Rain Water Harvesting: Water Self Sufficient Home

This will not be so much a how to build, as a how does it work and look guide.

I will show you how a water catchment system can work to run your entire home without any water from the outside world. This system does need an electric pump to maintain water pressure, so you do need to have electricity, eventually this could be on a solar system.


Technically you could probably drink this water, however we do not. It runs 100% of the plumbing in our house, the house has ZERO water from the outside world. The only source of running water in the house and on the property is supplied from this catchment.

TO make the water 100% potable, the system should have:
first flush filter
Tank feeder line not underground,
UV filter

Also the house has a steel roof.

Step 1: Rain gutter downs spouts

All rain gutter downspouts are routed through pvc pipe and all join together to feed the tank.

Comments

[lizheartsu]

I'm in the early stages of planning, but how do you deal with winter and the snow?

[dewexdewex]

Could you tell me how large the individual corrugated panels for these tanks are, please? I may get a tank similar to this and I have to make sure the parts will pass through the property, as there's no access to the rear garden other than through the property. Thx.

[dewexdewex]

Does anyone supply these tanks with a gutter around them so they can be used as a collection area?

[RelientOwl]

Question: How does the water from the roof get to the tank do the water levels just equal out and kinda spill into the tank?

 

[808blogger]

 The water runs off the roof into the feeder pipe and the weight of the water in the feeder pipe creates a siphon and the water just goes up and over into the tank.

[beecroft]

Great, I was wondering that as well. So the pipe just goes down and then back up, right? Did you provide any kind of clean-outs there? And how do you prevent leaves, etc. from getting in?

[808blogger]

there are no trees near the house for that purpose.

[RelientOwl]

Cool!!

 

[rudi138]

808blogger

I was wondering where you bought the panels for your tank.

they look a lot like grain bin panels. Is that what they are?

[uberdum05]

Wouldnt particularly use plastic pipe (PVC) for high pressure water, maybe for the feed for the pump. for the high pressure side I would use either copper or plastic barrier pipe (JG Speedfit) :)

[bwpatton1]

Wow, where do you live that provides this much rain? LOL, this would be a cool system to build, im still trying to convince my parents to put in gutters so we could do rain barrels LOL

[808blogger]

Hawaii. check out my reply to the guy below

[bwpatton1]

Ahhh, unfortunatley down here in Houston, the rain isnt often enough to provide sufficient water supply.

[lalalaux]

You sure? I don't know what Houston gets for rain, but a water harveting guy in Arizona swears Tuscon, with it's 12 or so inches a year, could more than supply it's own water if they caught it. Unfortunately, we prefer to drain or rivers and aquifers instead.

[808blogger]

 i dunno about 12 inches/year to live on. that tank lasts with no rain for about 2 months, and we get 150+inches a year.  Maybe if the guy has a HUGE roof he could do it with 12 inches,

[lalalaux]

I'm not sure, but I think he's counting commercial buildings, etc. Still, in the desert every little bit helps. Here's his website. http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

[bwpatton1]

Kudos though, this is a very interesting project, only wished I could build this :(

[evolvingmonkeys]

Great work!  I'm looking to build a similar setup - how are you controlling the pump to fill the pressure tank?  I'm going to use this for garden/fruit tree irrigation so I need it to work with my sprinkler controller, any suggestions?

[808blogger]

 there is a pressure sensor on the pump, so it turns on and off based on the pressurized side of the system.

[zieak]

I had a system like this on my home 5 years ago.  I didn't have mine covered and had it freeze over a few times (I live in Alaska).  But i drank the water for 3 years.  I had the gutters run to a pope which poured straight into the tank behind the house.  

[rcallan]

I am thinking of trying this on a smaller scale to run the washing machine and feed the hot water tank.  I need to keep the tank and pipes from freezing so it would have to be in my basement or burried below the frost line.  It may not collect water in the winter.  Thanks for the pictures this is very helpful.

