RAINWATER COLLECTION FOR BEGINNERS | 16 Things To Know About Harvesting Rain Water BEFORE You Start
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2024
- We built an off-grid rainwater harvesting system for our remote gardens. Here's what we've learned so far. Click "SHOW MORE" for links & resources!
INSTAGRAM: @oak_abode
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0:00-0:52 - Intro
0:53-1:50 - Acidity
1:51-2:44 - Contaminants
2:45-3:45 - Minerals
3:46-4:42 - Cleanliness
4:43-5:28 - Affordability
5:29-6:13 - Reliability
6:14-7:16 - Off-Grid Compatible
7:17-8:10 - Self Sufficiency
8:11-9:48 - Scaleable
9:49-10:48 - Surface Area
10:49-11:51 - Debris
11:52-12:26 - Space Required
12:27-13:46 - Weather Dependent
13:47-14:12 - Legality
14:13-15:35 - Ingenuity
15:36-16:21 - Seasonality
16:22-17:03 - Final Thoughts
We're not experts, so we always recommend talking to the pros for the best advice. This post and comments below contain affiliate links, which may lead to a commission if purchased. This comes at no extra cost to you. Thanks!
Water is *Heavy*. 1 gallon = 8.3 lbs, so assuming your barrels are 55 gallons apiece then your weight load is 913 lbs. if you're not using treated lumber to rest your barrels on, then the water overflow can accumulate at the barrel bases and rot the wood fairly quickly. When I rebuilt my system 5 years ago (2 80-gallon barrels for total weight of about 1,328 lbs) I used treated lumber and put a vertical support post directly beneath the rain barrels, with the bottom end sitting on a concrete block.
Huh? 8.3x55=457 lbs
@@pupstermobster8567 x2 barrels
You mean 456.50= 55*8.3
What a 🤡🤫🤫🤫
We live in the mountains of West Virginia and collect rainwater for in home use year-round as well as our vegetable gardens on 2 separate systems. For our home I built an 8 X 16 X 4 foot cistern in the ground which is covered by a shed building. We lined the box with a pond liner. At full capacity it holds approximately 3500 gallons which is 3 months home usage. For the gardens I built another box the same size above ground on a platform. We drain it over winter to prevent burst pipes. The water is collected off our 650 sq ft home, a guest cottage and the cistern shed for the home. The garden water is collected off a shop roof and sawmill roof. Wasn't expensive to build, especially compared to a well and cheap to maintain and operate.
We are on a dry ridge top in Braxton county. Moved from Oregon in December. This is all new to me, but we turned the house into a collector this month. Got a couple IBC totes and push water to an older 1000 cistern. I feel we need another 2 to 3 thousand gallons of storage. Getting there slowly but surely.
How do you make the harvested water potable? Doesn’t it pick up debris etc. from your roofs? I have a WV property with no water and am looking for solutions to collect potable water.
Can you talk about the cistern? What it is made of, how you built it etc? Thx
Been thinking about a cistern. I Love all the comments and ideas here!
Are you using the water right away? If the water stays stagnant will that cause bacteria to grow in it?
Love your channel! I got into chickens this year for the first time and have enjoyed all of your videos on them. My 10 YO Grandson wanted me to raise chickens. Also have been mulling over collecting rainwater for my chickens and my garden, first year for that as well and started late this year. I just also want to say that your presentation is excellent and a joy to watch!
Where I live in South Australia, all new homes are required by law to install a rainwater tank. It's so dry here that we really benefit from collecting it. One of my friends has it plumbed into the house for general water use. They can still use mains water if the rainwater runs out, but it's great to have the option.
In fact, most of our mains water is rainwater collected in reservoirs. The ground water here is way too alkaline to drink. Some people still have their house running on bore/well water, but they can't drink it. It's still fine for cleaning but not drinking.
I hatenyou have little water, but love the government wants residents to take advantage of a natural resources that is almost free to use! In the USA, there are places where rainwater collection is illegal!! Unbelieveable!
Shouldn't it be the other way 'round ... shouldn't your friend be using mains water and if that dries up then you at least have the rain water to use in that emergency, no? To me that would make more sense.
