Wow! Thanks so much for the response guys! Lots of good questions...actually way too many that I can't keep up... and I'm sorry for that :) ..but please try to keep it positive with one another. Not everyone will agree with each other, and that's okay. But bringing up things that really don't have anything to do with this video doesn't really do much good :/ Anyways, thanks for watching :)
homesteadonomics , Check out John Ellis Water so you don't have to add any chemicals to you water, but it's way much more that just that. And should you want to be considered about the acid aspect of your water look into Kangen Water, it also is so much more than dealing with acid. Also did you know you can use electricity to get water out of the air, would be good for inside and outside. You know how much water we lose through our breath !! And on the topic of electricity why not look into solar power, there is a guy on RUclips called "Robert Murray-Smith" who shows a few ways to make your own solar panels, one of them in transparent and cheap. Oh and with your setup with the way you have the gap in the pipes to your drainage from the roof... take like a small DC motor with a piece of something that can cover the drain pipes. Have it spring loaded to stay open. So when the rain is going to come, if someone is home, applying power to the small motors for each pipe to pull against the spring bringing the cover over your pipe. Or think of an easier way. In fact I just thought of another way electricity free while typing this, ask if u want to know, it will be pages to type, it just came to me, hope I don't forget lol
I like the gutter vacuum. You can also put a fine mesh screen on the gutters, if you can find a good deal. There's really fine stainless steel mesh you can buy, but it's REALLY expensive. If you could find a cheaper alternative like many layers of cheap plastic screen, it might be worth a try.
FWIW, there was an attempt to claim ownership of rainwater by the water companies in the UK. It got as far as court - and the defendants cleverly _almost_ walked the plaintiffs (the water companies) into an assertion that they owned all the water that fell from the sky, and by extension all the water that flowed into streams and rivers. At some point the plaintiff lawyers realised that claiming ownership of all the water that fell everywhere meant that would also be admitting legal liability for billions of dollars in flooding and erosion caused by "their" water - at which point they adjourned and then withdrew the case. That was the last that was ever heard of such claims in this country again.
Alan Brown I'm thinking that claim of ownership by water "companies" was some time ago. Now that the UK has been absorbed by the World Wide Mafia Left the "companies" will be government utilities and not subject to capitalist principals or democracy law. "...then withdrew the case." The left owns you. Pay your taxes and shut up.
@@cuy50 Harvesting water isn't politics? Bone up on reality. Privatisation is far worse than policies delivered by a - reasonably - patriotic government acting in the national interest. I've seen both over long periods of time. You'd be a privatisation man, David, that's why you don't want to have any talk about politics? Correct?
We who live in the cities take for granted so many things. One of them is endless water supply. It's really amazing the fact that you put so much effort in collecting the rain water in order to fulfill the needs of your home! Awesome work man!
thanks Dimitri! It definitely a work in progress but serves us pretty well. eventually I want to have a large concrete cistern but will have to save some money for that:)
Hi I used a 3600 gallon tank made of fiberglass it was made for diesel fuel. Cost new was $5000. You can bury it with no cave in problems like plastic tanks / rubber tanks. I put mine 12 feet under 8 ft. diameter. that gave me 4 ft. of dirt on top. Will last for 100+ years.
As an Australian I grew up on tank water as have millions of Australians. You are doing great. You are well on the way to a beautiful oasis in the desert. Well done. Next some tall trees on the swales to create a mini environment and to enhance underground storage. Every drop of rain that falls on your land is yours, and you get to use it 3 times before you let it off the property. Brilliant video, 100 points.
Well said, As the world warms up rain harvesting will become more important . Just look at VW when they installed rain harvesting on their factory they collected so much they provided for all of their needs and supplied the local town with the excess as well.
@@littleme3597 the world has been warming since the last ice age and will cool at the next one but the data does strongly indicate that we have accelerated the process to a large degree.
Because there is no way to assure the water meets health standards. For example, a tar shingle roof will pick up petroleum chemicals that are just poisonous. Now, for landscaping alone, it wouldn't matter.
There was talk of making rain water catchment a restricted activity where I live. The idea was that as long as you got local council approval then you could use it. The reasoning was that because we have town sewerage and the cost of sewerage disposal/treatment is calculated as a percentage of your homes water usage. (seems like a better idea than trying to measure the actual sewerage flow) If you used rainwater then you would still be generating the same amount of sewerage but your town water usage would be reduced or eliminated. So you would not be paying your fair share of the town sewerage treatment costs. So the plan was that when you applied for approval to use rainwater the utility/council would require a measurement of you collection area. Then they would calculate expected water catchment based on average rainfall. Then they could use that figure to calculate the percentage to be charged for sewer water treatment and disposal. This was not a popular idea as many people didn't understand the reasons and just saw it as being charged money for collecting rain. Not sure if the idea was actually implemented as we decided not to harvest rainwater and I haven't investigated it again.
@@jaseastroboy9240 I see your reasoning, but the treatment plant could have water-measurement on the out-going line and they could eliminate the water-measurement on the in-going line? Why should home owners / others be limited by other people's short thinking?
@@Fractal227 Probably much easier to measure water flow of the inbound clean water rather than trying to measure the chunkier outgoing flow. Also our inbound water connection is normally at the front of the house so the meter is usually very accessible. Whereas most sewerage lines go to the back of the property. No easy access for meter reading. Probably done that way to keep sewerage as far away as possible from the fresh drinking water, or possibly from the days when properties had a laneway at the back where excrement carter emptied the outdoor toilet. Installing and maintaining a measuring device on each houses sewerage line seems like it would be a rather messy and unpleasant job. Bleh. :)
Special Note: We The People DON"T have to "break any laws" collecting rain water because, if you "own" your property, real estate law states that you own everything "straight up and straight down! * Are there exceptions? Of course! * For everything on or under the ground, in some states the water, mineral and gas rights can be sold and owned by others. Still no problem to collect water "before" it gets to the ground! * For everything above the ground, the land owner owns the air and sunshine AND ANY WATER coming from the sky. * You can't keep planes from flying overhead (in most cases) but, you "might" have a legal case to stop drones! MORAL OF THE STORY!!!!!! DON'T LET GOVERNMENTS RUN OVER YOUR RIGHTS! WE THE PEOPLE OWN & RUN THIS COUNTRY... NOT OUR HIRED HELP IN GOVERNMENT!
IMO, $5k is cheap compared to what everything must be costing because of the inflation that is happening right now. You constructed that system at the right time. Great job!
This is a good information video. I'd like to share something my dad did back in the 1940's-1970's,, when he was farming the land. We had a 380 acre farm that had self sustaining water management systems. There was a WELL on the property, but it was NOT really used. The water was too hard. There was a water cistern system and a wind-will that did the majority of pumping. My dad had created a strainer system that he fashioned out of a MILKER filtration similar to coffee filters. This is where all the milk is strained before it goes into the Milk Cans for pick up. He did the same with with all the rainwater that went through a similar set up,, only instead of the 2 straining,, he had 5 strainings. It was literally strained 5 times before it went into the underground tanks. Large wire screen, into a medium wire screen, into a smaller screen, and then through the fine filters that was many layers of cheese cloth and flour sack cotton fabric. Those were changed out after each rain falls,, and snow melting collection. It was ALL. Washed and clean all the time. NOTHING got through the filter system,,and it ended up PURE! He had a circulation pump that pumped the water all the way through the system every week.. It was literally re-filtered on a regular schedule to keep the algae under control. It wasn't stagnant for long periods of time.
My grandparents had a big pond on their farm. Grandpa used to fill a big wooden container that he had on some kind of cart and his two draft horses would pull it from fruit tree to fruit tree for him to bail out buckets of water to water the trees! I was about 6 or 7 at the time, and he used to put my sister and I up on the horses to ride while he watered the trees. I remember my legs stuck straight out on that horse's broad bare back!
I love when you are watching a video like this and a person is 100% real and is just like "I didn't feel like it" or "It cost too darn much" So many times you get people who aren't like that and it brings a realness to homesteading and things like this.
Judith Allen_ Ditto! This is an incredible video. I LOVE how comprehensive it is. It looks like "water management" is your most sophisticated system and it's very well done.
We are in Australia.. Dams and local water catchment areas also fill from rain and runs offs. They are full of bird poop, dead animals and other contaminants. It then goes through a treatment and filtration system where chemicals are added before they enter the pipelines for home use. There is nothing better than having your own water tank and knowing the history of the water that you use to drink and to feed your plants & animals with. Well done for doing your bit with helping to save the planet 😀
Grew up in Missouri where my parents, relatives and neighbors collect rainwater. Most of them built a concrete cistern under their house when constructing it. My parents built it under their single wide carport. Holds around 10,000 to 11,000 gallons. We grew up drinking the water and they continue to drink it for over 50 years now. Couple of tips: Install a diverter valve a few feet above the ground on the downspout of your guttering. Before it starts raining make sure they are turned out so none of the water flows into your holding tanks. All of the crap from your roof will not drain into your tanks. When it starts raining, turn them in after about 15 to 30 mins so you have clean water now. Also, do not collect the snow melt off your roof. It makes the water taste bad. And, if your water does taste bad, throw a couple of hands full of salt in your tanks or cistern. It will taste better. Only treatment we ever did to the water. Final tip: Every few years when you are running low on water, use this time as an opportunity to clean out your tanks or cistern before having water delivered. Having six kids, my parents would make us scoop out the settlement with five gallon buckets, grain shovels and brooms. I do not miss that part of those days.
Any rain water you collect should have a cover over it, or mosquitoes will lay eggs in it, insects and other things can get into it and make it unclean.
