This is my entry to the Meadows and Makers challenge #3, rain water collection and storage. Here is the link to that post.
https://steemit.com/ghsc/@offgrid-online/rain-water-collection-storage-usage-system-meadows-and-makers-challenge-no-3-28-steem-reward-pool
I've been collecting rain water for my garden for at least 10 years now, and probably longer than that if I include my collection system at the place where I lived before this one. My water collection system has gone through several large changes and numerous small changes in the last 8 to 10 years, starting with a small system of just a couple of plastic barrels under the rain gutter spouts and developing into what I have now. I haven't changed the water collecting system in the last couple of years, but I've added more storage capability to the overall system.
I'll start by showing you the current primary collection system. I have 4 of the 55 gallon plastic barrels plumbed together at the bottom with a faucet at the end of the plumbing. I can fill watering cans there, or hook up a garden hose for my drip irrigation pipes. The white pipe sticking out of the upper side of the third barrel is an overflow pipe. I can put one of my extra barrels under that to catch the overflow if we're getting a lot of rain.
The water is collected from part of the roof with a rain gutter and a pipe that feeds one of the barrels. The water from that barrel fills the other barrels through the plumbing at the bottom of the barrels. Last year I had a second roof gutter hooked up to the system, but that part of the roof is a lot smaller, so this year I just had a barrel under the downspout for that rain gutter.
Two years ago, I started collecting water from the back side roof of the greenhouse also. For that, I was using a roof gutter with a downspout going into an IBC container, this one has a capacity of 220 gallons. I don't collect nearly that much water from the greenhouse roof, but I also pump the water from the blue barrels into the big tank with my sump pump when the barrels get full. That gives me more water storage capacity.
Last year, I got another 220 gallon IBC container from a local company and put it on a stand that I had built for water barrels when I was at the last house. I had to rebuild the stand with a wider platform to fit the big container. I don't collect any water with this container, I use it for rain water storage when I get a lot of rain and the rest of the system gets full. I also use this container to water part of the garden with my home made drip system. I attached the fence picket boards to the steel frame of the tank on 3 sides to protect the tank from UV from the sun. the uncovered side faces north and doesn't get much sun.
With all of my barrels and the 2 containers, I can hold more than 600 gallons of water at one time. In a rainy year, the storage gets full and pretty much stays full. If we have a dry period of more than a couple of weeks, I can use up most of that water keeping the garden watered.
Because of a dry spell this last year, I took the IBC from behind the greenhouse and put it in my trailer, and then took it to the boat landing on the river upstream from the power dam. I brought a deep cycle battery, my power inverter, an extension cord, and the sump pump with a garden hose. I filled up the big tank most of the way, brought it home, and pumped that water into the other big tank at the end of the garden. I had to do this a couple of times to keep the garden watered, because that is still less expensive than using city water on the garden, plus the adventure of doing the water runs to the river. I wrote about that adventure in this post from last summer.
https://steemit.com/gardening/@amberyooper/getting-garden-water-from-the-river
That is an overall look at my rain water collection and storage system. The main shortcoming of this system is that I still don't have enough storage capacity for the rain water that I could collect if we have a rainy spring and early summer. Much like everything else about gardening, it's a work in progress.
Thanks for stopping by my page and checking out my post, eh!
I hope you found the post to be interesting.
That is pretty cool, Amber. We should probably start collecting water, too. There isn't much urgency to do it in a year like this one. We are trying to get rid of water as fast as we can.
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Yeah, when you have too much rain, collecting water isn't very important...
My brother just moved to California where it has rained 0.33" in 75 days. That is quite a change from is previous place in Conneticut where it was so wet that his well would overflow.
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Great job! Keep up the eco-friendly lifestyle and Gaia will reward you back!
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