@@realismatitsfinest5745 rainwater is hard to store long term but if you’re going through your tank often enough that’s not as much of a worry
Very few places still have rainwater prohibitions though people still find old info and repeat it.
You have a knack for reading our minds into our future homestead projects! 👍👍😍 We have a large barn next to our garden with a metal roof that we would love to start collecting rainwater from for watering the garden and we'd also like to collect rainwater from the chicken coop we just built (using your plans) so we can easily replenish the chicken's water dishes. Thank you so much for sharing. I love that you used the video format that has worked so well for your many chicken videos and we're looking forward to seeing your rainwater collection system in full swing!
Good video. We've been harvesting rainwater from our roof for at least 12 years now and storing it in plastic barrels and even garbage cans.
I use it to water our garden plants and to keep our pool filled. We have a well, and a well pump that we had no idea of the age on when we bought the house but it was clearly old. I figured why not take advantage of mother nature & gravity and extend the well pump's life while not adding to our planets pollution. 17 years after we bought the house, the pump finally died this year. We have never once put water in the pool by any other means than rain water for the last 11 years.
Love this!! ❤️ So much respect!
@@OakAbode actually, a couple things I'd like to add? One of which I'm sure you know already by seeing your video... But might be worth knowing for anyone new to rainwater harvesting.
1- Open reservoirs of water are bad. Unless youre lucky enough to live in some wonderful blessed place that doesnt have mosquitos. Mosquito "dunks" are a solution that appears to work well from my experience. Larvae will still hatch, grow, and swim around... but apparently don't live long enough to actually leave the water and become flying syringes. A better solution is to buy some window screen and use a couple bungee cords to hold the screen tightly over the open barrel ends.
Why is screen better than the dunks? Because it will also stop Eastern Gray Tree Frogs from depositing their babies in your barrel. I have 55 gallons right now that I can't use because there's a couple hundred tadpoles swimming around in it.
2- Polyfil (pillow stuffing) makes a great debris filter for anyone using their roof for collecting water. This will keep out shingle bits, leaves, seeds, and random stuff. It'll need to be changed once in a while, but Polyfil is cheap.
I have our downspout going directly into a 3 gallon bucket with Polyfil in it that hangs by two hooks from our roof eaves. The bucket has a hole in the bottom with flexible pipe caulked in place and supported by a zip tied wooden furring strip for the length that runs to the pool.
Sorry so long, looking forward to seeing your next video on this.
Love your channel.
I have a little advice for when you get your well.
Many years ago, I worked on a service rig servicing domestic water wells in our area.
The well is typically dependent on electricity and wells do, occasionally have problems and need maintenance.
Sometimes it can take a week or two to get on the Well guy's schedule.
Unless you have an extremely shallow well, the cheapest installation is a submersible pump down in the well directly driving a pressure tank above ground ( in a heavy freezing area, the tank may be either in your basement or in a well house) and then you plumb from the pressure tank.
The problem with this approach is: if something happens, you only have what is in the pressure tank - and that is usually less than 100 gallons.
What a lot of folks down here do is:
Submersible pump in the well
Submersible pump pumps into a large, un-pressurized storage tank above ground - this is anywhere from 2,500 gallons up to 10,000 gallons. Since it only has the pressure of the column of water in the pipe on it, the submersible pump will generally work less hard and lasts longer between replacements. The Storage tank is generally either made from stacked concrete rings on a slab -or- it is one or more large black plastic tanks.
A Float switch in the tank turns the pump on and off to pump more water when the tank is down about 25% below full. You want to always keep the large storage tank at least 75% full.
A colorful ball or flag is placed on the top end of the float switch rod that sticks out above the tank. This way, from a distance, you can tell if the water level is lower than it should be, which tells you that you have a problem that needs attention. I have seen a few folks place a separate float switch driving an alarm circuit to notify them when the water level is below a set point. I like the visual cue as it does not depend on an electric circuit to warn me.
Come out of the large storage tank into a small pressure pump with a pressure tank and then run your plumbing from that. Again, in hard freeze country, this pressure pump and pressure tank can be in a basement or in a 'well house'.
