Water Collection System for the Meadows & Makers Challenge and Earthdeeds
Without water, what are we? We had to figure it out living off-grid!
Sometime this passed spring we needed to figure out a way to catch some of the rain that came down, and of course I posted on our little DiY Rainwater Catchment System.
I can show you briefely how it was made but I would like to explain a little more of how we're using this system after a few months...
Let's start with the video:
It's really just a 55 gallon drum, one of those blue plastic barrels that are supposed to be food grade (safe to store food or liquids for human consumption).
With a little gorilla tape, black irrigation tubing, a plastic bottle and tulle from our wedding in true DiY and upcycling fashion I made a rainwater catchment system out. And best of all I never had to go to the store!!!
Our trailer has these little gutters all around, so we just used those to catch the water from our roof.
Tubing goes in the barrel with some more tulle and voilà.
It was only supposed to be a test, but it worked really well for us for the last 6 months so,we didn't improve on it
Catching water and using it.
We had no money for a well (we still don't 😉) but when the water storage tank in the trailer had run out, I thought we'd pump water from our rain harvest into the into it.
At first we got one of those hand pumps but it didn't work very well, so instead I ran new hose from the trailer to our blue barrel, I fugured why not use that as an external water tank? No need ro spend extra energy moving water from one tank ro another. And we were collecting water in two other 55 gallon drums from the same gutters on onther parts of the trailer.
These were simply placed under the gutters where I didn't need to build any DiY funnel like we did for our first barrel. They are also wide open, someone had cut off their tops, we just added tulle over it to act as a filter.
We use the water for:
- Showers
- Washing dishes
- Cooking
- Irrigation
One of our barrels is fitted with a hose at the bottom that goes into our tomato garden, though it rained most of the summer!
It was built to be a shower but you know, things don't go always as planned!
When we went to Puerto Rico we were drinking the rainwater after passing it through a burkey filter but we never got one for our property so we get our drinking water from the store or local springs.
We were able to collect eight 5 gallon jugs, the kind you see upside down on a water dispenser and that's what we fill from springs or a store that uses reverse osmosis. It's worked really well for us thus far, but I would like to make a better system after the winter!
Thanks to the crew at Makers & Meadows and @offgrid-online for putting this challenge together and once again here's the link to challenge number 3: Rain Water Collection + Storage + Usage System
Spread your wings and fly to where your heart takes you.
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!help.Very helpful, thanks
Very inventive! It's amazing how much rainwater you can catch off a roof line. I prefer the soft rainwater for washing in and my plants seem to like it better than the well water although it's more work hauling it. I've got to put a hose in some of our rain barrels for some spots I can gravity feed it to the garden. Do you have any problem with it plugging up from debrie washing off the roof?
No I've had no problems because it's filtered by a couple pieces of tulle over the opening. It's only enoying when I need water from the top of the barrel. I attatched it with a bungee cord to make it a little easier to put on and off.
Gravity works 😁, thank you
Yep! I think I'll have do put that in the plans for next season. Thanks for the tip about the bungee cord!
You're welcome. It works pretty well as long as you don't need to use that water too mamy times a day. It just gets a little enoying to put back on after a while
Practical. Functional. Works for me. Maybe buy a good filter for next step. Nice post.
Yep we're thinking about a filter for sure!
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This is awesome. Love the resourcefulness! How do you troubleshoot freezing in the winter? We have considered a travel trailer or 5th wheel till we build structures, but hear all the time from people how freezing pipes is an issue in winter. I'd love to know how you combat this!
Fantastic work. 🤩
Very practical. Do you have any algae growing in the barrel during the summer? I've got some sodium chlorite to treat water, it is a cheap way to sanitize a lot of water quickly and it breaks down into sodium chloride. I've never tried drinking the treated water though.
We do have a little, but it rained so much we used the water as if we had an unlimited suply! It didn't get bad enough to worry about, and it didn't smell bad.
We also didn't drink it u less it was boiled for coffee or making pastas and things like that. We will have to keep it im mind cleaning the water for next year.
Thanks for that, it reminds me I had to look this up at some point
Let me know if you want help calculating the right dose for chlorite. It is potentially harmful if you use too much. There is also a lot of misinformation and quackery about it, which makes it hard to find good advice.
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Nice setup man.... easy, simple and effective.
Top marks.
Thanks! It works, however next year I'd like to have it all propped up so we can use gravity instead of a pump.
A simple basic, but quite functional system.
Yeah it's pretty simple right
Simplicity is the best thing most of the time.
I have one rain barrel to water the garden that just sits out in the open, and it still stays nearly full. Well this summer it did.
For drinking and washing I just set some buckets under the eaves. I have plenty of water. I run this through Berkey for drinking.
My Grandma had a cistern, That might make sense for a permanent abode.