Best Rainwater Collection for temporary arrangement

I'm interested in catching rainwater at the place I'm renting since the well water here is pretty dang hard. As far as catching the water, I seem to have a couple options:

1) Set up a rain barrel from water that runs off the house. Now, this house has a SUPER mossy cedar shake roof, that is just over 20 years old, although you'd think it was older considering the state of disrepair that it's in. Would catching water that runs off from something so coated in greenery be a problem? (For the record, the landlord has no intention of replacing it before we move out.)

2) Set up some kind of catchment system for water that runs off the roof of the solarium - it has a bunch of these small little downspouts which literally just trickle little drops out onto pea gravel below, but during the big thaw we've had this week there have been little pools of water gathering beneath them. Photo attached at the end of this post.

3) Just set up some buckets by the downspouts outside when it rains, try to use them ASAP. Supplement this supply with greywater.

Let me know if any of you have experience dealing with rainwater catchment in any of these situations. I'll probably only be here for 2-3 years so I don't want to have to do anything that will be expensive/permanent.

1) Set up a rain barrel from water that runs off the house. Now, this house has a SUPER mossy cedar shake roof, that is just over 20 years old, although you'd think it was older considering the state of disrepair that it's in. Would catching water that runs off from something so coated in greenery be a problem?  

We have an asphalt shingle roof, but part of our roof is within the drip line of a large oak tree. The parts under the oak tree always leave our rainwater with a yellowish tinge. Not pretty, since yellow water has unhygienic connotations, LOL We're fairly sure the yellows are just tannins, but I can imagine your mossy roof would be so much worse! My own opinion would be to steer clear of the moss. Our family's drinking water comes from three 33-gallon trash cans (bought new) with lids. Our house doesn't have rain gutters, but parts of our roof have different pitches. The rain comes down in streams in those places, so we have the trash cans strategically placed there. We leave the lids on the barrels for the first 10-15 minutes of rain to rinse off the roof, then we open the lids and fill the cans. When the rain stops, the lids get put back on to avoid mosquitoes. To use the water, we go out to our barrels with a gallon-sized pitcher, then transfer the water into our Berkey ceramic water filter. We refill as needed.

Our other water catchment system is hooked up to a rain gutter we installed on our detached garage. It drains into a 250(?) gallon IBC container. It's much farther away from the house though, so lugging the water into the Berkey is kind of a chore. We generally use this water for the garden and chickens.

2) Set up some kind of catchment system for water that runs off the roof of the solarium - it has a bunch of these small little downspouts which literally just trickle little drops out onto pea gravel below, but during the big thaw we've had this week there have been little pools of water gathering beneath them.  

Is it possible that the rain gutters need to be cleaned? If so, the water might run much clearer once you get them cleaned. If the gutters are frozen over, they might also drain faster after the thaw. But I'd much prefer to use the water off your solarium, if the choice was mine. Putting a catchment barrel/bucket/etc under pre-existing downspouts is much easier. If you make it temporary, you can take the barrels if/when you move.

3) Just set up some buckets by the downspouts outside when it rains, try to use them ASAP. Supplement this supply with greywater.

If you get buckets with lids, the water will stay cleaner until needed.

Stacie Kim wrote:

Is it possible that the rain gutters need to be cleaned? If so, the water might run much clearer once you get them cleaned. If the gutters are frozen over, they might also drain faster after the thaw. But I'd much prefer to use the water off your solarium, if the choice was mine. Putting a catchment barrel/bucket/etc under pre-existing downspouts is much easier. If you make it temporary, you can take the barrels if/when you move.

3) Just set up some buckets by the downspouts outside when it rains, try to use them ASAP. Supplement this supply with greywater.

If you get buckets with lids, the water will stay cleaner until needed.

Thanks for the insight, Stacie. To clarify, I only plan to use the water in the garden. We currently have those leaf-it spikey things in the gutters (they were here when we got here) and gave all the gutters a cleaning right before our first snowfall.

If I were just using it for irrigation, I’d use it right off the roofs. No need to filter. No worries about the moss. It shouldn’t adversely affect the plants at all. The only issue I see you having is storage and distribution. I’d probably look into those 300 gallon commercial liquid transport totes. When you eventually move, they would be easy to take with you. Keeping them covered with dark tarps would keep algae from growing in the stored water.

Water collection could be directly from the rain gutters to the tanks. I’d probable set up things so that a simple culinary sieve or 1/4” hardware cloth would prevent the chunky debris from entering the storage tanks.

I’d also consider mounting them on a 2’ (or more) high plinth. That way I could avoid using a pump as long as my garden area was downhill from the tanks.

I don’t know your water needs, so maybe the totes would be enough. But experience has shown me that a rain barrel won’t be enough for a serious garden.

Before I wrote off the “moss water” for drinking, I would have it tested ... if testing can be done at a reasonable price.

To clarify, I only plan to use the water in the garden.  

That makes it much easier! If it were me, I'd decide on barrel placement based on 1) the area most convenient to the garden site, and 2) where I would get the most rainwater collection in the shortest amount of time. (For example, if the solarium only provides a trickle of water, but the roof provides a steady downpour.)

I agree with Su, that I wouldn't be concerned with filtering it. But keeping out big bits of debris with some sort of sieve or hardware cloth would be beneficial.

The solarium is closest to the garden, but you're right - very little water seems to come out, but I'd like to do a quick test with a bucket next time it rains.
The gutters from the house are on the other side of the solarium, but they're literally just a few feet away from where the faucet is anyways, so it's not any more inconvenient than it already is!