In reply to DirtyBird222 :
Wasn't it pretty regular in older Florida to have waster cisterns as part of the house?
In reply to DirtyBird222 :
Wasn't it pretty regular in older Florida to have waster cisterns as part of the house?
DirtyBird222 said:Keith Tanner said:Fun fact - rain barrels were illegal in Colorado for homes not on a well until 2016. Now we can collect up to 110 gallons to use for non-drinking purposes. This is due to water rights, which are a big thing in our state. I don't think we can collect/store rain off non-residential buildings.
Water rights are becoming a big deal in some states. It's not illegal in Florida but with overdevelopment and local municipalities unable to keep up with the demand for potable water, I have a feeling things will change soon. I just love that this state has developers on the Fish and Wildlife Commision board.
Yeah whenever I think of water rights battles I think about that time Mr. Burns built the big umbrella and stole the sun. Just seems incredibly dystopian to have entities "own" a naturally occurring resource like that. Do you want Immortan Joe because that's how you get Immortan Joe.
alfadriver said:In reply to DirtyBird222 :
Wasn't it pretty regular in older Florida to have waster cisterns as part of the house?
Yea, in some cities/counties they offer incentives for harvesting rainwater. There is a big however looming right now though. The city I live in has overdeveloped to the nth degree and the city/county are coming up short on providing water to residents because the infrastructure hasn't expanded to accommodate the growth. In the last town hall the mayor started talking about water rights too and she's the one that rubber stamped all the overdevelopment. She's trying to blame the upper and middle class of this cottage community for overuse of water despite her approving and pushing for multiple apartment complexes, each with over 500 units, to be built on or around what were wetlands. Let's not forget her career is that of a real estate agent and her husband is a real estate attorney for a very large firm and has a seat on some of the wildlife and development boards in the state. /rant
Back to rainwater - blue/black barrels that others have mentioned are great. I'm in the process of planning out the use of a few around my house and I'm going to collect straight from the gutter/downspout. Should help with some of the erosion I'm seeing in those ares too
In reply to DirtyBird222 :
On the note of the actual mechanism to harvest the water (thank you for bringing it up).
First was the spout going directly into the barrel and then letting it overflow like the normal way. It will work for a while, but you really need to have a screen over the inlet. For two big reasons- one- debris- there's a lot of it on your roof, and two- mosquitoes which should be obvious. But I had a lot of issues with this system because the screen would regularly block up and the water would just flow over the top of the barrel- which can make an interesting mess.
Second, I got one of the smaller diverters- this works pretty well, but it really limits how fast you can fill a barrel- so a sudden rain wont fill the barrel full. And it still fills up with debris.
So I have had plans for a few years to make a DIY diverter where the screen material is at a pretty high angle and water can wash off any debris that comes down. One of these days I need to go to a box store to make the materials.
Both ways will work, but both ways require some work to keep it clean.
One more reminder that you HAVE TO HAVE A SCREEN to keep the bugs out. Mosquitoes are really nasty little creatures.
DirtyBird222 said:Keith Tanner said:Fun fact - rain barrels were illegal in Colorado for homes not on a well until 2016. Now we can collect up to 110 gallons to use for non-drinking purposes. This is due to water rights, which are a big thing in our state. I don't think we can collect/store rain off non-residential buildings.
Water rights are becoming a big deal in some states. It's not illegal in Florida but with overdevelopment and local municipalities unable to keep up with the demand for potable water, I have a feeling things will change soon. I just love that this state has developers on the Fish and Wildlife Commision board.
It's always been a big thing in Colorado. "In the west, when you touch water, you touch everything" - Wayne Aspinall
My wife and I were just talking about rain barrels. She asked if we could use a rain barrel to reduce the load on our underground drain lines. I assume that a 50-gal drum would fill in a few seconds in a heavy storm, and you would still need a drain line. I assume they are generally used in places where it doesn't rain a lot, and that they just overflow when full. Is that about right?
In reply to pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) :
I'm in southern VA and we get a decent amount of rain. They just overflow once full. Basically any measurable rain is enough to fill the 50 gallon containers.
We cut the downspouts up high and just slipped on the cheapo flexible downspouts to aim them at the barrels. These guys:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Spectra-Universal-Downspout-Extension-White/1002865770
pinchvalve (Forum Supporter) said:My wife and I were just talking about rain barrels. She asked if we could use a rain barrel to reduce the load on our underground drain lines. I assume that a 50-gal drum would fill in a few seconds in a heavy storm, and you would still need a drain line. I assume they are generally used in places where it doesn't rain a lot, and that they just overflow when full. Is that about right?
You can get as fancy as you want, but ours just overflow when they're full. Well, since they fill from the bottom the only overflowing tend to be from the inlet line, which is in a downspout anyway, so you don't really even notice.
Our system is like 250 gallons and we use it to water stuff that isn't fed by our irrigation system. So we'll actually transfer 20-30 gallons to a tank on our yard cart then go water fresh plantings by hand with that. It's way easier than dragging hoses around or installing more irrigation since most of what we're planting is large native trees that won't need supplemental water after a year or two anyway.
JG Pasterjak said:DirtyBird222 said:Keith Tanner said:Fun fact - rain barrels were illegal in Colorado for homes not on a well until 2016. Now we can collect up to 110 gallons to use for non-drinking purposes. This is due to water rights, which are a big thing in our state. I don't think we can collect/store rain off non-residential buildings.
Water rights are becoming a big deal in some states. It's not illegal in Florida but with overdevelopment and local municipalities unable to keep up with the demand for potable water, I have a feeling things will change soon. I just love that this state has developers on the Fish and Wildlife Commision board.
