Rain water harvesting as sole supply to house

kingdomfan

Hi all, I am having trouble getting the well drilling rig onto site. I am wondering has anyone ever installed a rain water harvesting system as an alternative to boring a well, so it would be the mains supply to the house.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058257520/rain-water-harvesting-as-sole-supply-to-house

That would very very rare in Ireland. The water supply would be unreliable and be prone to contamination by all sorts including heavy metals so one would need an advanced filtration system to make that kind of rainwater potable.

Rainwater gets used for toilets and the washing machine generally and even that's screened and UV treated.

Ubbquittious

I have seen it done in one place. I don't think their setup was very good as they used an old kerosene tank and they had no treatment system.

You will need to treat all your drinking and showering water to kill the bacteria. You can use UV filters or reverse osmosis ones for that, they can be a bit costly to run as the RO system requires new membranes now and then. For the jacks, garden hose, washing machine you can get away with untreated. You will need a couple of IBC tanks. There are underground tanks you can get as well but they are mad expensive. Cheapest is IBC's and maybe build some wooden frame around them so it's not so ugly. Have them all at exactly the same level and join together.

Still stihl waters 3

I've seen it done where they put a concrete tank underground and built a shed over it, it holds approximately 15 thousand litres with 3 levels of filtration but only ever used for sanitary and washing

JimmyMW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058257520/rain-water-harvesting-as-sole-supply-to-house

You have prob explored all these options in the past anyway but just to let you know there are small drilling rigs out there too which arent much bigger than a car trailer, had one for doing the bore holes for GSHP system. Must be an incredibly difficult site?

kingdomfan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119431508#Comment_119431508

I have not seen these rigs, a smaller machine would get in, what company did you deal with.

JimmyMW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119431773#Comment_119431773

It was a subcontractor of the heating system supplier (REC renewables Killarney) they my be worth a ring, but it was something like that

mike_2009

FYI:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/08/04/rainwater-everywhere-on-earth-unsafe-to-drink-due-to-forever-chemicals-study-finds

Check if your planned treatment addresses these chemicals, especially if children are involved.