Recycling rain water AND old freezer

[JDgreen]

Whenever we have a hard rainfall here, I am out by the main downspout of our house with a collection of empty cat litter pails, they hold 5 gallons of water each. I fill them full, them tote them two at a time to my garden plot, where I have a half dozen 33 gallon trash cans with lids where I store the rainwater for irrigation of my plants.

First pic shows 5 gallon pail filling, second pic shows about 100 gallons I collected during a recent downpour. Garden plot is in the background. I wanted a bigger storage tank, so I hauled my old freezer case back up, it holds 100 gallons when full, and I installed a hose drain.

Additional benefits are, when it rains, if I take out a bar of soap and shampoo, I can shower at the same time, and toting 80 pounds of water to the garden plot a dozen times provides excellent exercise.

 

[BKBrown]

I hope you are washing your clothing at the same time !!! :biggrin: :laughing:
"Additional benefits are, when it rains, if I take out a bar of soap and shampoo, I can shower at the same time"

 

[JDgreen]

LOL LOL good point there I do wear a pair of old cut off jeans. My neighbor is a cop and has 3 young kids and although my garage and the stone bordered planter shown in the second pic block the view from his house, better safe than sorry. Sent from Blackberry mobile.

 

[originalswampfox]

Don't forget you can make a good vacuum pump out of that old freezer pump.

 

[JDgreen]

Don't forget you can make a good vacuum pump out of that old freezer pump.

I don't need a vacuum pump, and anyhow, the compressor failed from age. But thanks for the tip.

 

[Oddball]

Just don't try and filter and use it in your house. A local municipality here is going to start charging people that collect, filter and use rainwater in their homes. They say its because once that free water is used it then goes down the drains and gets treated in the sewerage treatment facility, so they are charging people for that even though they obviously can't charge for the water. That means people are going to have to have meters on the drain to keep up with how much water they're sending downstream to the treatment plant. Since the water bill already has all the treatment costs figure in, any city water they use will have to subtracted out so they only get charged the treatment charge on the rainwater they've used. I see a potential for all kinds of gov't fraud in that system. I bet it won't be long before the after use "treatment charge" will be so high that the people would come out cheaper to use county water and forget about collecting the rainwater for home use. What was it the Beatles said, "If you take a walk I'll tax your feet." I may look into this system for our use. We're on septic, so I wouldn't have to worry about the gov't charging me to use rainwater.

 

[JDgreen]

Just don't try and filter and use it in your house. A local municipality here is going to start charging people that collect, filter and use rainwater in their homes. They say its because once that free water is used it then goes down the drains and gets treated in the sewerage treatment facility, so they are charging people for that even though they obviously can't charge for the water. That means people are going to have to have meters on the drain to keep up with how much water they're sending downstream to the treatment plant. Since the water bill already has all the treatment costs figure in, any city water they use will have to subtracted out so they only get charged the treatment charge on the rainwater they've used. I see a potential for all kinds of gov't fraud in that system. I bet it won't be long before the after use "treatment charge" will be so high that the people would come out cheaper to use county water and forget about collecting the rainwater for home use. What was it the Beatles said, "If you take a walk I'll tax your feet." I may look into this system for our use. We're on septic, so I wouldn't have to worry about the gov't charging me to use rainwater.

Thanks for info, we too are on septic. No way would I consider using rainwater for ANYTHING indoors we get a lot of bird doo-doo on our roof. :laughing:

 

[Oddball]

:laughing: Bird poop, squirrel poop, etc. Yeah that's what I was thinking when I saw the story on the news a few days ago. I'd never heard of a filtration system that allowed you to collect and use rainwater in the home. The homeowners they interviewed for the news story said its quite clean, usually at least as clean as the water from the tap , usually cleaner. They cook with it, shower with it, etc. They had some elaborate filtration set ups in their basements.

 

[JDgreen]

:laughing: Bird poop, squirrel poop, etc. Yeah that's what I was thinking when I saw the story on the news a few days ago. I'd never heard of a filtration system that allowed you to collect and use rainwater in the home. The homeowners they interviewed for the news story said its quite clean, usually at least as clean as the water from the tap , usually cleaner. They cook with it, shower with it, etc. They had some elaborate filtration set ups in their basements.

Will have to do a Google and find out if anybody has done a study on how contaminated rainwater is compared to tap water. Some areas here nearby have gotten ten inches of rain the past few days, we only got 4 here.

 

[RobertBrown]

I have 2 big olive barrels with a hose bib at the bottom, About 50 gallons each.
Good job JD. Using your head and saving water and some money at the same time. Sustainabiliity is whats it all about.
Good idea!