@addsurfer1970 "concrete holding tanks are where legionaries disease came from." Not exactly, although anything that holds water can also hold this bacterium. "In January 1977, the Legionella bacterium was finally identified and isolated and was found to be breeding in the cooling tower of the hotel's air conditioning system" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires%27_disease_outbreak
The Water Man has a gift of speaking upright. The video is concise and edited well. Straight to point of answering these questions. Keep up the good work.
I haven't read thru all of the comments, so perhaps this has already been addressed. The life span of those poly tanks can be greatly extended by reducing the amount of UV they receive. So a rain roof above them would not only protect your tanks, but also provide for additional rainwater collection. Just a suggestion and thanks for the videos.
I thought the same thing. Large roof with additional rain collection and maybe ring of trees around it to screen and not over temp the water. Nice system otherwise,
i just came for the legality question!! it hilarious to deem it illegal. In India not only it is encouraged but in some areas, it has been made mandatory to be included in all new constructions
Welcome to states like California and Colorado where liberal mentality is that we must be 100% dependent on the government. You will practically lose your home if they catch you collecting rainwater.
it's in due part to pollutants carried from the air that is transferred to rain droplets which causes the rain which can cause the rain to turn toxic. Old enough to remember acid rain?
YOU are such an inspiration! Our city of Atascaderod, CA has changed all their ordinances and zoning codes to ALLOW for and ENCOURAGE rainwater collection! 5 grand is NOTHING - just to connect to our water company here is cost over 25 THOUSAND DOLLARS PLUS THE MONTHLY COST OF THE WATER! We are building a tiny home here that will rely ENTIRELY on rainwater collection, low-voltage solar, and grey water recycling system. Keep preaching, dude, we really appreciate it.
After watching this video for 5 minutes i gotta believe this guy has read the book "dune". If he hasnt he should. You have a fine water conservation ethos, my friend.
Collecting rainwater in cisterns is standard practice for homes in the Virgin Islands. We usually build the cisterns out of reinforced concrete and they are built as part of the the building's foundation. The cistern's capacity is REQUIRED to be at least 10 gallons for every square foot of roof. Unless there is an extended drought, we never run out of water. Tropical storms and hurricanes do serve a purpose.
We use it for bathing, laundry, toilet flushing, washing dishes. All water is filtered. Filter is changed every 3 months. I add bleach to the cistern once a month. Amount is based on how much water is in the cistern at the time. We usually don't drink it, but if we wanted to, we would boil it first.
Please be advised, that at sixty years of age and formerly very discouraged, it is most encouraging to listen to a much younger person articulate in such an excellent manner! Thank you. Regards, Gordon C. (Indiana)
As you get older you will probably realize that "young" becomes a moving target, may be it always is. I am in my sixties as well and someone 45 years old is most definitely a (somewhat) young person to me. Besides "spirit advertizing" referred to the OP as "much younger person", a 45 yo is much younger than a 60 yo. Hell, I am in my sixties and when I think of myself I still consider myself (and feel) as "young'ish".........most days anyway........some mornings I feel 85 !!
Our house in Fiji was 100' long * 40' wide. The roof captured all the water we needed into a 6000 gallon round concrete tank about 10' high. All our drinking water was from an RO unit. The rest just had a 10 micron sediment filter.
Hi from Spain The house in which I was born in England had no mains water supply. We were fortunate in that we had a well in the side garden that was fed constantly by a spring but the water was very hard and excellent for making tea but useless for washing - soap just turned to scum. So for water for washing purposes we collected it off the roof and stored it in a large tank from which we collected it by dipping in a bucket. The filter was an old sock! That was over 75 years ago and that was the best water I have ever tasted. Great video.
You are one of the reason I love America. I love the independent spirit, the do it yourself attitude, and the no nonsense get it done personality. Big thumbs up for your awesome ingenuity.
@@ndaemon1718 Well you did makea system that all men can operate in to live. It's not exclusively for you according to your own ideologies like freedom you stole from the Indians just like you stole rock and roll from black people. You're good at stealing and acting as if you are the originators of the innovation but in fact you people hate innovation just like how we have no high speed rail here. Go work on your old car.
Here in south Alabama, we receive on average over 70 inches per year and take good water for granted, hats off to you for an outstanding collection system. Best regards.
I'm Canadian, living in Michigan. I don't have much need for a rainwater collection system beyond a couple of rain barrels for the garden BUT your video was fascinating and you kept me up way past my bedtime! Congratulations on such a great system and video!
You are an inspiration to anyone who is thinking of or even trying to become more self sufficient. I have a small (500 gals) rainwater collection system that I use to water my vegetable gardens, they do so much better with rain water versus city tap water. I salute you young man.
*What I love about this video* is that the whole thing is about the practical day-to-day reality of using water harvesting and storage as your main water source. Many other videos on this subject concentrate on the theory and a bunch of other stuff that's not gonna help you actually do this in the real world. *Great content from The Homesteadonomics Channel!*
I only have rainwater tanks big ones like these as well for 11 years now and I’ve no dams or wells, and I water cattle pigs sheep alpacas chooks and my vege gardens for free.. plus I plant lots of trees, I put in 250 gums the other year for firewood harvesting, so harvesting water is pretty easy, plus I live in a arid area in country Australia where we don’t have a lot of rainfall.. the idea is to buy more tanks and put more collection area in as when you own the resource, you can manage it yourself. Kind of the same as having batteries, when their full, you own what’s in them. When it comes to managing resource.. Gordon Greckos mantra is appropriate.. greed is good. More for me.
This is by far THE best video of all the hundreds I have watched on YT. It is well presented, interesting, enjoyable and has given me so many ideas. I already collect and use 1,000's of litres here in the UK. Our water bill is tiny compared to the average. If I lived in the country and not town and I was 40 years younger I would be doing a smaller version. My buddy lives in Ontario Canada and has a huge roof. (7 different aspects) plus a massive typical North American barn. I have been nagging him for years for us to build a water harvest system as he currently uses well water. His wife must use 300 gallons a day watering. Drives me nuts as he is using precious well water plus electric to draw up his water. Madness Love this video
Grew up in the Midwest US. Parents have a cistern under their back porch area used for collecting rainwater off of their roof. It is the size of a single car parking area and part of their basement. They raised six of us kids off of that. Once every seven to eight years we cleaned out the settlement in the cistern when the water level was low. Never did use any filters or anything. If the water had a certain taste to it, my dad would throw a couple hands full of salt in it. Only ran out of water maybe a half dozen times. Had a couple thousand gallons water delivered and I remember that it only increased the water level by a few inches. Figured it up once and I think they have between 13000 and 14000 gallons of storage. The house is 49 years old and they are still using it!
Dune is a book about politics, religion, and ecology. It has the highest reward for patience of any book i have ever read. Started reading it. Put it down. Tried again, got further, put it down again. Picked it up again determined to become familiar with it's lingo and finished it with a new outlook on life.
I like being self-sufficient and watch a lot of how-to videos, this was a very impressive and well done video. No product pushes, just straight forward Q&A. Great info, thanks.
Very well explained. I know this video is 5 years old, but we are getting a late start on our homesteading journey. This system is exactly what we are hoping for. We just haven’t decided on the proper placement of the tanks as we are on a sloped property and have to correct erosion issues first. I want to do the rain garden on the lower end of our property with the pond but no way of excavating it properly yet. Everything we do is done by hand. Great content in your video. Thank you.
My 5yr old son and I were watching together and at the end of the video when you requested thumbs up, he prompted stuck his thumbs in the air! Great job as always.
For those worried about getting sick from rain water, my grandparents lived to 81 and 88 on rain water collected in their cistern. No treatment. They just had a simple sand filter in line with the water pump. The cistern was built into the foundation of their home,
@Keyzer Soze Try again. The OP who I was replying to talked about his grandparents using cistern water as did mine, my parents, and even myself. We had one pump, one tank, and a change over valve. The rule was one tank full after change over from cistern to well water and then used for drinking water. Nobody ever got sick from the cistern water. And we had no filter on it.
Thanks for the insight. I'm going to move back home to the Navajo reservation and want to learn as much as possible to get enough water, incase they tell me they can't dig for water lines - too far from the main hub. I grew up without running water and electricity so no biggie. Also wanted to have a big garden and fruit trees. 😋
This was an amazingly informative video! My wife and I are interested in water harvesting, here in southern Oregon. We get decent rain in the winter, but summers are hot, dry, and sometimes on fire! We are on a well for our house water, but it kills me to see how much rain runs off our barn, and really isn't useful. So thanks for all the great info!
While this video does not apply to my current living situation although I do have a rain barrel, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it and listening to your methodical explanation of your system. Your necessary water strategy taps into my joy of using the free gifts of nature.
I like very much how you framed what you have written. I get immense joy from seeing how individuals create comfort for themselves by themselves. (Or on a very small scale, as a small community)
I really liked to see what you've done. Basically is the same system used here at Brazil northeastern region, an arid region with little anual rainfall. If you have some slope in your property and it is a clay soil, you could build a mini lake, with a rock and cement dam. It is a low cost but very efficient way to store water enough even to raise a little livestock, as its done here.
I'm amazed that you get enough rain to survive with this system in Arizona. I did not realize it rained that much there. With my average water bill it would take me forty years to pay off that system. Where I live I pray for enough dry days in a row for my yard to dry out enough to mow it.
An excellent video by a talented artisan. We just bought 2 acres in S.W. Missouri (USA) where we receive about 46 inches of rain per year. We had gutters put up, also on the outbuilding Since I'm 72 and my hubby won't let me climb on anything (not even a chair!), I had two diverters installed, one on the house and one on the outbuilding. My chickens get only rainwater from the large trash barrels I collect in. I plan to get two more set up soon to use for garden and orchard water. I believe it's Colorado where they hang you for catching water.