Have a 'bypass' plumbed going around the pressure pump and pressure tank. This buypass will require a couple valves and a few fittings. If the pressure pump fails, this allows you to still get gravity flow water from the big storage tank until the pressure pump can be repaired.
A lot of information here. Read it, think about it, then read it again in a few days. Good luck with the adventure of your new property. I look forward to many more interesting and informative videos.
Good advice and description.
Just watched a video from homesteadenomics on a system he just installed. I did a system similar to yours for my mom a few years back. It worked great. Only tip I would add is always have more storage then you think you need.
My community was living off of a single well. Last year the pump broke. It got scary until the pump got fixed. I'm excited to get my rainwater setup done next month!
I have a small setup (Four 55-gallon barrels) on a 3,000 sf lot with an 800 sf 1890s home in Toledo Ohio. The primary reason was because in 2014, the City had a blue-green algal bloom from Lake Erie. This was so toxic, we couldn't even touch it, much less brush teeth, cook, etc. While this was my backup plan on the likely chance of another such event, I love being able to water my garden without getting huge water bills. I have saved a lot of money from a pretty simple concept. Fun fact: 32 sf area (like a standard piece of plywood) plus 1/4 inch of rainfall will fill one 55 gallon barrel. Just remember to purchase food-grade barrels. Some of these things used to contain chemicals.
I collect and store 825 gallons off my shed already and was staring at my chicken coop thinking I should start collecting off of it too then I was gifted 2 x 55 gallon barrels and so now I am building another rain catch system. If it ever rains here in Texas again…
Thanks for the clear concise explanation. Liked it very much
Wow ... I've been harvesting rain water for 4 yrs and never knew the science of it ... Thanks 🥰
I would love to deploy a tarp on rainy days to collect water into a few buckets to be dumped into a huge storage tank. I think this is a great idea and i will try this soon on a rainy day.
Here in N Texas we get very little to no rain in the summer. I started harvesting the condensation water from my air conditioner. The average A/C system collects 10-20 gallons of water per day from the air in your home. My system is in the attic so I didn't need a condensate pump. Less than $30 of 3/4" pvc pipe and fittings.
I love all your pros and cons videos! 🥰 For a long-term plan, check if you can build dugouts or ponds to store water as well, with the right plants (like cattails) that drain all the toxins from the water. 😉
Found your channel while thinking about getting chickens. Ordered some chicks ordered a custom coop and a few days ago was telling my husband about collecting rain water for our garden 🤣 clearly this channel is for me!!
Good pros and cons from someone who is actually experienced with rain water collection. Thanks.
We are off-grid and have two, 1000 gallon tanks. Adding 1500 more. Go large. Go larger than you think you'll need.
First time I ran into this concept! Like it!!
Thank you for your earlier video with the suggestion of rainwater collection from your chicken coop. I see it as a supplement to the well and almost free!
I live in the suburbs of Chicago and have one of my downspouts feeding a 55gal drum which I use to water my plants
Wonderful personality, very enjoyable to watch besides the useful information provided.
This is Great Info! Especially for a Newbie like me :). Thanks a lot for the sharing. God Bless You and Your Family.
Hello! Thanks for the great video. I was about to buy the barrel linked in the description, but the reviews stated the barrel contains lead! Be careful if using this for food or drinking.
I enjoyed watching. Thank you for sharing. I dream of doing something like yours.
Reach out to Doug and Stacy …they great on this subject
Thank you so much for this video!! I have been a renegade water collector trying to figure it all out by myself and this is helpful! :).
Not sure yet. I'm looking into installing one into my new home in Alabama, but I'm excited to try it out!
I almost bought those same barrels but they contain lead. Shouldn't use them in garden or for consumption.
I ended up going with a couple of 275 gallon totes.
I've been considering a water catchment system for some time. Thanks for sharing this.
Glad to find someone local that gardens!
Love your rainwater collection structure concept.
Nets, spanned out can also increase surface area catch water and redirect towards your system's roof.
I'd love to build one of these, and because you built from scratch, you can control the materials used in the build process. I plan to add some solar panels on top to co-harvest the energy into some batteries.
Nice job with the video. Well organized and presented. Good quality work guys!! I like that you put the effort into indexing the content 👍
Hey thank you, we appreciate it!
