Water : one of the sacred four deserves its own brown button?

Shelter, Water, Fire, Food

No Water threads???

Okay I'll start the fire on this one (or rather the flow).

for every 1" of rain on a 10x10' roof, you get 62 gallons (assuming you collect it all)....

again 1" => 62 gallons for a very small 10x10' roof.

1 person needs (not wants) 1000 gallons per year (ask me for cooking, showering needs and I'll share).  I get this number from my direct experience of living on land with no well for 9 nine months.........

.... missoula, mt supposedly gets 14.13 inches of rain and 37 inches of snow....
so on a 10'x10' roof, this means 62*14=   868 gallons => not quite enough for ration water for one person
but a 11'x11' roof provides 1050 gallons per year in missoula => 50 gallons more than ration water for one person per year.

I suggest every ant acre has a roof space of 12x12 which collects drinkable rain water for one person to live on (the wofati gable would easily work).

true rain collection systems don't mean a simple 55 gallon drum, it means a minimum of a 5,000 gallon cistern

...catch the water up high by the lowest eave, store the water in a 6" or 12" diameter pipe (I prefer two pipes) on that same wall over head and any extra goes into a cistern

I built a 16x14' roof over a 10x12 foot structure for a total of 224 square feet => for every inch of rain on my roof, I'd get 1944 gallons  => hella water beyond ration water level!!!

if anyone is interested, I'll post drawings of a good gravity fed water system and overflow cistern system

want good cistern info?  look austrialia, they dig cisterns not wells.....maybe we should too as the hopi said: "if you pump water out of the ground, the land will dry up"

Theres a "rainwater harvest" section under the "building" section.

I've got 9,000 gallon capacity strategically spaced for home, chickens, turkeys, cattle, annual garden.

Calculations like this are very important. A person can survive off of 1 gallon/day, but that's based on recommended drinking of 3 liters/ day.  That doesn't include what you need to water plants or cook or clean or make a clay pot.

Here we get so much I don't have to worry much, but in California we worked hard to make every drop counts.

Amit Enventres wrote:....1 gallon/day, but that's based on recommended drinking of 3 liters/ day.  That doesn't include what you need to water plants or cook or clean or make a clay pot.....

Note: had to edit my post after reading my water journal

My gallon per day didn't come from a book. I spent 9 months where I had to haul water two miles by hand. That gallon a day did this for me:  
-boiled rice and beans
  rice I did daily and drank the excess water instead of pouring it off
  beans were boiled every three days...again I drank the excess water off the beans instead of pouring it off
-the rest of the water I drank.
-I ate out of the same pot I boiled in so I didn't worry so much about dishwashing

Non-drinking water caught in a plastic tarp:
-showers: once a week four gallons
-clothes were washed in a 5 gallon bucket once a week with 4 gallons to wash and 4 gallons to rise (one shirt, one pair of pants, one pair of socks...tried not to wear socks just sandals)

so my data showed that one person needs 1,000 gallons per year absolute bare minimum if the person isn't working hard

but you're right, I didn't make a clay pot with drinking water nor did I water any plants

ration water isn't water you'd want to socialize on but that's why I called it ration water....the absolute bare minimum I got by on for 9 months was one gallon per day (I didn't die, I could still poop and pee regulary, but I didn't really have many visitors if you know what I mean).

Inquiring minds want to know why the water button would be brown instead of blue?  

Or maybe this is a gray water discussion?

Orin, I think you could be calmer if you had a rethink about the water.I have written a long treatsise about harvesting rainwater.
I think in this day and age you deserve better than you have managed so far,
How have you carted the water?

Phil Gardener wrote:Inquiring minds want to know why the water button would be brown instead of blue?  

Or maybe this is a gray water discussion?

I like it!  but the blue would be the only non-brown color on the forum buttons choices

John C Daley wrote:Orin, I think you could be calmer if you had a rethink about the water.I have written a long treatsise about harvesting rainwater.
I think in this day and age you deserve better than you have managed so far,
How have you carted the water?

by sled ( 9 winter months) and a remnant of an old nursery field wagon

...I am into rain water harvesting: at the time of the 9 months, the roof I was under was tar based roofing so harvesting drinking water there wasn't an option

If you'll take a look at my blog rain water gravity feed option you'd see I've worked towards this type of technology.

What???!!!??? me calm??? oh heelllll nooooo!!!

anyways, do you have a cistern?

