Since I live in an area of Mexico where there is very little rain and my property does not have a water pipe running to it from the city - I have a small water issue.
Currently I haul water by truck to my property for my trees and plants so I'm very conscious about the water that I use.
I've looked into the amount of average yearly rainfall my area has and it works out to about 34cm of rain per year. Most of that rain falls in the months of August and September so I know when I'll have to prepare myself for the onslaught of the rains.
With 34cm of rain falling every year I will need 3 square meters of area to collect about 1100 liters of water during the rainy season. I'll incorporated this thought into all of my future building designs and I'll collect and store as much of the rainwater that hits the roofs of my buildings and store it for later use.
Water Conservation is Easy
It's not very hard to divert your rain gutters into a barrel or other storage unit for later use. As long as you're not going to have it stored for too long and you're only going to use it on your plants you won't have to make any special storage efforts.
Planning Makes it Easy to Use Rainwater
Getting the water into your storage unit is easy because you can just use standard rain gutter downspouts and fittings. Getting your water back out takes a little more planning unless you plan to do it all by hand.
If you decide to have your barrel raised make sure that the barrel stand will support the weight of the water when the barrel is full. Water is fairly heavy and a full rain barrel will weigh about 200 kg or 440 pounds. Cinder blocks are ideal for this and as long as you fill them with earth and rocks they won't require mortar to hold them together. Two cinder blocks high will give you enough height for your water to drain a little bit faster.
Submitted by kbuntu on November 7, 2009 - 2:47pm.
I have to agree. Thats the problem. Nothing has been done for the past years to utilizing rainwater on new buildings. Actually it should be standard and included at any new build house.
Submitted by GabyLo on November 6, 2009 - 10:34pm.
Although water conservation is in fact an easy measure to put in place it does require a big challenge of change to adopt new ideas and habits.
Living in a semi arid area where obviously water is scarce and the city that constantly is growing, surprises me the most how the newer houses and buildings are built, same as 5, 10 years ago...No storage unit for rain water from the roofs, nothing adapted to the benefit of extra and free rain water. Seems like nobody has ever thought about this matter and water will be always there, running through the pipes ready every time you take a shower or flush the toilet.
Submitted by kbuntu on November 5, 2009 - 9:28am.
Since the cost of water in europe is very expensive we collect water in two 1000 litre barrels to use for washing cars, watering the garden etc. Great article.
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