[westhebeekeeper]

were you on tv ever? i saw a guy in hawaii with one of these catchments

[808blogger]

no i was never on TV. literally EVERYONE in the entire district i live in has a system like this for their homes. Due to the geographic area, the county does not provide water to a big portion of the island i live on so people provide their own.

[siliconsurfer]

Great system. What size is your collection tank & have you changed your usage patterns to accommodate not having water 'on demand' Do you 'recycle' any of your grey water & what do you do for your drinking water?

[808blogger]

thats 10,000 or 15,000 (i cant recall). And because of where i live we have no need to change any usage patters, the tank is almost always full. grey water just goes to the septic. There is no need to recycle any because it rains so much we dont need sprinklers or irrigation like that. The county provides free drinking water at spigots in a few areas around. There is one about 10 miles from my house so we just keep about 20 gallons of drinking water on hand at any given time.

[llanyort]

what are the shingles of your house made of ? and how does that configure with possible contamination and filtration ? i don't think I would use this for a shower/bath/sink/dish washing but definitely toilet flushing and gray water usage. but this does sound like a great idea !!!

[808blogger]

The roof is not shingle, its a steel roof that is painted with a non toxic coating specifically designed for catchment systems. The biggest concern with contamination is from mice and birds. If you keep trees away from your roof and tank that helps alot. We also have several cats to patrol for mice. We do everything with this water short of drinking it. We shower,wash dishes, brush teeth, etc. Nobody gets sick. In fact almost 100% of the people that live in my district have catchment systems. It doesn't hurt that we get 100+ inches (more likely 150 inches) a year so the tank is almost always 100% full and over flowing (getting flushed)

[jwaterfallguy]

Very cool, what part of the country are you in? What's cool about your system is that your reservoir is big enough to sustain your house, nice! Could you re-post this on our rainwater harvesting forum? Our community would love to hear about this!

[808blogger]

I am in a rain advantaged part of the country. South East side of the Big Island, So we get 100+ inches of rain a year and even more in certain areas. Where I live this system is overflowing most of the time, not all but most. Almost all homes on the southern part of the Big Island are on Catchment. On the west side past south point its very dry like a desert, and amazingly people use catchment there as well. They have to be much more careful with water usage, but they do it. I will repost on that site for you as well.

[Oroka]

If you were building a new house, you could incorporate something like this from the start. Plumb the house to use town or well water for drinking, and then use collected rain water for toilets, laundry, watering the lawn in a separate system. You could even build a under ground tank for the water, just have all gutters piped in there. A system like that reminds me of a 'grey water' system on a ship. You can wash, do laundry... etc with it, but don't drink it. I will be building a new house in the next 5 years and am finding ways to stay off the grid, or be as independent from the grid as possible (solar, wind, battery, rain water... etc)

[808blogger]

If your system is setup correctly and you have a UV filtration system, this water is 100% potable. We don't have a UV filter so we don't drink the water.

[r-philp]

Very impressive. I've often considered doing this , but how do you clean out the bacterial gunk that would be introduced by bird poop, and whatnot on the roof? Doesn't that tank eventually become a big petri dish?

[808blogger]

part of maintaining a clean catchment is to keep birds off of your roof. Having a few cats and/or dog(s) on the property will reduce the number of birds. Also there are are no trees anywhere near the roof of the house. This system could use a first flush diverter which diverts the first X amount of water. In general the only thing that needs to be done is once every year or so is to suck the sediment out with a siphon. Sediment collects on the bottom of the tank. The water generally stays clean without the need for any chemicals. Again I dont drink this water, but its used for the plumbing in the house. Toilets, Showers, Sinks, Hoses, washer, etc... MOST of the water used in the house goes down the drain, maybe 1-5% (made this stat up BTW LOL! by guessing) is consumed.

[Transquesta]

Well, I suppose both tank and contents can be treated chemically from time to time--plush which he does have an inline filter.