Posted by Jim Erhardt on September 27, 2008 at 4:28 AM
Very cool stuff, here's a link to the system our subsidiary, Watts Radiant, is introducing the the North American market.
Posted by Richard Hahn on September 27, 2008 at 2:08 PM
Jim,
Good afternoon. This looks pretty cool. I remember years ago when my parents lived in Georgia they had a down spout off their shed into a plastic 55 gal. drum with a sipgot on it. They used the water to water the garden.
For the first 15 years we lived in our current location we did without niceties like electricity, phones and running water. Yup, the thermostat was in the woodshed, the water ran as fast as you could carry it, and our kids learned to read by the light of kerosene lamps.
There's a basic set of rules: Capturing rainwater can be as simple or complex as you want, with an inverse relationship between effort required and technology applied. The easier you want it to be, the more complicated (and perhaps expensive) your setup is likely to be. The simpler the setup, the harder you are going to have to work.
Any setup that makes it easy while being simple and cheap is most likely to be installed and remain in use over the long term.
Our system wasn't very complicated and required two teenage girls to haul water daily from rain barrels to horse troughs at a minimum of 10 gallons/horse/day. You can do the math for five horses. When the girls got smart enough to leave home for college my wife and I were smart enough to sell the horses rather than pack water for them!
That little ditty points out that the more you use rainwater, the more lifestyle changes you may be required to make.
Posted by Steve Foss on September 28, 2008 at 12:41 AM
Hank, you are killing me.
We collect rain in barrels off the house and garage, as well as diverting rain off our porch roof to portions of our foundation plantings that generally get missed by rainfall due to prevailing winds. We water the garden with the barrel water during dry months. Yep, buckets. Nope, not as much work as Hank's daughters (who no doubt never will visit home again, or at least not until they get old enough to remember all that grunting, groaning and muscle building as a fond misty memory instead of a recent grudge against mom and dad).
We also have quite a few hanging baskets of annuals, and those have fiber pots, so we dip them in the barrels to water them instead of turning on the hose.
Hank, you may think Alaska prices are high because you're at the end of the transportation routes. But the motto of Ely is: The end of the road (because it's the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness). That's really code for jacked up tourist prices, from the local grocery stores to the city-owned utilities. So maybe it IS just a bit more expensive to live in AK, but not by much. My new motto is . . . Ely, where the end of the road means the end of your wallet. Anything we can do to cut down on electrical and water consumption helps both us (financially) and the environment. We're pretty enthusiastic about both.
Our biggest problems with thirsty horses were twofold- Limited roof space close to them, and they kept on drinking even in winter. When it rained we had enough roofs and catchment to do the job, but some were a hundred yards from the corrals. We could get by breaking ice off the barrels for a while, but eventually we had to haul water from a creek about a mile away.
For other rural residents, here's a series of thoughts, even if you're on a well and don't feel there's much to gain from collecting rainwater:
How far away is the fire department? And what are they going to do for water if their tanker runs out and the power to your well is cut off?
We face all those issues and are contemplating burying a 1000-2000 gallon water tank to collect rainwater for emergency use. Sure beats having the firetruck have to stop pumping and drive a mile to refill before returning to fight the fire again. Meanwhile we'll find lots of other uses for the water.
Posted by Jim DeWitt on October 1, 2008 at 2:10 AM
The other factor is the percentage of the year when water is a liquid and a harvesting system is functional. The great the time water is stiff the harder it is to make a rainwater capture system cost-effective.
But like Hank, my heating system thermostat is mostly in the woodshed.
Posted by Fred Stearns on October 4, 2008 at 10:07 PM
Good idea. But not in Colorado, unless you want to go to jail. By some strange twist of the law enacted over a hundred years ago, that water belongs to some user downstream. Water regulations in the American West are strange and badly in need of revising!
Posted by Jim Erhardt on October 10, 2008 at 7:58 AM
Fred, that is strange. I wonder if the law applies to rain that lands on the roof of your house?