No matter how much rainfall you collect, you are never denying anyone downstream of their water, unless you build a dam so massive that evaporation comes into play. Only government does that. No water is ever destroyed. Every molecule remains to this day.
I live in a Seattle suburb, and have been flushing my toilet with rainwater for the past 15 years. I have three 55 gallon barrels on a platform behind my house to catch the water off only 1/2 my roof. They are hooked together in a manifold system on the inlet and outlet, so they all fill and drain at the same time. I used a "frost free" hose bib under my toilet, and had to change out the toilet tanks valve to a low flow valve to deal with the very low pressure. It takes about 45 seconds to fill the tank. I use only half my roof, and I calculated that I get 25 gallons of water for each 0.10" of rain. It rained hard this last Thursday (1.3") and it filled my three tanks to over flowing. I usually only have to use my "extra" storage tanks I fill in the winter months once or twice during a dry summer. My Grandparents farm back in Kansas used a system like yours, to fill a cistern, and Grandma would add a bit of bleach to the tank under their house if it smelled like a frog had jumped in. No one ever got sick.
Great to hear it works for for you! I'd like to do this but can't in our current house as the setup would be too complicated due to our plumbing. However, we use rainwater for our garden and for washing the car etc.
Saw you using a copper cup to drink from. Good idea as copper is the "poor man's" silver when it comes to anti-microbial properties. Copper door knobs, cooking and serving tools are also good to help passively kill germs without using harsh chemicals. Don't over-do it on the copper though, just like anything else; too much can also be bad for you with toxic effect. Some microbial exposure is good for your body anyhow. Silver works better of course, but is rather pricey. Considering the capitol expenditure to build your water system; it can cost quite a bit to have water pipe run to your place. I didn't hear that expense mentioned, and then you have the additives they put into your city water to deal with as a constant filtering expense anyhow.
Anti-biotics are dangerous! It's a good idea not to ingest too many microbes from the environment at one time (so washing your hands is always a good idea) but your gut flora is made up of microbes and they do a job on our behalf ie most of our digestion. Don't kill them! A little bit of silver or copper isn't going to shift them - they reproduce - but a barrage of anti microbial produce is a seriously bad idea. Filter or boil for preference. Over-exposure to any metal is not a good idea. Lead is well known (as is mercury - but nobody makes mercury pipes) but just about any will kill your brain over a long period - do you really want to have dementia ten years before your time, maybe while you're still working? (this happened to my father - a research chemist that also served on toxicology advisory boards. He knew what killed him, and also knew there was no antidote) As a general principle - whatever systems you use minimise the time the things you ingest spend in contact with ANYTHING else. In 20 years will we be cursing uPVC? If your nutrition hasn't spent time leaching things from anything then you've just future proofed - lead pipes were the best thing, asbestos was the best thing etc etc etc - today's science may be based on incomplete data that takes time to become mature.
Many civilizations were brought to their knees using pewter and lead for utensils, dishware, and water pipes. Cheap pewter was used to make utensils, plates, bowls, cups which had upward of 15% Lead.
As always, your videos are so very impressive with your ingenuity, fantastic builds and the workable concise systems you have created. Thank you for sharing it...You are an inspiration to all!
I am in a state that encourages rainwater collection also. We have a catchment system for our garden but I want to eventually expand that for some of our other water needs. But I also live in the wetlands so we don't have water shortage issues here either.
Good system for recovering run off rain water. Worked with poly tanks for 35 years and they do last a long time. We would always paint the tops of all the tanks so we could walk across them, added sand to the paint for traction on wet or icy days.
As a person who grew up next to Lake Michigan but spent several years in Saudi Arabia, I really admire your very ingenious system here. I got into water conservation and studying different ways of dealing with water during my years in Saudi Arabia where all water was trucked in from desalinization plants on the Indian Ocean. We tend to take water from granted, but it is helpful to see how folks like you make the most of what comes from nature. Thanks!
Grins, you should find out what they are pumping into our aquifers! Human shit and pee. Some municipalities actually make the most incredible decomposed mulch in the world out of our poo pee and sawdust, tested 5 X. A bit heavy in metals but oh well. Don't use this on vegetable crops! The rest is trucked to a secluded agricultural field and pumped 15 to 20 feet below the surface. NOT at all beneficial to the soil nor the crops but most certainly gets into our fresh water aquifers.
What a smart system to sustain water by yourself from the rain you get. I have to say, I have never seen anything quite so complex and yet so simple. I think it is extremely smart, and only filtering out water that you use to drink and cook with is a smart idea. That's the first time I've seen that type of water sanitizer, but it looks pretty handy and is about the size of a commercial coffee brewer. I thought that having a vacuum that you can clean the gutter from the ground is really smart. I've never seen one with a hook on it for the attachment to go right down into the gutter so well. Does it have like small brushes around the edge of it to knock the dirt loose from the gutter? What a great idea, and it definitely makes keeping the gutter clean quick and easy! Was that 4" schedule 40 PVC you are using to pipe all of that down and around to the tanks? Brilliant system!
As always, fantastic video. I'm just north of you in Apache County and they told us that we could in no way modify the natural course of waterflow on the land. We wanted to create swales to restrict or divert the natural flow of water. We had plans on using swales to create areas for fruit trees to grow. It's a real bummer and we continually look for ways around this insane rule. You're an inspiration as always. Keep on, keeping on!
Thanks so much! regarding your swale building issue... I'm thinking that they are referring to swales that cross washes and established waterways. I consider small scales just part of the landscaping to divert water to trees and other plants. Most local governments actually do this in development projects as part of new water conservation efforts(retention basins, etc,.) I'm guessing the person you spoke to has no idea of what you were referring too... or was thinking of a large scale excavator doing mile of berms that would cross water ways. I can tell you that most small scale swales (100-300') that I've seen disappear visually in a year or so...wink, wink;) ... on another note, Geoff Lawton has used 'road construction' of a new driveway to incorporate larger scale swales to land in order to direct and harvest water. In my area there's not much required to put a 'primitive access' road on a property.... ie... that road could be on contour ;)
I live in country NSW Australia and rely solely on rainwater harvesting as well. Because of the heat I put a roof over the concrete tank (100,000) litres and the roof also keeps the water cool, also a collector. Great video and different ideas 💡. Thanks 😊
Love it Man! U kicked Ass on your system & explanation in short n sweet detail. U get a 10 out of 10 from this new subscriber & look forward to your other vids... I'll be passing the well thought out knowledge to others & putting this system into play.... Also residing in AZ. towards the NE of the state. Cheers to you sir!! Thank you!!
The US Peace Corp found a technique that you might want to try. They found it in Morocco in the mountains - desert mountains. It was done by Berber people for growing fruit trees.
Thank you. We’re hoping to get our rainwater collection up in its earliest stage before monsoon. We’re down in Santa Cruz county. This is good information! It will help our planning.
This would be so informative and educational for other nations to be able to do this as well as turning our deserts into environmentally friendly ecosystems very informative video
What an amazing system! Congratulations on that! I live in Mexico City, where water is scarce and I have to store it in tanks similar to yours from the city pipes. A lot of the time there is a lot of rust in the water, so I came up with an easy solution that might work for you: I adapted a small baskets at the exit of the pipe into the water tank. Inside the basket I put a couple of very small fabric towels that have to be washed frequently. However, that has prevented all the rust and particles from coming into my home pipelines. I thought that you might find it useful too to keep your rain water cleaner. Congratulations again!
As a plumber, I really like your video. Been thinking about your 1st flush thing. All you need is 2 P-traps, with a Clean out plug, or a screwed trap on the bottom. The Heavy sediment won't like to go up the trap, it will remain at the bottom. You'd be surprised what a small p-trap holds onto.
Just like the p-trap in a toilet keeps swamp gas out of the house, a p-trap in a rain collection system isolates the air in the empty cavern of the storage vessel also, and if a bug can't manage to swim through the p-trap, they won't get into the storage. Yes, eventually, a p-trap can dry out if no flow happens for a long time in a hot, dry environment like the desert SW of the US, but it's a useful addition, and you could add a means of refilling it manually at the overflow.
hey mister i found ur video very informative and i ll suggest that u reasearch the topic of "majel". i m from tunisia, sfax and i grew up on this culture, even in low income houses, when we build a home we often include a majel essentially we dig up a whole on the ground then build walls arround it, and we connect it to our roofs throught pipes, and this because an additional drinking reservoir, from time to time we put a little amount of bleech in it to sanitize it, and we do an annual check up (we bring a sample to the sanitary department to analyse the water and check its drinkability), but essentially, you get fresh water during summer and warm water during winter :) hope my comment will make a good impact on those who will read it :)
@Himself Lee Some people still use them. In the Florida Keys, for example. There's a company in Homestead that sells modern cistern tanks. I think it's called Dolphin Fiberglass.
Here in Tasmania (and Australia in general) we have just collected and drank our rainwater ever since.... no one gets sick, and country folks often miss it when they move to town, because it tastes so darn fresh and good. Rainwater is about the cleanest natural source of water possible. Its distilled into the sky! If you are not in a city with serious air pollutants then its actually as good as it gets. We are just another animal and if we couldnt thrive on the water available we would have just gone extinct years ago. Even bottled water comes with a few bacteria! Thats what you have an immune system for. Its not like there is cholera in it. Put a tap/s at the lowest point/s of the system to open up to flush the sediment out occasionally. Keep it dark, cool and sealed from insects and vegetation debri. Hardly rocket science. Here in Tasmania I often drink staright from the creeks when in the bush, and people collect water from the mountain above the capital, Hobart, that falls from the rocks out of a spring on the side of the road. How did people end up so disconnected from nature that they could think that there is a problem with drinking rain!!! Cheers for the video
Hell im an Aussie to, i grew up with tank water from the roof, still do. any new house around here now have to have tanks to flush toilets, your right tho, what a disconnect...
