Collecting rainwater for irrigation

[JHZR2]

Hi,

Where I live, we have a very high water table. I pipe gutter water away from the house via above-ground pipe, but I think that Id like to collect some or all of it for use as irrigation water.

What Id like to do is have a small (50 gallon? 100 gallon?) cistern underground, away from my house. I could collect the water from one or two downspouts into the cistern and then have some sort of overflow or pipe draining out (maybe use the curb outlet in the front of the house, though that wouldbe a lot of digging).

This way Id have a lot of free water to water the grass and garden. Does anyone else do this?? How well does it work in heavy rains?

My biggest concern is bacteria... birds on the roof, stagnant water sitting underground... breeding ground for polio and who knows what else. Should I be worried?

Any advice or insight would be appreciated. Thanks!

JMH

 

[Gary Allan]

I just rigged up a bunch of rain barrels for my BIL at his old house (muni water supply). I simply ran the down spout into the bottom of the barrel and then fixed an overflow near the top. I rigged taps at about bucket height (watering can). It worked well for him. It might not have the athestics that you desire. I used blue platic drums with removable lids.

I wouldn't get so excited about bacteria and stuff ...but I'll concede that if you're gonna be anxious about such things ..the anxiety will take much more toll then any probable side effects ...so best to get a plan for them. I'm at a practical loss of how to take care of this without some oddball method and oddball costs.

Here's how we handled this in our plant. We had lots of dye particles getting thrown out of our scrubbers. All the plant rain runoff ran to a cubed large concrete tank (a large septic tank) which we perpetually pumped out. When it rained ..we shut the pump off after 1/2hour of rain. Any additional runoff ran to the local marsh which were monitored by monitoring wells for any issues.

Later we got some swapping of permits and installed a larger collection basin because we were attempting to reclaim some of the drainage land. We wanted to send our rain water runoff directly to the river. The PA DEP approved our consultants plan to have the first 40,000 gallons pumped back to the facility for treatment and then we could shut our pumps off. We did it all with automation ..but you could do it with a sump pump with a float and a timer.

Like I said ..it's getting "out there" in remedy.

Essentially you would want such a "system" to pump all the water out from the onset of the rain event ..until YOU are satisfied that any residuals from birds and what not are removed from collection. The system would then, ideally, shut off and collect remaining rainfall to capacity.

Other methods of treatment are UV lamps in the collection box (I'd use a rectangular septic tank burried fairly shallow). You could also use ozonators like they use in hot tubs (the type that don't use UV and actually pump the ozone). Your only other alternative that I can think of is chemical treatment (essentailly chlorine)..but I would think that metering it would be difficult. The amount that you would want to add to be "sure" would probably render it unusable unless you let it stand for a while ..which would further complicate the matter.

 

[Pablo]

polio?

 

[JHZR2]

FDR got polio when swimming at camp Obello (sp?) up by the Canadian border... Im vaccinated, but as I understand it, water is the breeding ground for such things... not to mention mosquitos, etc.

Just trying to think it all through.

JMH

 

[Gary Allan]

You're correct about it being a breeding ground. I worked with mutant bacteria for 15 years ...activated sludge ...extended aeration. New sewer plants requested our sludge for "seeding" purposes. We only used the bacteria to digest organics and ammonia, our plant sewerage went to the local sewer treatment plant (right next door),..but it was open season for anything else that wasn't eaten by the competing bacteria

We had a multi-acre biolagoon that was black with suspended particles. We would occasionally fish a toad or frog out (dead)..it was literally "the creature from the black lagoon".

For my entire 15 years of surely being "at risk" from such insults ...none of my coworkers or myself have experienced anything other then getting older. This surely could have been because of my somewhat mongrel blood lines ...but a few of my coworkers were of pedigree ..so I doubt it

.

Rotifers and other things were naturally occuring organisms. We would routinely filter the sludge through a filtering press and send it off to the land fill. All wastewater plants have to test for BOD's (biological oxygen demand) to determine how much bacteria they are sending into the river.

 

[Pablo]

poliomyelitis is not really a concern unless folks with the virus are crapping in your water....

back on task - mosquitoes area concern. You can keep the water tightly covered or better just get some harmless 'squito tabs (BT). Unless you plan on pumping the water should be high....

My grandpa used to have some 400 gallon tanks and full set up. My dad still uses it.

 

[TheTanSedan]

Have seen some articles (folks w/money, and, for a change, with brains) where the house is built over the cistern (30-50,000 gallons) to enable control over quality and ensure long-term independence.

Impressive.

Plastic drums with lids ought to be fine. Just fit a tap at the appropriate location is what a friend of mine did for years to keep his outdoor watering bill low during the summer. We'd run out of rain by 4 July annually, and he'd use the barrels (at gutter downspout locations) for six weeks to run a drip system for the kitchen/spice garden.

 

[Shannow]

Personally, I think you'd have more of a bug concern using washing machine water for gardening, or even having a fish tank.

Most of those things don't really attack healthy people. If it did, then most people in the power stations would be legionaires.

Truly, 10% of my workmates still rely on rainwater or bore water for their homes.

 

[JHZR2]

quote:

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Originally posted by TheTanSedan:
Have seen some articles (folks w/money, and, for a change, with brains) where the house is built over the cistern (30-50,000 gallons) to enable control over quality and ensure long-term independence.

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My fiancee's parents in the USVI have this for their drinking water. However, they have filtration, and dope their water with some chlorine substance to keep it clean. Plus they have a pure smooth white roof, and not asphalt shingles.

I dont know that I need to have the investment for filtration... and for irrigation I dont know that chlorine is the smartest thing to add.

JMH

 

[JHZR2]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pablo:
'squito tabs (BT)

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BT=???

Benzothiophene is the only BT I know... and it isnt harmless...

JMH

 

[Pablo]

Bacillus thuringiensis

http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/

 

[The_Jeff]

It's Campobello, one word.

And it sure is near the Canadian border, on the Canadian side!

 

[JHZR2]

Is it on the Canadian side??? My family and I took a tour when we went up through NE and Canada on a summer trip.. I could have sworn it was on our side of the international bridge or friendship bridge or whatever it is called????

Thanks for the correction!

JMH

 

[tdi-rick]

quote:

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My biggest concern is bacteria... birds on the roof, stagnant water sitting underground... breeding ground for polio and who knows what else. Should I be worried?

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here in the Oz bush, everyone uses rain water for drinking. It's our only source of fresh, potable water away from town areas.
Water is a big deal in this country of unreliable rainfall and we try to grab whatever we can. We're lucky that where we are currently living we can pump out of a river to a tank on a hill and use this water for washing, etc, and have a reasonasble size above ground tank (poly) beside the carport for rain water. An old place of ours had a 10,000 gallon underground tank (concrete) that we used. I've picked up gut bugs once in the last seventeen years, as the water out of the river is unfiltered and stock have absolute access to it for the 15-20km it meanders upstream to its source. A course of pills from the local naturopath fixed that.

Traditionally, corrugated galvanised iron was used for above ground tanks, but later concrete tanks http://www.economytanks.com.au/ came into widespread usage, and more recently, rotomoulded polethylene tanks are dominating the market.
http://www.spacepac.com.au/index_rapidplas.htm
http://www.bushmantanks.com.au/product_map.htm
http://www.teampoly.com.au/
It has even been suggested that all new houses in urban areas will be required to have a rainawter collection tank in the next couple of years.