire property would probably fit in your driveway. About 5000 square feet, house and yard together.

Also Longy, thanks for answering my stupid question about which to plant on the top level. (I actually knew that water goes down. I just thought that maybe the plants on top would suck up all the water so nothing went to the bottom. I'm glad to know that this isn't the case.)

Apple, that's a pretty excellent setup they have there. I'm sure it must be fascinating to see everything they have set up.

I live on a block that is a little over 1/4 acre and I have manage to collect over 30,000 litres of rainwater.

I live in a fairly low rainfall area of Western Australia with probably less that the rainfall in your area, and yet even in bad rain years I can still fill my tanks.

I understand that the run-off from a house is 12 litres per square foot per 1 ml (25ml to the inch).

Don't know what you pay for water in the US but it is becoming an expensive and rare commodity in WA.

Cheers,

Trot

Cheers,

Trot

Well if you were using an environmentally safe detergent for dishwashing soap, maybe you could save that - any rinsewater too.

Water is just one more resource we ought to conserve.

I usually leave a bucket out when I know it's going to rain - I just tilt it slightly and put it up against the fence or a tree.

I keep little jugs in the crooks of trees.

And you know what - if you have snow, put buckets out now - line the fence with them - the snow will collect and come spring you've got lots of water to use.

Mosquitoes? I put lemon in the water - bugs don't like lemon - I haven't seen 'em around any of my jugs.

Like I said in a another post, I also save my tea water - plants like tea - it's the tannim they like.

i don't quite remember where the post was, but some time ago, one of our members set up a system of barrels that they had made to put the water in. the way it worked, they used large heavy duty trash barrels, went to the local home improvement store and bought plastic taps for the bottom, ran "connector pipe" for the tops and away they went. i'll try to get a diagram and/or find the original post to update you on it. but they way they kept the skeeters out (and flying debris) was to make "screen mesh" tops for the barrels.

I collected rain water and used inbetween rains last year by just dipping with a bucket into the barrel. I also use to run off from my airconditioning unit. It alone will water my entire veggie garden.