Out in rural Australia we live off untreated rainwater. Simple, roof + tank + pump = household rainwater. Sure you pop the lid on the tank and see nasty things in there after a few decades maybe a frog or two, some old algi or some floaties. But every time you go to town you realize how much you miss rainwater. Plus (out here at least) every farm's rainwater has it's own unique taste/flavor.
Regarding conservation, I have experience as a child of about 12/13 years old that required water conservation. My parents, brother and sister lived in a 2-room house in dry west Texas. We did not have running water in the house and bathing required the heating of water on the cook stove and a number 3 tub. Bathing was a weekly event and not often enough for my taste. During the blazing hot summer, I rigged a water hose up in a tree and when I came home from my summer job after dark, I showered by wetting my body, turning off the water, soaping down and then rinsing. The water ran off into my garden. This type of conservation effort prepared me for my Army service, when in the field daily sanitation (shaving and washing) was completed with one gallon of water.
THey wont stop you here in california, but they will fine the ever living crap out of you. My neighbor got fined 10k for his first offense and it only goes up from there.
That really sucks..need to get a bunch of people suing them for letting it rain on their property. I can't see how individuals could lose if thats pushed through all the way to the supreme court. Has to be some lawyers chomping at the bit to fight that.
actually it's not always yours, if you live in the west you might understand. water is scarce ...a precious commodity, someone else might need that water. That's why the elected government made the water laws. you sound like you might be another anarchist, the United States does have elected government, a Constitution, things like that. sorry doesn't always work out the way you like....
seth tenrec I pay for the land, I pay taxes on the land, not some appartment dweller. Fortunately I don't live in the land of idiots where that happens. If I plant a garden, they aren't entitled to ANY of it.
What you are upto is amazing and inspiring and I love it. Starting off being self sufficient in water for your family and now looking beyond thinking about creating a swale. You might want to check out the topography of your area from local government agency or perhaps online and use nature's course of water runoff in your surrounding area to maximize effect for permaculture and create your own little forest getting neighbors involved. Good luck and keep up your good work.
I worked for a water treatment company once and as prevention for UV degradation we paint plastic pipes and tanks and I noticed that it works. Awesome video presentation by the way.
This is an absoluely awesome video. So clearly presented and full of great information. I am very excited and happy that you have been able to accomplish this! Thank you for sharing.
Great video------Remember to remind folks that rainwater is distilled which means NO minerals from the good earth . But there are tons of suppliments for that.
Cool video - 8 miles south of Boston here my annual water bill is about $2,600 for 3 persons in a medium small home & I never water the lawn. Also the 3 of us are away from home 10 - 15 hours/day at work and we take showers at the gym so our water usage is small yet the $bill is huge. This awesome video gives me some ideas. My parents retired to Puerto Rico & there the power & water systems do not work 75% of the time so most homes have generators and rainwater collection systems. In my parents case their home had 2 5000 gallon tanks used to store rainwater.
You could have said the argument doesn't hold "water." Up North sometimes its frowned upon due to breeding places for mosquitos to hatch etc. Cool set up
I was like $5000k for all of that? You know contracting our Davis & Shirtliff could cost you even more for such a solution, plus wells are not as clean as rain water, worst case scenario if you are in the heart Nairobi some of its sewerage might seep in. I have one that is only dedicated to my farm here in Nairobi, otherwise the rest i get to pay a monthly fee to Nairobi water.
I use this www.qualitygardentools.com/product/roughneck-posthole-digging-bar-17lb/ the weight of it along with the smaller contact area, means that this tool digs extremely fast in hard baked earth, its just an iron bar, potentially very cheap iron bar.
I live in a desert area where we use swamp coolers and found rainwater is the best water feed for swamp coolers. The water in the local wells has a lot of salts and lime in it and would cause me to have to change the pad in the coolers every year and the cooler every 10 to 12 years. Since using rainwater, i change the pads every 3 years and have not had to buy a new cooler. i also have a coil of tubing in the bottom of the swamp cooler that feeds cold water into the house for drinking water,. as the swamp cooler acts as a cooling tower for cooling the water. I also run a solar distillation set up to get good clean drinking and cooking water.
Here in So Oregon, a man in our community spent 60 days total in jail for collecting the water on his property for a pond intended for protection against fire. Insane! He was forced to remove his pond which he originally pulled permits for. No justice for the little guy
Not true. "In 2007, Mr. Harrington entered a guilty plea for illegally damming water from the tributaries crossing his property. He received three years probation and was ordered to release the impounded water. This recent lawsuit filed by the State stems from his refusal to meet the conditions of his probation. Mr. Harrington has been fined more than $1,500 for nine misdemeanor convictions, ordered to serve a 30 day jail sentence, and required to breach his dams and drain his ponds."
Not wrong. He was incarcerated more than once. The fact remains that the water came from his own run off. Water/snow hitting your property should not claimed by anyone else. The pond was utilized for his own recreation as well as available for fires which is a yearly problem here since the decline of the lumber industry here.
Great stuff! From Northern Ca. We have 3 5000 gallon tanks caught off a Metal roof. Pretty clean with no trees over it so less leaves to deal with. Our well runs out about march and we have a few small catch systems on the property. There is a spring well That I am going to start to catch in to tanks this summer. I really love your whole system. The big prob here is we are getting less and less rain each year. Keep it up. PS My goal is to become an expert on this because I feel we have no choice and its only getting worse. Thanks Again.
Thank you! I read about how the Western US is having major water access issues that will get worse. I'm happy to see you are doing a great job of combating the problem for yourself.
Great insight. Good details and obvious organization of almost concentric applications of water and other water management. It looks like all four corners of the area surrounding the house and grounds have total coverage and applied channels for irrigation as well. Nicely presented.
Wow! Thanks so much for the response guys! Lots of good questions...actually way too many that I can't keep up... and I'm sorry for that :)
..but please try to keep it positive with one another. Not everyone will agree with each other, and that's okay. But bringing up things that really don't have anything to do with this video doesn't really do much good :/
Anyways, thanks for watching :)
homesteadonomics , Check out John Ellis Water so you don't have to add any chemicals to you water, but it's way much more that just that. And should you want to be considered about the acid aspect of your water look into Kangen Water, it also is so much more than dealing with acid. Also did you know you can use electricity to get water out of the air, would be good for inside and outside. You know how much water we lose through our breath !! And on the topic of electricity why not look into solar power, there is a guy on RUclips called "Robert Murray-Smith" who shows a few ways to make your own solar panels, one of them in transparent and cheap. Oh and with your setup with the way you have the gap in the pipes to your drainage from the roof... take like a small DC motor with a piece of something that can cover the drain pipes. Have it spring loaded to stay open. So when the rain is going to come, if someone is home, applying power to the small motors for each pipe to pull against the spring bringing the cover over your pipe. Or think of an easier way. In fact I just thought of another way electricity free while typing this, ask if u want to know, it will be pages to type, it just came to me, hope I don't forget lol
your better than wranglerstar!
click the link in the description.
I like the gutter vacuum. You can also put a fine mesh screen on the gutters, if you can find a good deal. There's really fine stainless steel mesh you can buy, but it's REALLY expensive. If you could find a cheaper alternative like many layers of cheap plastic screen, it might be worth a try.
homesteadonomics
well im impressed..
FWIW, there was an attempt to claim ownership of rainwater by the water companies in the UK.
It got as far as court - and the defendants cleverly _almost_ walked the plaintiffs (the water companies) into an assertion that they owned all the water that fell from the sky, and by extension all the water that flowed into streams and rivers.
At some point the plaintiff lawyers realised that claiming ownership of all the water that fell everywhere meant that would also be admitting legal liability for billions of dollars in flooding and erosion caused by "their" water - at which point they adjourned and then withdrew the case.
That was the last that was ever heard of such claims in this country again.
This is when English law really comes into it's own. Common sense really!
Wow
Alan Brown
I'm thinking that claim of ownership by water "companies" was some time ago.
Now that the UK has been absorbed by the World Wide Mafia Left the "companies" will be government utilities and not
subject to capitalist principals or democracy law.
"...then withdrew the case." The left owns you. Pay your taxes and shut up.
@@u2mister17 what the actual fuck are you on about man. What does anything he said have to do with politics, left or right?
@@cuy50 Harvesting water isn't politics? Bone up on reality. Privatisation is far worse than policies delivered by a - reasonably - patriotic government acting in the national interest. I've seen both over long periods of time. You'd be a privatisation man, David, that's why you don't want to have any talk about politics? Correct?
We who live in the cities take for granted so many things. One of them is endless water supply. It's really amazing the fact that you put so much effort in collecting the rain water in order to fulfill the needs of your home! Awesome work man!
thanks Dimitri! It definitely a work in progress but serves us pretty well. eventually I want to have a large concrete cistern but will have to save some money for that:)
Hi I used a 3600 gallon tank made of fiberglass it was made for diesel fuel. Cost new was $5000. You can bury it with no cave in problems like plastic tanks / rubber tanks. I put mine 12 feet under 8 ft. diameter. that gave me 4 ft. of dirt on top. Will last for 100+ years.
wouldn't a new septic tank work?
Yea. It sure will.
There was a company in the Miami area that sold big fiberglass tanks suitable for cisterns. Not sure if they're still in business.
As an Australian I grew up on tank water as have millions of Australians. You are doing great. You are well on the way to a beautiful oasis in the desert. Well done. Next some tall trees on the swales to create a mini environment and to enhance underground storage. Every drop of rain that falls on your land is yours, and you get to use it 3 times before you let it off the property. Brilliant video, 100 points.
