[article] Water Harvesting...

mike65

Rain harvest urged in UK gardens


Campaigners say rain harvesting could prevent flooding
Rainwater harvesting in England's back gardens is the latest idea to save money and cut demand for water.

The new Rainwater Harvesting Association wants people to bury a submarine-shaped tank in their gardens to catch rain off roofs.

The saved water could be used to flush toilets as well as prevent flooding by containing excess rainwater.

This could be useful as climate change is likely to create drier summers as well as more flooding.

The association is being promoted by the Environment Agency, which says rainwater harvesting is particularly good for offices, factories and public buildings.

The association said "less than 1% of the water treated by public water systems is actually used for drinking and cooking".

Waste water

Every time a toilet is flushed, between 7.5 and 9.5 litres of drinking water goes down the drain, the association said.

Other wasteful examples include up to 540 litres used by a garden sprinkler an hour, and 65 litres used in a typical washing machine cycle, it said.

The association said people would get their money back from the tank investment within as little as five years, plus there are government grants available for help with capital costs.

The initiative comes in the week that Thames Water is considering an expensive, energy-hungry desalination plant to solve the shortage of water in the south-east of England.

Its the sort of thing that we should all be doing where possible and yet....a brick in the systern is as much as I've ever done.

Mike.

Capt'n Midnight

[grammer nazi] systern (sp) [/grammer nazi] :d

Not sure now but at one stage 30% of the rainfall in south east england went through the water system. Around London water was recycled many times (yes that's right tap water was probably flushed in to the river upstream.. ugggg...)

Don't forget to put a cover on rain barrels - they are death traps if you fall in head first and get your arms pinned to your side

Corsendonk

I though I would revisit this thread since we seem to be coming into a dry summer and water charges coming down the line. Apart from a water butt are there any other systems out there?

Daegerty

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Don't forget to put a cover on rain barrels - they are death traps if you fall in head first and get your arms pinned to your side

Who'd be so unlucky? would you not put the cover on it mainly to keep sh1te from falling in?

imakebiodiesel

I suppose you could call my system Water butt plus. I have a large workshop building and have fitted a water butt at the downpipe. Inside the butt I have installed a cheap but reliable submersible pump from Lidl. Inside my workshop I have a 1000 litre IBC container that I salvaged from a building site. I fitted a small float switch in the IBC that turns on the pump when the level in the tank drops. This way I have over a 1000 litres of water constantly available. The total cost of the system was about 70 euro and it works perfectly. I use the water in my biodiesel processing and have plenty left over for car washing etc.
Flushed with success, excuse the pun, I have installed a similar system in my house. A water butt supplies a 100 litre storage tank in the loft with a similar pump and float switch. This tank supplies water to one of the toilets in our house. The storage tank also has a standard ballcock supply so that if the rain water runs out the ordinary supply takes over automatically.

Daegerty

would a reverse osmosis system be good enough to filter drinking water out of a system like that? worried about bird sh1te and that

imakebiodiesel

I dont use rain water for drinking or cooking so its not an issue for me. I know of others who use it for drinking water. They use a particle filter followed by a charcoal filter followed by an ultraviolet sterilizer. I dont know if a reverse osmosis unit would be enough.