Although I already have a rainwater collection system in place this is still an excellent video for beginners
I love your vids , it's legal over here in South Africa , we may harvest as much rainwater as we want , water and electricity , its a huge problem in SA , good luck with the farm , you guys inspire me so much , thank and God bless you and you're family 🌹🌹🌹
City prepper has a video about water catchment and he adds a first flush system that could help you mitigate issues with contaminants on your surface area.
We live in Alabama and can harvest all the rain we want. We get 36 inches of rain per year. Your rain water station seems perfect for what we need. We need two buildings, one for an outdoor shower plus drinking water collection, and the other for drinking and garden water. When the bad times come we will need to combat disease and filth with the help of rainwater harvesting.
Thank you for posting
Thank you for this very enlightening video !!
I will put rain collection vats at the 4 corners of my newly built house & use the rain water to feed my raspberries & corn & potatoes & onions & carrots & tomatoes & mushrooms !!
Given how much they are spraying I to the air, I'm not sure the rain water will be cleaner than ground water in many places.
Depends on where you are I guess, but the air is pretty gross in most places.
I'd love to see some ground and rain water comparisons from the same places.
A Berkey filter is a must regardless.
Very little contamination in rainwater out of the sky compared to the ground. Lots of research on it due to the clean water act and 20-30 years of stormwater requirements and research.
Helpful video. We bought a country property a few months back that was just open space. The local farmer had been using the back third of it for crops. We’re now reforesting that space and planting orchards. This spring means figuring out how to move water around. Collecting is a breeze here as we have several sheds, a small barn, and the house to utilize. Delivering it all to the necessary locations is going to be a challenge. I will keep checking in for some tips.
enjoyed your video...thank you.
Oh, how fun that you have family in Idaho! I know I’m just some weirdo on the internet so you don’t want to give specific deets, but just wanted to say howdy as an Idahoan who really enjoys your videos! ❤️
Good points, good video
Things I would add, when you start your catchment, make sure the containers are off the ground! When we started it was on the ground, we have since moved some of our containers up (even a foot) and it makes a BIG difference in pressure and you can fill even if the containers are low
Does not apply to you but if you use a shingle roof, do not drink it or give to critters
It is okay for gardens, but metal roof water has less stuff in it
AND!! make sure your gutters are leaning down...not that I have any personal experience putting up crooked gutters ;)
😂😁🤣 we have crooked gutters too !!
I was happy to learn that it is legal everywhere in NC to harvest rainwater!
Great Channel!!!
I live in Costa Rica no freeze here.
I harvest rain water for my compost pile and will soon start for my new vegetable garden drip irrigation where I built a plastic tunnel to keep out the heavy rains we get and soon to be chickens I intend to get.
Will install a home made filter for the last 2. But I love doing it.
Awesome video. Smart design! Thanks for sharing. Don't forget to breathe :)
One of the downsides of rainwater storage is the accumulated heat if left in the sun. Plants don’t like hot water.
The good news is that most any kind of shade will greatly reduce the heat gain of the container and transfer to the water. It’s about 30 degrees F warmer in the sunshine than the shade.
thanks
Got a Berkey and love it
Thank you.
Thank you
OK good stuff.
So we got chickens this year and it's our first year. I'm strongly considering rainwater collection for the garden so that I don't have to use the well.
So, I find it fun and a little weird that both of us have just moved to a large piece of property. My husband and I just purchased 10 acres in Illinois near the Wisconsin boarder. I’m looking into chickens, quail, and maybe rabbits for protein sources that I can manage. I might consider goats to help clean up the woods that we have. But I’m doing some reading and thinking of ways to use the property for our own food production as well as restoring some native habitat. At least I have a pollinator green on top of my septic tank. Really enjoying your videos!
That's a great design! I'll be starting my homestead journey next spring. I feel the roof catching system you nicely built would be doubled, if the roof was doubled in size and then "V"ed down in the middle, where a gutter system channels it to barrel storge underneath. Yeah? But, never thought about hard/soft water, damn 🤔 Another check to add to the list. But great info all round, I learneded.
nice info
Nice
.434 psi / foot height of water level above ground.
