Movable Rainwater Collection System for the Garden and Emergency Supply

The value of clean water is never truly appreciated until you are without this precious resource. I emphasize the word “clean”, because the water most of us get from a municipal source is anything but. Just taking into account the chemicals like fluoride and chloramines, which are intentionally added to the water supply, is enough to motivate the use of water filtration devices.

Even well water is not safe from contamination due to natural or man-made events.

For years, I’ve been filtering my family’s drinking water with a reverse osmosis (RO) system. But what about water for the veggie garden?

Chlorine compounds added to kill any potentially bad bugs in drinking water adversely affect the good microbes in the soil. Our plants and trees depend on this good microbial activity for healthy growth. A soil depleted of these microbes would require increased fertilizing just to keep plants on life support.

SOLUTION

Capturing rainwater for household use is nothing new. Been done for thousands of years. What is new are asphalt shingles and building codes, which make a straightforward thing like collecting rain a little complicated. So to overcome these obstacles, I decided to build a movable rainwater catchment system.

The surface area was simple enough:

(3) 26” x 8’ Corrugated steel roof panels…

…overlap and attached to a rectangular frame made from some scrap pressure treated lumber…

(2) 2x4 x 5’
(2) 2x4 x 6’

…using (6) #10 x 1-1/2” Hex screws with neoprene washer

The area of this surface is 68” x 96” or about 45 sqft

So, for every inch of rain that falls, the system should catch 28 gallons (45 x 0.625 gal per sqft per inch of rain = 28) of water.

The gutter is needed to direct the water toward a single location where it can fall or be further directed to a container. A small hole was cut at one end of the gutter for the downspout and then attached to the side of the frame on a slight decline so the rain will run toward the spout. End caps were attached and sealed using marine silicon.

As trial run, I used a cattle panel bent into the shape of a horseshoe to elevate the frame above a 55 gal barrel. No engineering training whatsoever. Amazing, huh…huh? eek!

In early summer we got heavy rains and this barrel filled up after about a day and a half.

Success!

It continued to rain for another day and a half and I watched powerlessly as the barrel overflowed with the precious rainwater spilling onto the lawn.

I NEED A MUCH LARGER CONTAINER!

I ordered a 275 gallon food-grade IBC tote from a company I found on craigslist. The cost was $135 delivered, plus another $20 for the garden hose adapter. It arrived clean, triple-rinsed and ready for action!

To build a support for the roof, I used a couple of 2x10 planks - each one about 5-¾ ft long with 5” diameter holes cut throughout (scrap from another project.) The 5” holes came in handy and allowed me to thread the flex spout through the plank and over to the opening of the container.

I attached the roof frame to the planks using (4) 2” tie brackets then placed on top of the IBT container.

I covered the opening of the container with a 10”x23” fine mesh bag I picked up at a nearby home brew store, held in place with a #104 hose clamp. This is to keep bugs and debris out of the tank.

The final step is to attached the flex spout to the gutter and position the other end over the container opening.

Using a level to ensure the flow of water will be from the roof to the gutter, from the gutter to the downspout and from the flex spout to the container opening.

NOW DO A RAIN DANCE!

After a day of rain, a little over 30 gallons in the new container.

Using this water for the garden should be fine as-is. But if some emergency results in the need to drink it, additional filtering will be done.

Happy Hydrating!