I wouldn't be all that surprised Jim, but I'm sure it relates to the restrictions Colorado places on rural properties subdivided below 35 acres in an effort to discourage loss of ag lands. You generally lose your ag water rights in the process of subdividing so small, if the land had the rights in the first place. Colorado guards it's water pretty carefully, and some major brawls have been fought over it. I haven't run across that particular restriction because our place down there is lots bigger and we've never subdivided.
Each state is different, but Fred's description falls within what I know about New Mexico. If a house doesn't come with water rights there, you can have a well but you can't have any outside faucets on your house. Lots of folks have bought 1-5 acre "ranchettes" in New Mexico, but most don't come with water rights. Lots of howling and fussing, but to no avail. When the larger ranch subdivided off the little patches of dirt they didn't pass along the water rights, and the new owner isn't going to find any relief in the courts. You HAVE TO read and understand the water rights restrictions before you decide to buy a place anywhere in the west.
Posted by Mark Stahlke on October 10, 2008 at 12:56 PM
Water rights here in Colorado are peculiar indeed. Here is information from Colorado State University's Extension office regarding graywater reuse and rainwater harvesting. Scroll down to the section titled "Water Rights Issues Concerning Rainwater Harvesting".
This sentence sums it up pretty well:
In most areas of Colorado, the only sure legal way to use rainwater is to direct roof gutter downspouts to drain to landscape areas you wish to water.
Mmmm. Makes me appreciate all the water rights that came with our place. We didn't fully appreciate them when we bought 15 years ago, but now we treasure them. Without water, land is just dirt.
Posted by Fred Stearns on October 10, 2008 at 11:07 PM
I missed a few days. Yes Jim, it does apply to the rain that falls on your roof. There was an article in the paper recently about a woman who has a house near Delores. The water cops came after her when she started to use the water from her roof for her own purposes, like watering the lawn of some such. The problem here is that the ground in that area is far to dry for it ever to reach the river, yet it legally belongs to the water rights holders down river. I cannot think how that mode of thinking even mad sense a hundred years ago.
I used to work for a river authority in Texas and became aware of the strange laws governing the use of water. Please don't ask me to explain the Texas laws either, I worked in a separate department from the water people. As a result, I started listening for the strange twists that the water laws take. When I bought my house in Colorado, I was told NOT to try to transfer the water to may name, that was taken care of by the closing company in order to comply with teh strange twists of that portion of the Colorado water laws.
Water has always been an important resource in the American West. So, they made laws. As usual, the laws were put in place by the wealthy to protect their wealth. Unfortunately, the laws have never been changed, at least to make them more reasonable. A good example is to search for the fights over the water in the Colorado River.
Colorado guards it's water pretty carefully, and some major brawls have been fought over it.
Don't I know it.....Last I checked, the Arkansas River that runs through parts of Kansas still sits dry as a bone, as Colorado has blocked water. Also last I heard, there has been an ongoing battle as to who has/owns the waters of the Arkansas River, Colorado or Kansas.
Beth Chvilicek
Also wanted to add, that most people in my hometown had their own intricate rainwater catch systems. Some had simple barrels or tubs, others had a system where a hose was attached to the barrel and could be turned off and on just like a faucet. Would love to have a system like that, would make the watering flowers in t he front yard a bit easier - not to mention easier on my back. I also remember using this water to wash out hair after it was filtered to remove debris and boiled. You have not lived til you have washed your hair in rain water - I cannot recall a time when my hair felt so soft.
Beth Chvilicek
Discussion
13 repliesGood afternoon. This looks pretty cool. I remember years ago when my parents lived in Georgia they had a down spout off their shed into a plastic 55 gal. drum with a sipgot on it. They used the water to water the garden.
How is the Moose up by you?
