I bodged up a roof rainwater harvesting system last week. 'Bodge' is a pretty accurate verb to use as it's a far from perfect design - it's just what I could manage to knock up with material I had to hand at the time.
The first stage was transporting the 1000 litre IBC 200 metres uphill from where it was delivered (I had four delivered, only one up to the house!) - which was a mission in itself - requiring two of us with poles threaded through the cage to enable a kind of 'pall bearer' carrying technique - it actually worked quite well, if a bit painful on the shoulders.
With the IBC in place I used some old bricks to level it, which required chipping off some concrete, and it seamed stable enough, fortunately requiring only three bricks at the front.
Sun proofing
Water and sun mean algae which just requires cleaning, and i don't know about you but I DO NOT FANCY cleaning out an IBC more often than is necessary.
For this I used some old black plastic sheeting for the top, as a base layer, and i just taped it on...
And then I simply used some cheap shade netting to wrap around the outside, and weighed down with rocks. The netting I used was defo the wrong dimensions, for the next IBC I've already cut the 4 metre wide strip into 2 2 metre strips, which is perfect for doubling up, then just wrapping around the sides and taping again - I may even see if I can get hold of some industrial clingfilm.
TBH I was reasonably happy with the shading effort - it's tidy enough and out of the wind so it should be OK.
The guttering system
The previous owners had left me some guttering and some down pipe down at the kitchen, so it was easy enough to move it all on up - I attached the two using half a 6 litre water bottle and some wire, it seems pretty solid, and it just goes straight down into the IBC, and FORTUNATELY the down pipe length was EXACTLY the right size to fit between the roof and the IBC, such a stroke of luck!
Attaching the guttering
This was a mission - up a ladder on my own, supporting the guttering with one hand and tying it onto the roof struts with wire, then moving it in line with the edge of tiles.
I realised my mistake once attached - it's quite loose, and even with the nails I put in place to hold the wire, it's 'hanging' - it really needs rigid supports to attach it - which I didn't have at the time, but that's for the next upgrade...
This may or may not work....
HOPEFULLY when it rains, and it's due later this week, I'll get my IBC filled up - OR I won't, there is a chance the water will just leak into the house (the roof REALLY isn't waterproof!) OR the guttering will move because of the wind and not catch anything, and then the next challenge is getting the correct attachment so I can get the water out of the container in a suitably reduced flow, rather than it gushing out all at once, I've got the measurements at least!
Anyway, fingers crossed, having a water supply up at the house would be so handy!
Nice work! I moved one of those IBC tanks by myself once up a hill and it was a bear! Moving them by yourself is not too bad if you 'walk' it on its bottom corners but it is slow going. I had built a little roof (like 3 meters by 3 meters) on the hill and fabricated a gutter that fed into the IBC. The first time that it rained it filled it over halfway and it was not even a heavy rain.
A simple solution to keep the gutter from blowing around is to either screw or nail through the gutter flange and into the rafter. From the picture it looks like there is just enough of a flange there to do it.
I did not have the outlet adapter at first for the IBC port so I cut the bottom off a water bottle and used a hose clamp to attach the remainder of the bottle to the port. It worked super well to reduce the flow rate.
Sounds like you've got everything set up nicely.
I'll have a go at attaching the guttering - the problem is those are eucalyptus poles and are dammed tough, hard getting the pressure when you're up a ladder with one hand!
Nice idea on the bottom end solution too.
I did role another one up to another spot, it was too wet to walk it, kept churning into the ground!
Nice setup, hope it works. You did well to cover it because with the sun will form the green coloration, the ideal is to clean it every six months.
I'm hoping to get away with a clean once a year, it's not drinking water so I should be fine!
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стахотно изобретение практично и полезно