Anyone have any experience with Passive Atmospheric Water Collectors?

I realize this isn't rain collection, but it seemed like the closest section heading to post this under.

Is there anyone here at Permies that has first hand experience building or working with passive atmospheric water collectors?

I have some questions regarding the build etc if there is.

I'm considering building something along the lines of the Warka Water Collector tower at approximately one quarter scale (6-8 feet tall)

I've read most everything I could find on the subject posted on the internet, but it's somewhat limited info wise.

I was hoping someone here may have tried this method of water collection and fill in some of the gaps.

tia
- chase -

Chase, do please let us know if you find any good info. I myself have a lot of skepticism about passive water collectors, precisely because they seem to win design competitions in concept but nobody on the internet seems ever to be found talking about building, using, or even seeing a working one in the wild. My suspicion is that if they work at all, they may prove to be intensely site-specific, depending for successful function on very local patterns of humidity, wind, and daily temperature fluctuations.

Hey Dan,

I've read the Waka Water Tower works. They are on version 3.2 according to their site.

Fog/dew collectors have been used for centuries with success and failures from what I read.

The area I'm in, I feel has tremendous potential for this type collector. Everything is soaked by morning. The high grass dripping with dew. (Low ground areas). Up in the hills, (were I am currently) heavy fog/mist during cooler months. High humidity year round.

Finding the correct material has been the issue this far. Though I did read aluminized Sun screen mesh of certain types proved about 80% as good as the preferred type. (Forgot the name of the material at the moment.)

I just increased my holding capacity to 49 gallons with the addition of another 15 gal tank. That's 4-5 weeks of water supply for me given my current usage of approximately 10 gallons a week.

I'm considering a move to even deeper into the hills. Carrying the water would prove very very trying and take 5 trips.

Sure would be nice to collect it and passively at that.

My thought is to use hola hoops as the rings to hold the mesh. Copying the design of the Warka(sp?) tower.

I just need the mesh /Sun screen and then I can give it a go and test it out myself. Both in the lower area, and high up were I am, or plan to be by next week.

Anyone in the Chattanooga area willing to donate some aluminized garden mesh (40% shade) for the cause, I sure could use it to get this thing going.

- chase -

Every morning the roofs of the cars are wet here, even tho it doesn't rain for 6 mths at a time. You can wipe a cup full of water off each car.
Plenty of cars in the scrapyard, maybe I should buy the roofs, bend the ends into a channel like a baby's bib and see how much water I can collect.
We don't have fog, this is purely condensation from air near dew point. I haven't tried a mesh but I don't see why mesh would be any better than sheet metal apart from aesthetics, weight and cost, but not actually at catching the water?

Steve Farmer wrote:... I haven't tried a mesh but I don't see why mesh would be any better than sheet metal apart from aesthetics, weight and cost, but not actually at catching the water?

I haven't tried this either, but I wonder... condensation has something to do with total surface area as well as temperature difference. Perhaps (and this is a guess on my part) the additional surface area that a mesh has, increases the amount of water it collects?