Yeah whenever I think of water rights battles I think about that time Mr. Burns built the big umbrella and stole the sun. Just seems incredibly dystopian to have entities "own" a naturally occurring resource like that. Do you want Immortan Joe because that's how you get Immortan Joe.
That's how you avoid Immortan Joe. Water rights ensure my in-laws can irrigate their fields without all the water being used to water lawns in the subdivisions around them. It's how we ensure there's enough water going down the Colorado River to let Californians have drinking water. It's how we make sure the cattle have enough to drink. You can't just hoard it all and become Immortan Joe.
Water rights look very different when you live in a place that doesn't flood from hurricanes every few years.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I have a neighbour who would be in so much trouble with the water police in Colorado due to his two 5000 litre water barrels.
Keith Tanner said:JG Pasterjak said:DirtyBird222 said:Keith Tanner said:Fun fact - rain barrels were illegal in Colorado for homes not on a well until 2016. Now we can collect up to 110 gallons to use for non-drinking purposes. This is due to water rights, which are a big thing in our state. I don't think we can collect/store rain off non-residential buildings.
Water rights are becoming a big deal in some states. It's not illegal in Florida but with overdevelopment and local municipalities unable to keep up with the demand for potable water, I have a feeling things will change soon. I just love that this state has developers on the Fish and Wildlife Commision board.
Yeah whenever I think of water rights battles I think about that time Mr. Burns built the big umbrella and stole the sun. Just seems incredibly dystopian to have entities "own" a naturally occurring resource like that. Do you want Immortan Joe because that's how you get Immortan Joe.
That's how you avoid Immortan Joe. Water rights ensure my in-laws can irrigate their fields without all the water being used to water lawns in the subdivisions around them. It's how we ensure there's enough water going down the Colorado River to let Californians have drinking water. It's how we make sure the cattle have enough to drink. You can't just hoard it all and become Immortan Joe.
Water rights look very different when you live in a place that doesn't flood from hurricanes every few years.
Yeah I hear you and agree with all this. I guess when I hear "water rights" I just panic a bit and fear that private ownership of what should be a public resource is possibly on the table. I just think that the infrastructure for a necessary-for-life natural resource should be largely controlled by votes, not shareholders. The last thing any of us need is for some PE firm to decide where the water goes. If this is how Colorado "water rights" works then we're on the same page.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
There are some major conflicts of interest in some of the places that ban water storage. If all you do is water things in your yard, you use the same amount of water if it's stored or if it comes from a faucet. So where water isn't tracked all the way from the Rockies all the way to the Pacific Ocean, meaning water rights isn't nearly as important, then banning water storage = making people pay to water their yard.
Rain water is always better for plants than city water, and when you look at the sum of all the precipitation, the amount stored is relatively meaningless. But there are places that still ban water storage.
At my previous house I had two of the 55-gallon blue plastic barrels. I eventually gave up. Here were my issues, because noob reasons:
I couldn't win and any suggestions from the county extension office did nothing. They recommended an iodine compound which not only didn't work, I had misgivings about putting it on my tomatoes and cucumbers. They recommended activated carbon in the filter, but again... five leaves fall on it and it's clogged. I eventually quit and focused on composting.
JG Pasterjak said:Keith Tanner said:JG Pasterjak said:DirtyBird222 said:Keith Tanner said:Fun fact - rain barrels were illegal in Colorado for homes not on a well until 2016. Now we can collect up to 110 gallons to use for non-drinking purposes. This is due to water rights, which are a big thing in our state. I don't think we can collect/store rain off non-residential buildings.
Water rights are becoming a big deal in some states. It's not illegal in Florida but with overdevelopment and local municipalities unable to keep up with the demand for potable water, I have a feeling things will change soon. I just love that this state has developers on the Fish and Wildlife Commision board.
Yeah whenever I think of water rights battles I think about that time Mr. Burns built the big umbrella and stole the sun. Just seems incredibly dystopian to have entities "own" a naturally occurring resource like that. Do you want Immortan Joe because that's how you get Immortan Joe.
That's how you avoid Immortan Joe. Water rights ensure my in-laws can irrigate their fields without all the water being used to water lawns in the subdivisions around them. It's how we ensure there's enough water going down the Colorado River to let Californians have drinking water. It's how we make sure the cattle have enough to drink. You can't just hoard it all and become Immortan Joe.
Water rights look very different when you live in a place that doesn't flood from hurricanes every few years.
Yeah I hear you and agree with all this. I guess when I hear "water rights" I just panic a bit and fear that private ownership of what should be a public resource is possibly on the table. I just think that the infrastructure for a necessary-for-life natural resource should be largely controlled by votes, not shareholders. The last thing any of us need is for some PE firm to decide where the water goes. If this is how Colorado "water rights" works then we're on the same page.
As you might expect, it's complicated. One of the big things is that historical users get precedence, so if you have a farm that gets surrounded by subdivisions (aka my in-laws) the farm maintains priority. There's a lot of oversight on how this public resource is shared, and the rights ensure that everyone does in fact share. It's not really open to votes but it's not a private market.
The short version
My last house had water rights, my current one doesn't because it doesn't have access to irrigation. That's okay, as my lot is almost entirely native vegetation and doesn't need supplementary water.
One "trick" for rain barrels for sketters and such is to put goldfish in the barrel, they will keep it clean. No first hand experience on this myself.
In reply to 81cpcamaro :
So where does the fish poop go?
In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :
Move to the north side of the building, or build shade around it. I have a secondary 5 gal bucket that is used to water a side garden, it's on the west side of our house. For a few years, I didn't do anything and it would get algae really badly. This year, I took some old pallets and made a surround for it to keep it dark- and just saw that the water is very, very clear after it sitting in there for a few months.
Keep the water in the shade, and nothing will grow there.
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