Rainwater Harvesting - will this work?

[Matt123]

I've thought about something like that, but my concern is it's such a large roof, so potentially could burn through a small amount of resin quickly. Not sure how frequently it would need changing.

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Remember the rain water is only around 10ppm anyway so only needs small amount of resin. Change it every month. 

 

[spruce]

Remember the rain water is only around 10ppm anyway so only needs small amount of resin. Change it every month. 

We have a flat roof on the garage which is felt painted silver.

The water coming off that roof was 4ppm when I did the exercise. The rainwater falling from the sky was 2ppm.

The same rainwater off the house roof is 34ppm. So its all about the roof. The house roof are old concrete roof tiles which have lost their original coating as they are around 53 years old.

If we were going to do rainwater harvesting then I would treat the tiles and paint them for a better quality of water.

In the North East the ground always seems wet except in the middle of a dry summer spell. But we don't get much continual rain to rely on rain water as a water source for the amount we use every month.

Lets say we use 1000 liters of pure a week or 4000 liters of pure a month. If I had a 7 liter di vessel, the Gardiners resin calculator tells me I would have to replace the resin every 42 weeks if I used the water from my garage roof.

Now lets use the same figures but use the water from the house roof. I would have to change the resin every 5 weeks.

 

[albootyerbaws]

Cant u just dilute the 4ppm water by adding 0ppm pure until you get it down to zero or 1.?

or just use the 4ppm.

 

[Incheck]

Anything less than 10 is basically pure mate. Our waters between 30 & 80 and ive used the hosepipe with bog standard glass cleaner mixed in a hozepipe spray bottle to clean an upstairs window before and it came out gleaming. Ill turn the hosepipe on them again next time without the glass cleaner added, wonder if they’ll still come out good.


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[Rachel]

I 'm glad I found this topic. I got caught in an almighty downpour on the way home tonight and stuck a bowl outside when I got home. Measured it and got 12ppm. That for me is unreal. My cold water kitchen tap is anything from 250ppm  (today) to 280 ish.

I'm on a meter too. If anyone is in the southeast (London /Surrey /Kent etc.) and is using rain water, could they give me an idea of how they are harvesting it and roughly how much they get. It would really be appreciated   I'm guessing I would still have to supplement it to a degree but any water I can get almost free is def. a bonus !

 

[Michael Anderson]

I have 205 ltr  barrels connected to my down pipes from spouting.A couple of neighbours allow me to do it as well.I just use a 12v battery and connect a suction pump to it and pump the water up to a 1000ltr cube in my back garden.Its about 34 ppm but my tap water is 340.You would be surprised how much you can collect.I do clean their windows for free as a sweetner.

 

[Posh]

I got 2 sheds

put a bit of guttering on each 

don’t have to be brilliant long as it runs down 

l got the downpipe & wrapped a pair of tights round it to act as a filter

i then put the downpipe into a funnel which fits in the little side hole of the lid of the water butt perfectly 

believe me your be surprised how much you collect.

i run the water into my backpack which then pumps it through 2 4.5 litre di’s into my holding tank.

as the chap said above if you got no backpack you can just use a battery & pump. Connect a bit of hose onto the pump long enough to fit into the bottom of the water butt & a bit of hose long enough to reach your tank or Jerry can & connect it to the battery 

 

[Teaboy]

It should only ever be looked at as an added bonus not to be relied upon


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[Michael Anderson]

If no rain and run out of rainwater I pump the mains through an ro system until I have enough rainwater again

 

[Rachel]

Thanks Guys, Looking into this now quite seriously. Every saving helps.