Rich Hahn
There's a basic set of rules: Capturing rainwater can be as simple or complex as you want, with an inverse relationship between effort required and technology applied. The easier you want it to be, the more complicated (and perhaps expensive) your setup is likely to be. The simpler the setup, the harder you are going to have to work.
Any setup that makes it easy while being simple and cheap is most likely to be installed and remain in use over the long term.
Our system wasn't very complicated and required two teenage girls to haul water daily from rain barrels to horse troughs at a minimum of 10 gallons/horse/day. You can do the math for five horses. When the girls got smart enough to leave home for college my wife and I were smart enough to sell the horses rather than pack water for them!
That little ditty points out that the more you use rainwater, the more lifestyle changes you may be required to make.
We collect rain in barrels off the house and garage, as well as diverting rain off our porch roof to portions of our foundation plantings that generally get missed by rainfall due to prevailing winds. We water the garden with the barrel water during dry months. Yep, buckets. Nope, not as much work as Hank's daughters (who no doubt never will visit home again, or at least not until they get old enough to remember all that grunting, groaning and muscle building as a fond misty memory instead of a recent grudge against mom and dad).
We also have quite a few hanging baskets of annuals, and those have fiber pots, so we dip them in the barrels to water them instead of turning on the hose.
Hank, you may think Alaska prices are high because you're at the end of the transportation routes. But the motto of Ely is: The end of the road (because it's the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness). That's really code for jacked up tourist prices, from the local grocery stores to the city-owned utilities. So maybe it IS just a bit more expensive to live in AK, but not by much. My new motto is . . . Ely, where the end of the road means the end of your wallet. Anything we can do to cut down on electrical and water consumption helps both us (financially) and the environment. We're pretty enthusiastic about both.
Our biggest problems with thirsty horses were twofold- Limited roof space close to them, and they kept on drinking even in winter. When it rained we had enough roofs and catchment to do the job, but some were a hundred yards from the corrals. We could get by breaking ice off the barrels for a while, but eventually we had to haul water from a creek about a mile away.
For other rural residents, here's a series of thoughts, even if you're on a well and don't feel there's much to gain from collecting rainwater:
How far away is the fire department? And what are they going to do for water if their tanker runs out and the power to your well is cut off?
We face all those issues and are contemplating burying a 1000-2000 gallon water tank to collect rainwater for emergency use. Sure beats having the firetruck have to stop pumping and drive a mile to refill before returning to fight the fire again. Meanwhile we'll find lots of other uses for the water.
But like Hank, my heating system thermostat is mostly in the woodshed.
Each state is different, but Fred's description falls within what I know about New Mexico. If a house doesn't come with water rights there, you can have a well but you can't have any outside faucets on your house. Lots of folks have bought 1-5 acre "ranchettes" in New Mexico, but most don't come with water rights. Lots of howling and fussing, but to no avail. When the larger ranch subdivided off the little patches of dirt they didn't pass along the water rights, and the new owner isn't going to find any relief in the courts. You HAVE TO read and understand the water rights restrictions before you decide to buy a place anywhere in the west.
This sentence sums it up pretty well:
Cheers,
I used to work for a river authority in Texas and became aware of the strange laws governing the use of water. Please don't ask me to explain the Texas laws either, I worked in a separate department from the water people. As a result, I started listening for the strange twists that the water laws take. When I bought my house in Colorado, I was told NOT to try to transfer the water to may name, that was taken care of by the closing company in order to comply with teh strange twists of that portion of the Colorado water laws.
Water has always been an important resource in the American West. So, they made laws. As usual, the laws were put in place by the wealthy to protect their wealth. Unfortunately, the laws have never been changed, at least to make them more reasonable. A good example is to search for the fights over the water in the Colorado River.
Don't I know it.....Last I checked, the Arkansas River that runs through parts of Kansas still sits dry as a bone, as Colorado has blocked water. Also last I heard, there has been an ongoing battle as to who has/owns the waters of the Arkansas River, Colorado or Kansas.
Beth Chvilicek
Beth Chvilicek