Well said, As the world warms up rain harvesting will become more important . Just look at VW when they installed rain harvesting on their factory they collected so much they provided for all of their needs and supplied the local town with the excess as well.
@@davebloggs No warming. Just regular earth cycle.
@@littleme3597 the world has been warming since the last ice age and will cool at the next one but the data does strongly indicate that we have accelerated the process to a large degree.
Rainwater tanks are ok. Grew up in Papua New Guinea with them. Prolly better than the water in most urban systems.
John Fenn: Excellent points, well-said. And as far as it being "illegal", haha. Let "them" try and stop us!
It boggles the mind that the idea that collecting rain water might be "illegal" is even a thing!
I know of farmer's who would be in favor of that, as they believe they have first dibs on all the water.
@@jsmariani4180 You talking about the parasitic govt communists ?....coz without farmers you dead
I thought Joe Biden owned all US water
@@jsmariani4180 No. You can't control where it rains or how much. FARMERS DO NOT CARE.
Because there is no way to assure the water meets health standards. For example, a tar shingle roof will pick up petroleum chemicals that are just poisonous. Now, for landscaping alone, it wouldn't matter.
"illegal to collect rainwater" is one of those laws that needs to be broken by everyone.
There was talk of making rain water catchment a restricted activity where I live. The idea was that as long as you got local council approval then you could use it. The reasoning was that because we have town sewerage and the cost of sewerage disposal/treatment is calculated as a percentage of your homes water usage. (seems like a better idea than trying to measure the actual sewerage flow) If you used rainwater then you would still be generating the same amount of sewerage but your town water usage would be reduced or eliminated. So you would not be paying your fair share of the town sewerage treatment costs. So the plan was that when you applied for approval to use rainwater the utility/council would require a measurement of you collection area. Then they would calculate expected water catchment based on average rainfall. Then they could use that figure to calculate the percentage to be charged for sewer water treatment and disposal. This was not a popular idea as many people didn't understand the reasons and just saw it as being charged money for collecting rain. Not sure if the idea was actually implemented as we decided not to harvest rainwater and I haven't investigated it again.
@@jaseastroboy9240 I see your reasoning, but the treatment plant could have water-measurement on the out-going line and they could eliminate the water-measurement on the in-going line? Why should home owners / others be limited by other people's short thinking?
@@Fractal227 Probably much easier to measure water flow of the inbound clean water rather than trying to measure the chunkier outgoing flow. Also our inbound water connection is normally at the front of the house so the meter is usually very accessible. Whereas most sewerage lines go to the back of the property. No easy access for meter reading. Probably done that way to keep sewerage as far away as possible from the fresh drinking water, or possibly from the days when properties had a laneway at the back where excrement carter emptied the outdoor toilet.
Installing and maintaining a measuring device on each houses sewerage line seems like it would be a rather messy and unpleasant job. Bleh. :)
UN Constitutional Laws are not Laws ! Rain water belongs to Foreign Bankers ?
Special Note:
We The People DON"T have to "break any laws" collecting rain water because, if you "own" your property, real estate law states that you own everything "straight up and straight down!
* Are there exceptions? Of course!
* For everything on or under the ground, in some states the water, mineral and gas rights can be sold and owned by others. Still no problem to collect water "before" it gets to the ground!
* For everything above the ground, the land owner owns the air and sunshine AND ANY WATER coming from the sky.
* You can't keep planes from flying overhead (in most cases) but, you "might" have a legal case to stop drones!
MORAL OF THE STORY!!!!!!
DON'T LET GOVERNMENTS RUN OVER YOUR RIGHTS!
WE THE PEOPLE OWN & RUN THIS COUNTRY... NOT OUR HIRED HELP IN GOVERNMENT!
IMO, $5k is cheap compared to what everything must be costing because of the inflation that is happening right now. You constructed that system at the right time. Great job!
This is a good information video. I'd like to share something my dad did back in the 1940's-1970's,, when he was farming the land. We had a 380 acre farm that had self sustaining water management systems. There was a WELL on the property, but it was NOT really used. The water was too hard.
There was a water cistern system and a wind-will that did the majority of pumping. My dad had created a strainer system that he fashioned out of a MILKER filtration similar to coffee filters. This is where all the milk is strained before it goes into the Milk Cans for pick up. He did the same with with all the rainwater that went through a similar set up,, only instead of the 2 straining,, he had 5 strainings.
It was literally strained 5 times before it went into the underground tanks. Large wire screen, into a medium wire screen, into a smaller screen, and then through the fine filters that was many layers of cheese cloth and flour sack cotton fabric. Those were changed out after each rain falls,, and snow melting collection. It was ALL. Washed and clean all the time. NOTHING got through the filter system,,and it ended up PURE!
He had a circulation pump that pumped the water all the way through the system every week.. It was literally re-filtered on a regular schedule to keep the algae under control. It wasn't stagnant for long periods of time.
My grandparents had a big pond on their farm. Grandpa used to fill a big wooden container that he had on some kind of cart and his two draft horses would pull it from fruit tree to fruit tree for him to bail out buckets of water to water the trees! I was about 6 or 7 at the time, and he used to put my sister and I up on the horses to ride while he watered the trees. I remember my legs stuck straight out on that horse's broad bare back!
Amazing Farm Girl👏🏾👍🏽
I love when you are watching a video like this and a person is 100% real and is just like "I didn't feel like it" or "It cost too darn much" So many times you get people who aren't like that and it brings a realness to homesteading and things like this.
Yes. It’s very sincere and unpretentious. We’re running as fast as we can and are cutting corners. Sometimes it’s the best choice.
I love that you get right to the point! No fluff just great info..thanks
thanks Judith!
Judith Allen_
Ditto!
This is an incredible video. I LOVE how comprehensive it is. It looks like "water management" is your most sophisticated system and it's very well done.
You must watch alex jones lol
Judith Allen Me, too.
You live in Az. Do you get enough rainwater to make all this worthwhile?
I respect that this guy is maximizing his rain water collecting capacity
We are in Australia.. Dams and local water catchment areas also fill from rain and runs offs. They are full of bird poop, dead animals and other contaminants. It then goes through a treatment and filtration system where chemicals are added before they enter the pipelines for home use.
There is nothing better than having your own water tank and knowing the history of the water that you use to drink and to feed your plants & animals with. Well done for doing your bit with helping to save the planet 😀
Grew up in Missouri where my parents, relatives and neighbors collect rainwater. Most of them built a concrete cistern under their house when constructing it. My parents built it under their single wide carport. Holds around 10,000 to 11,000 gallons. We grew up drinking the water and they continue to drink it for over 50 years now.
Couple of tips: Install a diverter valve a few feet above the ground on the downspout of your guttering. Before it starts raining make sure they are turned out so none of the water flows into your holding tanks. All of the crap from your roof will not drain into your tanks. When it starts raining, turn them in after about 15 to 30 mins so you have clean water now. Also, do not collect the snow melt off your roof. It makes the water taste bad. And, if your water does taste bad, throw a couple of hands full of salt in your tanks or cistern. It will taste better. Only treatment we ever did to the water. Final tip: Every few years when you are running low on water, use this time as an opportunity to clean out your tanks or cistern before having water delivered. Having six kids, my parents would make us scoop out the settlement with five gallon buckets, grain shovels and brooms. I do not miss that part of those days.
Any rain water you collect should have a cover over it, or mosquitoes will lay eggs in it, insects and other things can get into it and make it unclean.
@addsurfer1970 LOL! I love hearing comments from "experts".
@@mjleger4555 wow... LOL
@addsurfer1970 LOL oh LORD! Hell-arious!
@addsurfer1970 "concrete holding tanks are where legionaries disease came from."
Not exactly, although anything that holds water can also hold this bacterium.
"In January 1977, the Legionella bacterium was finally identified and isolated and was found to be breeding in the cooling tower of the hotel's air conditioning system"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Philadelphia_Legionnaires%27_disease_outbreak
mans building a whole country in his backyard ..independent goals
Lol...
"Goddamn", Noop Noop voice...
Mans not hot! In desert.
The smart ones will all be doing this come Jan 20....
We gotta all be on this type of timing, matrix is crumbling. Mad respect to this guy
Shut we see going down these days; a "small country in the backyard" might be the difference between continuing breathing ...
The Water Man has a gift of speaking upright. The video is concise and edited well. Straight to point of answering these questions. Keep up the good work.
That's the cadence of an unfluoridated man ;)
I haven't read thru all of the comments, so perhaps this has already been addressed. The life span of those poly tanks can be greatly extended by reducing the amount of UV they receive. So a rain roof above them would not only protect your tanks, but also provide for additional rainwater collection. Just a suggestion and thanks for the videos.
I thought the same thing. Large roof with additional rain collection and maybe ring of trees around it to screen and not over temp the water. Nice system otherwise,
Good thinking brother!👍
Good idea!
Always on my mind, what plastic toxins are in those collectors? BPA is not the only questionable chemicals that may be in plastic.
@@THEROOTMATTERS Good point! Please do share what other questionable toxins might be in them?
Man, i just randomly got to this channel and boy I was lucky. if all the other videos are like this one, that is super cool! thanks for sharing!
i just came for the legality question!! it hilarious to deem it illegal. In India not only it is encouraged but in some areas, it has been made mandatory to be included in all new constructions
Same as in Australia
2am and I'm learning how to collect rain water...
In july
lmao unless u live in england where it rains 24/7
u forgot
3 years later
Best time to get building!
Me too
Damn. Same
same
For some reason I really like that PVC vacuum tube extender thing for cleaning out the rain gutters...