Thank You!! we just bought our 10 acres and are considering this. Your video was my first, in my search! I look forward to your update. As well, if you have any other channels or suggestions I'd love to hear, how did you learn all this.
Thanks for that Informative video Cutie !
Liked/Subscribed a while back !
nice!
Pam Bilyeu here…. Curious if you know about the surrounding land of your property which was carved out of an existing farm?? What are their plating, fertilizing and pesticide practices?? We are collecting off our garage roof …and we used these food grade 250gal totes…like a huge cube. For FREE!! We are in Appleton WI…and know where to get them for you! We want to get some kind of pumping system set up.
We live in Texas.....and rain would be nice so we could collect. It is so dry and hot here. So if you are getting rain, send some our way.
Posted this comment yesterday and we got rain today. So very thankful. We needed it.
It’s not enough to mend the cracks in the soil. Bring on more rain 🌧
I’ve been researching this as well but you may want to double check your barrels because I read on Amazon reviews that those Good Ideas Rain Barrels have lead in them
I need to move my blueberries under my eves. The acid level is obvious to me now that you pointed it out. The straw berry leaves are twice the size as normal. I been noticing the strawberry leaves grow larger under the eves for years. Thank you for this video.
It beggars belief that collecting water could be illegal, I'm from the UK. Also there are containers called IBCs (international bulk carriers) which can hold 1000L, they are square and I would build a shed around them (to protect from UV damage), the use through cold weather as they will be re are also underground storage systems which might be a better option for colder weather as they will be at more of a stable temp throughout the year.
Nice presentation. Not sure, if you mentioned this on another of your posts, but it should not offend to repeat it here: every square foot of 'collection area' (roofing etc.) collects approx. 0.62 gallons of water per inch of rainfall. So, 100 sq.ft. would gather 60+ gallons per inch of rain. Enough for a few showers ;- )
So, if you live in an area like Tucson, which gets around 12" a year, and you had a 1000sq.ft. area to collect, your annual gain could be around 70,000 gallons, which in turn asks the question "how much of that is one able to store during the brief periods when it rains"?
The 0.62 gallons per 100 sf per inch of rainfall is straight math, but there’s almost always water loss in the collection system.
The storage volume requirements are a function of the daily water usage and maximum dry period duration (time between rain events).
Use a first flush system will help on containment
You could also use a ram pump to distribute the water to a gravity type irrigation system as well without the need of electrical requirements which can move low pressure water flow over a vast range of distance and even go up hills etc.
Collecting rainwater is a great idea especially if you’re growing orchids that hate chemically treated drinking water 👍👍👍👍
We have about 3500 square feet of surface area that we are going to utilize for rainwater collection. We haven't started yet because I'm in the middle of building a chicken coop. I've already got a source for barrels, so that helps. I'll probably elevate the system so I can use gravity to provide pressure. I'm sure I can find, or build, a solar pump if need be. I'm looking forward to getting it completed!!
Just wondering if you posted a video on your How to Build on that Because i plan on this spring building one for our garden and using the rain water instead of our Well water thanks
Those rain barrels are adorable, but why didn't you guys go right for the 255 IBC totes? That station looked like you were prepping to put two IBC's on it, but then stopped short.
Definitely -- price & (lack of) availability. These are cheaper per gallon of storage right now, compared to any food grade totes in our vicinity. We'll probably switch to totes in the future as we expand and want to haul water to livestock, as well.
Is there a couple of YT videos you can recommend for this? I'd like to do something small off the chicken coop for the birds and maybe some for the garden.
Something else to consider is your household wastewater. You should run two separate wastewater systems in your house, the Brown (organic) wastewater from the toilet to a sewage system. And, the grey water from everything else like your shower and washing machine and sinks, can be simply filtered, and used to run other functions like your toilet, shower etc, and also for watering plants. Save you on your well.
There will be small amounts of particles in the rainwater, and it is a good idea to run a macro filter on the catch so it doesn't collect in your container.
Combining solar/wind with a submersed UV disinfection light can also be added to your water container to prevent the growth of micro organisms like Cryptosporidium (Beaver Fever) and algae.
We have an old cistern on our property. When we opened it up, the brick surround that forms it looked brand new. How can I utilize this?
what about during the winter months? 0-10 degrees every once in a while?
