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Harvesting rain from a poly-tunnel general advice?

Posts: 55

Location: West London, UK

posted 10 years ago

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Afternoon all,

I was wondering how can I collect the rain water which falls on the polytunnel?

Is there a product I can buy/make to help me harvest it?

Any tips/advice?

Many thanks,

Samuel

My personal journey towards learning to become more self-sufficient https://medium.com/@SamuelMorton
(Lets learn from each other!)

R Scott

pollinator

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Location: Kansas Zone 6a

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posted 10 years ago

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Do you have roll-up sides? That is about the right place to put gutters so you can fill rainbarrels.

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Samuel Morton

Posts: 55

Location: West London, UK

posted 10 years ago

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Not in the sense of its meant to roll up but there is a good over hang at the bottom so I guess something could be done with it?

Not sure how I can get it in a rain barrel though!

Thanks for your reply,

Samuel

My personal journey towards learning to become more self-sufficient https://medium.com/@SamuelMorton
(Lets learn from each other!)

Charles Tarnard

Posts: 337

Location: PDX Zone 8b 1/6th acre

posted 10 years ago

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Do you want it for use in the tunnel or somewhere else? You could use some sort of flashing bent in a way to guide the runoff under your overhang into a mini swale or some sort of trough set up to water with drip or capillary action. A trough would likely overflow quickly in anything but the lightest rain, but that runoff can be directed in a useful way as well.

R Scott

pollinator

Posts: 4025

Location: Kansas Zone 6a

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posted 10 years ago

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That is the problem. It is easy to put a gutter at the bottom, but then you need to pump the water. You can bury the rainbarrel and then use a sump pump to pull the water out, but that is a lot of digging for a meaningful sized storage.

Dave Dahlsrud

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Location: North-Central Idaho, 4100 ft elev., 24 in precip

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posted 10 years ago

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How 'bout a sunken hugel bed inside the hoop with a trench to catch the water as it runs off the poly and direct it under the edge into the wood of the bed. I think this would work if you are wanting help with the watering of your plants in the tunnel. If you are just wanting to collect water for emergencies or something then you could attach a gutter through the outside of the poly to the frame and seal the top with some sort of flashing (or duct tape)to direct the water off the poly into the gutter. You would want to put this high enough so that you could easily drain the gutter into your catchment (barrel, tank, etc.). So just sandwich the poly between the gutter and the hoop framing and your good to go, make it as high as you want, direct the flow into whatever you want and your done.....easy (if not a bit butch)!

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Rebecca Norman

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Location: Ladakh, Indian Himalayas at 10,500 feet, zone 5

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posted 10 years ago

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You just have to attach a simple trough and direct it into a container. You might have to dig a hole and put the container underground in order to have it low enough to fill.

One of the guys here one year, when distilled water for our solar batteries wasn't available, put a simple trough, I think just made of clear plastic tape, along the inner lower surface of a simple greenhouse that was a water heater. He had to lower the collection container below ground level, but it worked great.

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Robert Ray

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Location: Cascades of Oregon

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posted 10 years ago

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Saw this a few weeks ago, I double cover in my greenhouse so it's something that would work for collecting inside condensate.

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/water-greenhouse

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

David Sirovica

Posts: 4

posted 10 years ago