SUV RVing he should consider marketing that...it's cool
thanks SUVRVing! it isn't fancy but works well:)
***** could have put screens over the gutters...heavy debris is washed off not collected
Glen: You can walk the roof, blowing the trash out of gutters with a leaf blower. It works great, even for totally filled gutters
I use my leaf blower with a 90 and an old vacuum nozzle to blow out the fir needles. Have to do it once or twice a month. Live in a forest.
Good to see the moisture farmers are doing well this season.
Making it illegal to collect rain water is absolutely evil
Welcome to states like California and Colorado where liberal mentality is that we must be 100% dependent on the government. You will practically lose your home if they catch you collecting rainwater.
someone667 wait what
it's in due part to pollutants carried from the air that is transferred to rain droplets which causes the rain which can cause the rain to turn toxic. Old enough to remember acid rain?
IntoTheFray fuck
um do it any way
River water is rain water how would a city get water without breaking the law.
YOU are such an inspiration! Our city of Atascaderod, CA has changed all their ordinances and zoning codes to ALLOW for and ENCOURAGE rainwater collection! 5 grand is NOTHING - just to connect to our water company here is cost over 25 THOUSAND DOLLARS PLUS THE MONTHLY COST OF THE WATER! We are building a tiny home here that will rely ENTIRELY on rainwater collection, low-voltage solar, and grey water recycling system. Keep preaching, dude, we really appreciate it.
After watching this video for 5 minutes i gotta believe this guy has read the book "dune". If he hasnt he should.
You have a fine water conservation ethos, my friend.
more people need to do this.... in my country most rural houses live with water tanks that hold the water collected from the roof of the house.
This water collection system is on a whole other level!
Collecting rainwater in cisterns is standard practice for homes in the Virgin Islands. We usually build the cisterns out of reinforced concrete and they are built as part of the the building's foundation. The cistern's capacity is REQUIRED to be at least 10 gallons for every square foot of roof. Unless there is an extended drought, we never run out of water. Tropical storms and hurricanes do serve a purpose.
What do you use that water for? Do you purify it for drinking?
We use it for bathing, laundry, toilet flushing, washing dishes. All water is filtered. Filter is changed every 3 months. I add bleach to the cistern once a month. Amount is based on how much water is in the cistern at the time. We usually don't drink it, but if we wanted to, we would boil it first.
Please be advised, that at sixty years of age and formerly very discouraged, it is most encouraging to listen to a much younger person articulate in such an excellent manner! Thank you. Regards, Gordon C. (Indiana)
He doesn't look very young. I'd guess between 45 and 55 years old.
I am 57.
As you get older you will probably realize that "young" becomes a moving target, may be it always is. I am in my sixties as well and someone 45 years old is most definitely a (somewhat) young person to me. Besides "spirit advertizing" referred to the OP as "much younger person", a 45 yo is much younger than a 60 yo. Hell, I am in my sixties and when I think of myself I still consider myself (and feel) as "young'ish".........most days anyway........some mornings I feel 85 !!
Wtf are you all yammering on abt? This dude Gordon is Corn...
Our house in Fiji was 100' long * 40' wide. The roof captured all the water we needed into a 6000 gallon round concrete tank about 10' high. All our drinking water was from an RO unit. The rest just had a 10 micron sediment filter.
Hi from Spain
The house in which I was born in England had no mains water supply. We were fortunate in that we had a well in the side garden that was fed constantly by a spring but the water was very hard and excellent for making tea but useless for washing - soap just turned to scum. So for water for washing purposes we collected it off the roof and stored it in a large tank from which we collected it by dipping in a bucket. The filter was an old sock! That was over 75 years ago and that was the best water I have ever tasted. Great video.
You are one of the reason I love America. I love the independent spirit, the do it yourself attitude, and the no nonsense get it done personality. Big thumbs up for your awesome ingenuity.
Come to Australia mate. Live outside the big smoke and this is what you’ll be doing
@@ndaemon1718 Well you did makea system that all men can operate in to live. It's not exclusively for you according to your own ideologies like freedom you stole from the Indians just like you stole rock and roll from black people. You're good at stealing and acting as if you are the originators of the innovation but in fact you people hate innovation just like how we have no high speed rail here. Go work on your old car.
Brother, you are doing an outstanding job and God bless you with your work.
Here in south Alabama, we receive on average over 70 inches per year and take good water for granted, hats off to you for an outstanding collection system. Best regards.
I'm Canadian, living in Michigan. I don't have much need for a rainwater collection system beyond a couple of rain barrels for the garden BUT your video was fascinating and you kept me up way past my bedtime! Congratulations on such a great system and video!
You are an inspiration to anyone who is thinking of or even trying to become more self sufficient. I have a small (500 gals) rainwater collection system that I use to water my vegetable gardens, they do so much better with rain water versus city tap water. I salute you young man.
*What I love about this video* is that the whole thing is about the practical day-to-day reality of using water harvesting and storage as your main water source. Many other videos on this subject concentrate on the theory and a bunch of other stuff that's not gonna help you actually do this in the real world. *Great content from The Homesteadonomics Channel!*
I only have rainwater tanks big ones like these as well for 11 years now and I’ve no dams or wells, and I water cattle pigs sheep alpacas chooks and my vege gardens for free.. plus I plant lots of trees, I put in 250 gums the other year for firewood harvesting, so harvesting water is pretty easy, plus I live in a arid area in country Australia where we don’t have a lot of rainfall.. the idea is to buy more tanks and put more collection area in as when you own the resource, you can manage it yourself. Kind of the same as having batteries, when their full, you own what’s in them. When it comes to managing resource.. Gordon Greckos mantra is appropriate.. greed is good. More for me.
This is by far THE best video of all the hundreds I have watched on YT. It is well presented, interesting, enjoyable and has given me so many ideas. I already collect and use 1,000's of litres here in the UK. Our water bill is tiny compared to the average. If I lived in the country and not town and I was 40 years younger I would be doing a smaller version. My buddy lives in Ontario Canada and has a huge roof. (7 different aspects) plus a massive typical North American barn. I have been nagging him for years for us to build a water harvest system as he currently uses well water. His wife must use 300 gallons a day watering. Drives me nuts as he is using precious well water plus electric to draw up his water. Madness Love this video
Grew up in the Midwest US. Parents have a cistern under their back porch area used for collecting rainwater off of their roof. It is the size of a single car parking area and part of their basement. They raised six of us kids off of that. Once every seven to eight years we cleaned out the settlement in the cistern when the water level was low. Never did use any filters or anything. If the water had a certain taste to it, my dad would throw a couple hands full of salt in it. Only ran out of water maybe a half dozen times. Had a couple thousand gallons water delivered and I remember that it only increased the water level by a few inches. Figured it up once and I think they have between 13000 and 14000 gallons of storage. The house is 49 years old and they are still using it!
Cool
Hi! What is your folks’ cistern made of? I assume it is covered and has a trap door for cleaning. Is it made from cement?
Dune is a book about politics, religion, and ecology.
It has the highest reward for patience of any book i have ever read.
Started reading it. Put it down.
Tried again, got further, put it down again.
Picked it up again determined to become familiar with it's lingo and finished it with a new outlook on life.
I like being self-sufficient and watch a lot of how-to videos, this was a very impressive and well done video. No product pushes, just straight forward Q&A. Great info, thanks.
Very well explained. I know this video is 5 years old, but we are getting a late start on our homesteading journey. This system is exactly what we are hoping for. We just haven’t decided on the proper placement of the tanks as we are on a sloped property and have to correct erosion issues first. I want to do the rain garden on the lower end of our property with the pond but no way of excavating it properly yet. Everything we do is done by hand. Great content in your video. Thank you.
My 5yr old son and I were watching together and at the end of the video when you requested thumbs up, he prompted stuck his thumbs in the air! Great job as always.
For those worried about getting sick from rain water, my grandparents lived to 81 and 88 on rain water collected in their cistern. No treatment. They just had a simple sand filter in line with the water pump. The cistern was built into the foundation of their home,
What city and state did they live in?
My grandmother lived to be 97. Used cistern water for everything but cooking and drinking. That was what the well water was for.
@Keyzer Soze Try again. The OP who I was replying to talked about his grandparents using cistern water as did mine, my parents, and even myself. We had one pump, one tank, and a change over valve. The rule was one tank full after change over from cistern to well water and then used for drinking water. Nobody ever got sick from the cistern water. And we had no filter on it.
@Keyzer Soze It was still present in the tank with just one filling so it really wasn't out of the system. It just was diluted.
Thanks for the insight. I'm going to move back home to the Navajo reservation and want to learn as much as possible to get enough water, incase they tell me they can't dig for water lines - too far from the main hub. I grew up without running water and electricity so no biggie. Also wanted to have a big garden and fruit trees. 😋
Very smart Navajo 👍
This was an amazingly informative video! My wife and I are interested in water harvesting, here in southern Oregon. We get decent rain in the winter, but summers are hot, dry, and sometimes on fire! We are on a well for our house water, but it kills me to see how much rain runs off our barn, and really isn't useful. So thanks for all the great info!
Oh k no o
While this video does not apply to my current living situation although I do have a rain barrel, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it and listening to your methodical explanation of your system. Your necessary water strategy taps into my joy of using the free gifts of nature.
I like very much how you framed what you have written. I get immense joy from seeing how individuals create comfort for themselves by themselves. (Or on a very small scale, as a small community)
I really liked to see what you've done. Basically is the same system used here at Brazil northeastern region, an arid region with little anual rainfall. If you have some slope in your property and it is a clay soil, you could build a mini lake, with a rock and cement dam. It is a low cost but very efficient way to store water enough even to raise a little livestock, as its done here.
Sr. you are a great asset for the human race
thanks Sergio! :)
I’m in Washington state and thank you for this video. Giving me a lot of encouragement and faith I can do this.