What's the square footage of the roof? Also how many gallons are there? Has it been filled to capacity?
You did not mention the weight of water. My barrel looks just like yours & holds 50 gallons of water. One gal. of water weighs just over 8 pounds. That's 400 pounds per barrel (when full) and you have two. If someone is working on the platform where the barrels sit, you've got about half a ton of weight on the wooden platform. Something to think about especially if you're going to add more barrels.
Drilling a well is extremely expensive, they originally quoted us for 600 ft. Ended up going 900 ft. and this made an enormous difference in pricing. Definitely do your research and consider all options.
what is the building rainwater catchment building you have?where buy?
Where do you live and what zone are you in ? This would help us relate to your situation. Nice video.
Hope you guys are going to stain or paint that wood for your rainwater system to protect it from the weather. I think it's a good set up though.
Have you explored hugelculture mounds?
We have! We had great success with hugelkultur at our last property. Here, we're dealing with a serious lack of organic matter (no trees, logs, etc.), so hauling in all that extra material may not be worth it right away. Hopefully in the future, and livestock in the meantime!
One con to be aware of is bird poop on your rain collection surface. I have read that you should not spray that water on your plants but that using it for drip irrigation is fine. And clearly using rain water for drinking needs to be properly filtered which you do mention.
If you have enough rain to collect it using this system for plant irrigation then you don’t need to collect it?
2 additional things to think about
1) you can have a large collection tank buried (insulated and unseen!)
2) turning your barrels and stacking them horizontally instead of vertically side by side can give you more collection capability in a smaller footprint.
The bigger the tank the more efficient so 275 gallon IBCs are even more efficient.
Burial is wise. Keeps the water a nice 60 degrees F or so.
Its important to have the container off the ground. It will have a better flow of water the higher up it is.
Great video overall and good points. Would say the collection of dust, smog and pesticides is kind of moot as that same water is alreay going to fall on the ground anyway and on your crops. There may be something said about concentrating the water and thus concentrating the environmental toxins?
What about mosquitos in the containers? I live in Alabama and standing water is a huge no no around here due to mosquitos.
Highly recommend adding a vertical first flush collection pipe with an overflow tee. It will help clean the water going to your tank and will need to be cleaned less often than the screen covers.
Could you drop a general structure plan that you've built for the rain water collection? I'm having a hard time finding a good plan online.
czcams.com/video/c9JvKMjxWLk/video.html
Here are some easy ways to collect rainwater
I purchased some clear food grade water containers for rain water collection. Can I spray paint those black, or does it have to be covered with a tarp so it doesn't cause mold? Also, if my contained water has some algie in it, can I still use it on my garden? Thank you
It would be a good idea to paint the containment though it doesn’t need to be black. Still a good idea to shade the tank so that the water doesn’t get hot.
If you have algae, it probably won’t hurt the plants but might clog the pipe outlets depending on the size of the openings. Probably better to kill the algae (chlorine then decolonizate?) then screen filter the water.
Do you have any thoughts on Berkley verses Alexa water filtration? We have a Berkley and considering getting an Alexa for supplemental giving the cost difference
I have had my Alexa for about 3 years. It works great. I like that you don't need a separate filter for flouride, which I think you do with the berkey. Alexa takes out flouride, chlorine, all the bad viruses, plus pharmaceuticals and even glyphosate. I'd recommend it.
@@laurieasmus9998 Thanks Laurie for the feedback!
Holy shit. Move to Canada already. 🇨🇦
dug well by hand or excavator after using willows to find the water. has been done for many years and far cheaper. That is as long as water isnt draper than 20 or 30 feet
You have to get rid of Con #2 , Your system isn't complete, you need a leaf eater and a diverter, diverter collects the first couple of gallons, a lot less debris, I live on 100% rain water, i can store 12, 400 gallons, I designed a 12v pumping system that pumps water throughout the house, its powered by wind and solar, i live in the tropics, im now building a chicken bunker, its a solar hurricane proof chicken coop that will have a full rain harvesting system that will fully sustainably automatic water feed the chickens, system will work on one deep cycle marine battery, it will have a pumping system.