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If you really want to get serious about
rain catchment, you might consider installing a larger tank
that holds several hundred gallons and uses a small pump
to distribute the water throughout the landscape. The advantage
of a larger system is it will capture and store more water
during the rainy season and then you will be able to use
it during times when we receive either low amounts of rain
or none at all.
Click
here for Rainwater Cisterns: Design, Construction
and Water Treatment. Penn State Cooperative Extension.
Click
here for Cisterns To Collect Non-Potable
Water For Domestic Use. University of Florida Extension.
Click
here for NSF information on rainwater collection.
You
can also do an internet search on "cisterns", "rainwater
recovery" or "rainwater harvesting"
RI Example - URI Master Gardener
Capturing, storing, and using rain is not
a new idea. In fact, it dates back centuries to the ancient
Roman civilization and is still practiced in many areas
around
the world as a source of water for drinking and irrigation.
With the development of municipal water treatment systems
and well construction equipment, capturing the rain from
roofs was abandoned as a means of obtaining water supply.
However, today, many homeowners and businesses are turning
to rainwater collection systems as a way to supplement
water supplies, particularly for landscape watering needs.
Here
in Rhode Island, the practice makes a lot of sense.
Annually, we receive about 42 inches of rain. A one-inch
rain on a 1,000-square-foot roof yields 600 gallons
of
water. That’s a lot of water. Capturing this
rain and putting it to good use in our landscapes can
help to
conserve water
and reduce stormwater runoff. These
systems can either be above- or below ground.
Richard
Tyre, a URI Master Gardener, has examples of
both at his home. Two
above-ground cisterns, shown below, have the capacity to
store 300 and 500 gallons
of water in
plastic tanks. About 1/4 of the roof area drains rainwater
into each of the cisterns. They have been designed to allow
the first flush of each storm to by-pass the cistern, thus,
keeping leaf and other debris out of the cistern. A small
bailing pump is placed in each system to pump water to
a vegetable garden, the greenhouse, or to fill buckets
and
water planters.
There
is also a below-ground tank that can store 1,000 gallons
of water. The photos below show the pipes from the gutter
leading to the below-ground storage tank. Here again, a
small bailing pump is used draw water from the tanks and
apply it to landscape plantings.
For
more information:
Click
here for Rainwater Cisterns: Design, Construction
and Water Treatment. Penn State Cooperative Extension.
Click
here for Cisterns To Collect Non-Potable Water For
Domestic Use. University of Florida Extension.
Click
here for NSF information on rainwater collection.
You
can also do an internet search on "cisterns", "rainwater
recovery" or "rainwater harvesting"
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