We call them tanks and I have many,
22,000L, 5000L and a biggy 190,000L tank.
All essential where my rain is about 450mm per annum.

John C Daley wrote:We call them tanks and I have many,
22,000L, 5000L and a biggy 190,000L tank.
All essential where my rain is about 450mm per annum.

there are two issues I hear back from people when I tell people about cisterns and rainharvesting:
1- how to keep critters out and drowning;
2- how to keep the water from "going bad"

#1- I can construct piping with no openings large enough for mice, shrews or other rodents

but #2 is more difficult for me to respond to since I've only had 2000 gallons (7570.8 liters) in water storage which was a black above ground tank.

I'd love to hear about the solutions needed for underground tanks to "keep the water fresh"  ...how is it done down under?

...I also suspect there are other issues that arise with underground tanks which I'd also like to hear about and the remedy of course

Has anyone you know built their underground tank out of stone?  Are the tanks sealed with something?

What is the name of your treatsise?  is it online?

wayne fajkus wrote:

I've got 9,000 gallon capacity strategically spaced for home, chickens, turkeys, cattle, annual garden.

is it underground?  what materials is it made of?

2 3.000 plastic tanks. 2 1,000 stainless tanks. 3 300 gallon ibc totes. All above ground.

wayne fajkus wrote:2 3.000 plastic tanks. 2 1,000 stainless tanks. 3 300 gallon ibc totes. All above ground.

Have you ever had water quality issues? if so, what were they and how did you solve them?

No. Don't let light into the tank and have the water enter it clean. Thats 99% right there.

I documented one of my installs here:
https://permies.com/t/76631/Waynes-rainwater-harvest-start-finish

I think the info is good when looking at pumps, filters,  keeping gunk out, etc. Take a look.

Edit-the ibc totes are for my chickens. They get a little light on them and have algae in the tanks.  No issues with what i set up for home consumption.

Orin Raichart wrote:

I'd love to hear about the solutions needed for underground tanks to "keep the water fresh"

In the 'olden days', a silver coin was sacrificed each year by dropping it into a rainwater cistern.  If the water was clean when it went in, silver oxide from the corrosion of the coin would keep almost any single celled creature from growing inside of the cistern.  If you have access to salt-water, then the tiny clorinators developed by Water-Step (from a donated license & private data of General Electric's original patents on clorinators from the early 1900's) would be ideal for you.  At least, if you'd be okay with chlorinated water.

https://waterstep.org/product/m-100-chlorine-generator/

Orin, my water is primarily catchment water, although I do truck in water for irrigation during droughts. Plus I tote  in my drinking water weekly in gallon jugs. I could make a proper filtration and treatment system on my catchment water for drinking purposes, but since I drive past the county drinking water taps 6 days a week, I simply pick it up. Easier. Simpler, and far cheaper that way.

All my storage tanks are above ground because I live atop lava rock. It would be immensely expensive to hammer out underground chambers. No sense in doing that. My 3 main catchment tanks are galvanized metal rings lined with a food grade liner. I can store 24,000 gallons. I also have extra irrigation storage in the form of ponds, stock tanks, IBC totes, and trashcans.

All stored water is kept darkened except the ponds. We use black tarps (or trashcan lids as appropriate) designed to cover catchment tanks. They also effectively keep out most mosquitoes. The ponds are stocked with guppies, goldfish, mosquito fish, or koi, depending upon which pond we're talking about.

The household tank is the only one I treat. I have screens on the in-take pipes to prevent most debris from entering the tank. These pipes are 3" in diameter since they need to handle water volume during heavy downpours. Actually, when we upgrade the system next time, we plan to switch to 4" diameter pipes. B
And because fine debris will still get in, we have the water out-take pipe opening 6 inches above the bottom of the tank.

I test the water at least monthly, and after each heavy rain. I test pH and chlorine level. Yes, we use chlorine to keep our household water "fresh". Some people in our area use industrial hydrogen peroxide, but availability is sketchy. It's easier to get the chlorine.

there are two issues I hear back from people when I tell people about cisterns and rainharvesting:
1- how to keep critters out and drowning;
2- how to keep the water from "going bad"

In my experience, people making these suggestions do not have tanks, or have never researched them.
There are systems available to keep the water as clean as possible before it reaches the tank.
And systems available to keep critters out of the tank.
All simple and all effective.
The manufacturers details of the components.
Gadgets company
Look at the product range there.

Benefits of rainwater collection