I’m in Washington too in Snohomish working on a rain water systems and OG sanctuary 🤩
How many gallons will you collect in a given x day, xmonth, and xyear?
@@crystalline72 You probably know of Carolyn Eslick!!!
I really respect your independent spirit and ingenuity! Def thumbs way up!
You graciously and gratefully helped me to plan for my entire house building system!! Thank you so much!
The smartest guy ever...wow excellent job, my respects to you sir.
Thank you, as i gathered an idea how to collect rain water that we needed the most in the countryside where I am. God bless you, more power.. 🙏
Very good. i love your uncomplicated, straight forward, approach. No BS. Thank you.
I accidentally stumbled upon this video and happen to live in AZ. This is such a cool video. Got to give you props for that production quality!!
I'm amazed that you get enough rain to survive with this system in Arizona. I did not realize it rained that much there. With my average water bill it would take me forty years to pay off that system. Where I live I pray for enough dry days in a row for my yard to dry out enough to mow it.
An excellent video by a talented artisan. We just bought 2 acres in S.W. Missouri (USA) where we receive about 46 inches of rain per year. We had gutters put up, also on the outbuilding Since I'm 72 and my hubby won't let me climb on anything (not even a chair!), I had two diverters installed, one on the house and one on the outbuilding. My chickens get only rainwater from the large trash barrels I collect in. I plan to get two more set up soon to use for garden and orchard water. I believe it's Colorado where they hang you for catching water.
This is amazing. Props to you for figuring this out and living so independently!
No matter how much rainfall you collect, you are never denying anyone downstream of their water, unless you build a dam so massive that evaporation comes into play. Only government does that.
No water is ever destroyed. Every molecule remains to this day.
I live in a Seattle suburb, and have been flushing my toilet with rainwater for the past 15 years. I have three 55 gallon barrels on a platform behind my house to catch the water off only 1/2 my roof. They are hooked together in a manifold system on the inlet and outlet, so they all fill and drain at the same time. I used a "frost free" hose bib under my toilet, and had to change out the toilet tanks valve to a low flow valve to deal with the very low pressure. It takes about 45 seconds to fill the tank. I use only half my roof, and I calculated that I get 25 gallons of water for each 0.10" of rain. It rained hard this last Thursday (1.3") and it filled my three tanks to over flowing. I usually only have to use my "extra" storage tanks I fill in the winter months once or twice during a dry summer. My Grandparents farm back in Kansas used a system like yours, to fill a cistern, and Grandma would add a bit of bleach to the tank under their house if it smelled like a frog had jumped in. No one ever got sick.
Great to hear it works for for you! I'd like to do this but can't in our current house as the setup would be too complicated due to our plumbing. However, we use rainwater for our garden and for washing the car etc.
Dude. Awesome. Main thing I gather is that you can basically set your property up to be water efficient.
Saw you using a copper cup to drink from. Good idea as copper is the "poor man's" silver when it comes to anti-microbial properties. Copper door knobs, cooking and serving tools are also good to help passively kill germs without using harsh chemicals. Don't over-do it on the copper though, just like anything else; too much can also be bad for you with toxic effect. Some microbial exposure is good for your body anyhow. Silver works better of course, but is rather pricey. Considering the capitol expenditure to build your water system; it can cost quite a bit to have water pipe run to your place. I didn't hear that expense mentioned, and then you have the additives they put into your city water to deal with as a constant filtering expense anyhow.
Anti-biotics are dangerous!
It's a good idea not to ingest too many microbes from the environment at one time (so washing your hands is always a good idea) but your gut flora is made up of microbes and they do a job on our behalf ie most of our digestion.
Don't kill them!
A little bit of silver or copper isn't going to shift them - they reproduce - but a barrage of anti microbial produce is a seriously bad idea.
Filter or boil for preference.
Over-exposure to any metal is not a good idea. Lead is well known (as is mercury - but nobody makes mercury pipes) but just about any will kill your brain over a long period - do you really want to have dementia ten years before your time, maybe while you're still working? (this happened to my father - a research chemist that also served on toxicology advisory boards. He knew what killed him, and also knew there was no antidote)
As a general principle - whatever systems you use minimise the time the things you ingest spend in contact with ANYTHING else.
In 20 years will we be cursing uPVC?
If your nutrition hasn't spent time leaching things from anything then you've just future proofed - lead pipes were the best thing, asbestos was the best thing etc etc etc - today's science may be based on incomplete data that takes time to become mature.
Many civilizations were brought to their knees using pewter and lead for utensils, dishware, and water pipes. Cheap pewter was used to make utensils, plates, bowls, cups which had upward of 15% Lead.
Great tip
As always, your videos are so very impressive with your ingenuity, fantastic builds and the workable concise systems you have created. Thank you for sharing it...You are an inspiration to all!
I am in a state that encourages rainwater collection also. We have a catchment system for our garden but I want to eventually expand that for some of our other water needs. But I also live in the wetlands so we don't have water shortage issues here either.
Good system for recovering run off rain water. Worked with poly tanks for 35 years and they do last a long time. We would always paint the tops of all the tanks so we could walk across them, added sand to the paint for traction on wet or icy days.
As a person who grew up next to Lake Michigan but spent several years in Saudi Arabia, I really admire your very ingenious system here. I got into water conservation and studying different ways of dealing with water during my years in Saudi Arabia where all water was trucked in from desalinization plants on the Indian Ocean. We tend to take water from granted, but it is helpful to see how folks like you make the most of what comes from nature. Thanks!
Grins, you should find out what they are pumping into our aquifers! Human shit and pee. Some municipalities actually make the most incredible decomposed mulch in the world out of our poo pee and sawdust, tested 5 X. A bit heavy in metals but oh well. Don't use this on vegetable crops!
The rest is trucked to a secluded agricultural field and pumped 15 to 20 feet below the surface. NOT at all beneficial to the soil nor the crops but most certainly gets into our fresh water aquifers.
What a smart system to sustain water by yourself from the rain you get. I have to say, I have never seen anything quite so complex and yet so simple. I think it is extremely smart, and only filtering out water that you use to drink and cook with is a smart idea. That's the first time I've seen that type of water sanitizer, but it looks pretty handy and is about the size of a commercial coffee brewer. I thought that having a vacuum that you can clean the gutter from the ground is really smart. I've never seen one with a hook on it for the attachment to go right down into the gutter so well. Does it have like small brushes around the edge of it to knock the dirt loose from the gutter? What a great idea, and it definitely makes keeping the gutter clean quick and easy! Was that 4" schedule 40 PVC you are using to pipe all of that down and around to the tanks? Brilliant system!
As always, fantastic video. I'm just north of you in Apache County and they told us that we could in no way modify the natural course of waterflow on the land. We wanted to create swales to restrict or divert the natural flow of water. We had plans on using swales to create areas for fruit trees to grow. It's a real bummer and we continually look for ways around this insane rule. You're an inspiration as always. Keep on, keeping on!
AZ GridFree Who is "they"? County government?
Thanks so much! regarding your swale building issue... I'm thinking that they are referring to swales that cross washes and established waterways. I consider small scales just part of the landscaping to divert water to trees and other plants. Most local governments actually do this in development projects as part of new water conservation efforts(retention basins, etc,.) I'm guessing the person you spoke to has no idea of what you were referring too... or was thinking of a large scale excavator doing mile of berms that would cross water ways. I can tell you that most small scale swales (100-300') that I've seen disappear visually in a year or so...wink, wink;)
... on another note, Geoff Lawton has used 'road construction' of a new driveway to incorporate larger scale swales to land in order to direct and harvest water. In my area there's not much required to put a 'primitive access' road on a property.... ie... that road could be on contour ;)
I live in country NSW Australia and rely solely on rainwater harvesting as well. Because of the heat I put a roof over the concrete tank (100,000) litres and the roof also keeps the water cool, also a collector. Great video and different ideas 💡. Thanks 😊
This is great staff !. Am sure this is helpful to many of us, in some parts of Kenya.
Love it Man! U kicked Ass on your system & explanation in short n sweet detail. U get a 10 out of 10 from this new subscriber & look forward to your other vids... I'll be passing the well thought out knowledge to others & putting this system into play.... Also residing in AZ. towards the NE of the state. Cheers to you sir!!
Thank you!!
The US Peace Corp found a technique that you might want to try. They found it in Morocco in the mountains - desert mountains. It was done by Berber people for growing fruit trees.
What's the name of the technique how does it work? not enough information
Wow, your have been busy, respect. Everyone should do this who can, it will be more and more essential in the future.
Thank you. We’re hoping to get our rainwater collection up in its earliest stage before monsoon. We’re down in Santa Cruz county. This is good information! It will help our planning.
This would be so informative and educational for other nations to be able to do this as well as turning our deserts into environmentally friendly ecosystems very informative video
What a great system, and you are to be commended for your dedication and positive attitude!
What an amazing system! Congratulations on that! I live in Mexico City, where water is scarce and I have to store it in tanks similar to yours from the city pipes. A lot of the time there is a lot of rust in the water, so I came up with an easy solution that might work for you: I adapted a small baskets at the exit of the pipe into the water tank. Inside the basket I put a couple of very small fabric towels that have to be washed frequently. However, that has prevented all the rust and particles from coming into my home pipelines.
I thought that you might find it useful too to keep your rain water cleaner.
Congratulations again!
As a plumber, I really like your video. Been thinking about your 1st flush thing. All you need is 2 P-traps, with a Clean out plug, or a screwed trap on the bottom. The Heavy sediment won't like to go up the trap, it will remain at the bottom. You'd be surprised what a small p-trap holds onto.
Just like the p-trap in a toilet keeps swamp gas out of the house, a p-trap in a rain collection system isolates the air in the empty cavern of the storage vessel also, and if a bug can't manage to swim through the p-trap, they won't get into the storage. Yes, eventually, a p-trap can dry out if no flow happens for a long time in a hot, dry environment like the desert SW of the US, but it's a useful addition, and you could add a means of refilling it manually at the overflow.
hey mister i found ur video very informative and i ll suggest that u reasearch the topic of "majel". i m from tunisia, sfax and i grew up on this culture, even in low income houses, when we build a home we often include a majel essentially we dig up a whole on the ground then build walls arround it, and we connect it to our roofs throught pipes, and this because an additional drinking reservoir, from time to time we put a little amount of bleech in it to sanitize it, and we do an annual check up (we bring a sample to the sanitary department to analyse the water and check its drinkability), but essentially, you get fresh water during summer and warm water during winter :) hope my comment will make a good impact on those who will read it :)
Is this similar to a Cistern?
you ought to look into colloidal silver as a sanitizing agent
Thank you for the information .
I have desert land in the Mohave so good to know how it’s done in your area
@Himself Lee Some people still use them. In the Florida Keys, for example. There's a company in Homestead that sells modern cistern tanks. I think it's called Dolphin Fiberglass.
Here in Tasmania (and Australia in general) we have just collected and drank our rainwater ever since.... no one gets sick, and country folks often miss it when they move to town, because it tastes so darn fresh and good.
Rainwater is about the cleanest natural source of water possible. Its distilled into the sky! If you are not in a city with serious air pollutants then its actually as good as it gets.
We are just another animal and if we couldnt thrive on the water available we would have just gone extinct years ago. Even bottled water comes with a few bacteria! Thats what you have an immune system for. Its not like there is cholera in it.
Put a tap/s at the lowest point/s of the system to open up to flush the sediment out occasionally.
Keep it dark, cool and sealed from insects and vegetation debri. Hardly rocket science.
Here in Tasmania I often drink staright from the creeks when in the bush, and people collect water from the mountain above the capital, Hobart, that falls from the rocks out of a spring on the side of the road.
How did people end up so disconnected from nature that they could think that there is a problem with drinking rain!!!
Cheers for the video
timedowntube well water tastes better has lots of iron n shit yet rainwater is good too
Hell im an Aussie to, i grew up with tank water from the roof, still do. any new house around here now have to have tanks to flush toilets, your right tho, what a disconnect...
Out in rural Australia we live off untreated rainwater. Simple, roof + tank + pump = household rainwater. Sure you pop the lid on the tank and see nasty things in there after a few decades maybe a frog or two, some old algi or some floaties. But every time you go to town you realize how much you miss rainwater. Plus (out here at least) every farm's rainwater has it's own unique taste/flavor.
Same here, 25km NW of Brisbane, Qld: two big painted-steel tanks and a pump. Roof and gutters are Colour-Bond or some such bonded paint on steel.
timedowntube it’s because in the USA there is so much pollution in the air which contaminants the rain water
Regarding conservation, I have experience as a child of about 12/13 years old that required water conservation. My parents, brother and sister lived in a 2-room house in dry west Texas. We did not have running water in the house and bathing required the heating of water on the cook stove and a number 3 tub. Bathing was a weekly event and not often enough for my taste. During the blazing hot summer, I rigged a water hose up in a tree and when I came home from my summer job after dark, I showered by wetting my body, turning off the water, soaping down and then rinsing. The water ran off into my garden. This type of conservation effort prepared me for my Army service, when in the field daily sanitation (shaving and washing) was completed with one gallon of water.
If it falls on my land its mine.....if someone tries to say its not, then they can stop if from falling on my land.
THey wont stop you here in california, but they will fine the ever living crap out of you. My neighbor got fined 10k for his first offense and it only goes up from there.
Don't give them ideas
That really sucks..need to get a bunch of people suing them for letting it rain on their property. I can't see how individuals could lose if thats pushed through all the way to the supreme court. Has to be some lawyers chomping at the bit to fight that.
actually it's not always yours, if you live in the west you might understand. water is scarce ...a precious commodity, someone else might need that water. That's why the elected government made the water laws. you sound like you might be another anarchist, the United States does have elected government, a Constitution, things like that. sorry doesn't always work out the way you like....
seth tenrec I pay for the land, I pay taxes on the land, not some appartment dweller. Fortunately I don't live in the land of idiots where that happens. If I plant a garden, they aren't entitled to ANY of it.
This is the norm in the Virgin Islands. My concrete cistern holds 34,000 gallons.
Yeah it seems like this is more common in the Caribbean
Yep.
And, outer Hawaiian Islands. Near Hilo, Big Island, I got about 200 inches rainfall per year plus mosquitos, earthquakes, and lava flows all for free!
What you are upto is amazing and inspiring and I love it. Starting off being self sufficient in water for your family and now looking beyond thinking about creating a swale. You might want to check out the topography of your area from local government agency or perhaps online and use nature's course of water runoff in your surrounding area to maximize effect for permaculture and create your own little forest getting neighbors involved. Good luck and keep up your good work.
Rain is a natural resource given to us by the creator for life, no one owns it but God, so no man has a right to keep you from using it .
I worked for a water treatment company once and as prevention for UV degradation we paint plastic pipes and tanks and I noticed that it works. Awesome video presentation by the way.
Great video. My wife and I are developing our homestead now. Great Q&A. Tons of helpful tips and questions.
This is an absoluely awesome video. So clearly presented and full of great information. I am very excited and happy that you have been able to accomplish this! Thank you for sharing.
Great video------Remember to remind folks that rainwater is distilled which means NO minerals from the good earth . But there are tons of suppliments for that.
This is what fruits and vegetables are for.
Cool video - 8 miles south of Boston here my annual water bill is about $2,600 for 3 persons in a medium small home & I never water the lawn. Also the 3 of us are away from home 10 - 15 hours/day at work and we take showers at the gym so our water usage is small yet the $bill is huge. This awesome video gives me some ideas. My parents retired to Puerto Rico & there the power & water systems do not work 75% of the time so most homes have generators and rainwater collection systems. In my parents case their home had 2 5000 gallon tanks used to store rainwater.
You could have said the argument doesn't hold "water." Up North sometimes its frowned upon due to breeding places for mosquitos to hatch etc. Cool set up
lol... I thought about it but sometimes the words don't come out as well as they sound in my head...lol
Average cost of drilling a well in Kenya is $20,000. That’s how crazy it is here
I was like $5000k for all of that? You know contracting our Davis & Shirtliff could cost you even more for such a solution, plus wells are not as clean as rain water, worst case scenario if you are in the heart Nairobi some of its sewerage might seep in. I have one that is only dedicated to my farm here in Nairobi, otherwise the rest i get to pay a monthly fee to Nairobi water.
one day this could help
blog.worldagroforestry.org/index.php/2017/05/10/kenya-launches-national-program-to-harvest-rainwater/
I use this www.qualitygardentools.com/product/roughneck-posthole-digging-bar-17lb/ the weight of it along with the smaller contact area, means that this tool digs extremely fast in hard baked earth, its just an iron bar, potentially very cheap iron bar.
Samson Tabu did you ever meet Obama the worst president ever, he is from Kenya.
Is sewage directly pumped into the water table? If sewage is dumped directly onto the top of the land then bacteria would consume it and filter it.
Thank you for having a video that gets to the point. Ramble free!😊
I live in a desert area where we use swamp coolers and found rainwater is the best water feed for swamp coolers.
The water in the local wells has a lot of salts and lime in it and would cause me to have to change the pad in the coolers every year and the cooler every 10 to 12 years. Since using rainwater, i change the pads every 3 years and have not had to buy a new cooler.
i also have a coil of tubing in the bottom of the swamp cooler that feeds cold water into the house for drinking water,. as the swamp cooler acts as a cooling tower for cooling the water.
I also run a solar distillation set up to get good clean drinking and cooking water.
Your an inspiration to us all. Your rainwater and gray water systems are well thought out.
Here in So Oregon, a man in our community spent 60 days total in jail for collecting the water on his property for a pond intended for protection against fire. Insane! He was forced to remove his pond which he originally pulled permits for. No justice for the little guy
Not true.
"In 2007, Mr. Harrington entered a guilty plea for illegally damming water from the tributaries crossing his property. He received three years probation and was ordered to release the impounded water. This recent lawsuit filed by the State stems from his refusal to meet the conditions of his probation.
Mr. Harrington has been fined more than $1,500 for nine misdemeanor convictions, ordered to serve a 30 day jail sentence, and required to breach his dams and drain his ponds."
Wrong lol
Not wrong. He was incarcerated more than once. The fact remains that the water came from his own run off. Water/snow hitting your property should not claimed by anyone else. The pond was utilized for his own recreation as well as available for fires which is a yearly problem here since the decline of the lumber industry here.
Great stuff! From Northern Ca. We have 3 5000 gallon tanks caught off a Metal roof. Pretty clean with no trees over it so less leaves to deal with. Our well runs out about march and we have a few small catch systems on the property. There is a spring well That I am going to start to catch in to tanks this summer. I really love your whole system. The big prob here is we are getting less and less rain each year. Keep it up. PS My goal is to become an expert on this because I feel we have no choice and its only getting worse. Thanks Again.
Thank you! I read about how the Western US is having major water access issues that will get worse. I'm happy to see you are doing a great job of combating the problem for yourself.
New Zealand homes outside cities use rain water collection almost exclusively.
Great! Inspirational. I am working on a small rainwater system collection system. Thanks for making this.
Great insight. Good details and obvious organization of almost concentric applications of water and other water management. It looks like all four corners of the area surrounding the house and grounds have total coverage and applied channels for irrigation as well. Nicely presented.