How many uses of rainwater are there?

[Paulh_Boats]

What exactly can I do with rainwater?

I'm in Gloucester and the water stopped flowing Monday morning at 8am and we have to survive another week or so. We have a rain butt so we are coping ok. Being without mains water has made me think about what I could do with a rain harvest system.

Obvious uses are:

1) Water the garden in a drought and many vegatables and plants prefer rain water.

2) Flush toilets - ideally some sort of tank attached to the house on the first floor, with a gravity feed to the downstairs toilet. This would require no power at all. But does anybody make thin rectangular tanks that can be mounted on a wall?

A big benifit here is that if we ALL hold water this way after a storm it reduces flooding. There is so much hard paving these days that flash flooding is a big problem.

3) Making tea!  Yes its been done. A lady who has 3 water butts phoned into Radio Gloucestershire to explain she boiled the water twice and then again to make some tea. She said it was the best tea she had because the water is soft with no added chemicals.

Any more?

cheers
Paul

[wyleu]

We did speculate on the BPEC course wether or not it could be used on a bidet and decided it would probably be ok but you'd need to pipe in a seperate feed for the cold to avoid cross contamination.

[Ivan]

I would not fancy drinking it. The run-off from your roof may pass over lead flashing. There is the possibility of small amounts of lead contaminating the water. It won't harm you with one cup, but if you drink it regularly, it might cause problems. It's surprising how dirty rain water can be, as it picks up airborne pollutants.

Reminds me, when I was a student, we had the water cut for about 4 days. It was snowing hard, so we decided to boil and drink some snow. We scraped off the surface layer, and extracted a saucepan full from below (which had fallen in the previous couple of hours). When we heated it enough to melt all the snow, we found lots of 'bits' at the bottom of the pan. Not sure what it was - maybe soot particles? I didn't fancy drinking it!


Ivan

[wyleu]

The flooded areas will probably give some fairly good statistical results as to quite what the effect of drinking rainwater is.

[Flamethrower_]

Many people( i.e Australia ,New  Zealand) use rain water (filtered) as there only water source for household use!

But as most of their roof are corrogated galvanised steel,  no lead involved just a bit of zinc!

Any way we use copper pipes for the perfect reason copper is a natural biocide! kills all known germs!!!! 

Rob

[rhys]

Flush Loos.
Use in Washing machine.
Water Vegitable Garden and polytunnel
Those together are a lot of water, my water rates have dropped by about a third.

My water comes from my almost permanenly flooded cellar - it "looks"  good enogh to drink, but I wouldn't risk that.
To puify for drinking would need filters followed by UV treatment.
Very important to have a fine filter because the "bugs" hide behind any small particles and don't get zapped!!

[Flamethrower_]

Rhys, 

A question for you ?

I was talking with my father (77 this year) who said "this rain water harvesting is nothing new" as a child they had a brick built storage tank to save and store water which his mother used for all their clothes washing water and drinking water was supplied from a well.

Did we go backwards? especially all the energy intensive drinking water to flush down the loo!!

Or was the building trade doing a cost cutting exercise? we can save a few quid here! and not fit separate water supplies.

Even myself as a child I went to stay (in the 1960's) at my Uncles large house in Broadstone near Poole in Dorset (built in 1920's) and in the kitchen there was a separate drinking water supply! over the kitchen sink.

Regards

Rob

[kristen]

rhys: What rainwater harvesting system are you using pls?

"especially all the energy intensive drinking water to flush down the loo!!"

... and water the garden with.  Pity we don't have dual supply of Clean and Irrigation water like the hotter countries.

Kristen

[wyleu]

Well I've just drunk a glass of water from our pond so we shall see what happens.

More news as we get it...

[Antman]

Oh Lord!  He's stopped taking the tablets again 

[wyleu]

Well working on the premise that I'd like to know it can be done whilst there isn't disaster all around, I'll report back from the depth's of gastro enteritis in about twelve hours or maybe twenty four.

You do know I can get X-10 incontinence sensors don't you?

[Paulh_Boats]

Thanks everybody.

I'm really interested in the system Rhys has. I'm considering filling the header tank in the loft with rain water - water from our glass conservatory roof is very clear compared to the house roof. Heavy rain brings down small amounts of moss and lichen from the house roof.

I have set the Resol controller to 75C and the gas boiler can get the cylinder up to 72C. (E. Coli is killed above 70C). So if heated up to 70C I think it will be ok for hand washing and clothes washing?

I have already filled the header tank with 33L that I collected at work (outside Glos) and sterilised the container with Milton for good measure. That was just enough to get one load of washing done by connecting both hot and cold fills on our Bosch to the hot water supply, skipping one rinse to save water.

Apparently the average UK house gets 50,000L or more of rain water each year, enough to fill a water butt each day. Its madness to flush good quality drinking water into the sewers.

Anyway, next on the plan is a submersible water pump and a filter like an old towel. What pumps are recommended for grey water systems to pump up to a header tank? 12V pumps will be low power and run from solar but I'm thinking that 240V pumps are a bit more rugged.


Thanks for Wyleu for donating his body to medical science.

cheers
Paul

[martin]

he got it wrong again - I've just heard you should suck "wet wipes"............one local council's answer to no drinking water is to distribute wet wipes, and a leaflet!

[Paulh_Boats]

20 litres of rainwater into the header tank...we'll see what happens. Resol says 62C so the bugs are getting zapped!

This system looks nice and simple. My next project I think.

http://www.alternativetechnology.info/rainwater_recycling.pdf

-Paul

[rhys]

Rhys, 

A question for you ?

I was talking with my father (77 this year) who said "this rain water harvesting is nothing new" as a child they had a brick built storage tank to save and store water which his mother used for all their clothes washing water and drinking water was supplied from a well.

Did we go backwards? especially all the energy intensive drinking water to flush down the loo!!

Or was the building trade doing a cost cutting exercise? we can save a few quid here! and not fit separate water supplies.

Even myself as a child I went to stay (in the 1960's) at my Uncles large house in Broadstone near Poole in Dorset (built in 1920's) and in the kitchen there was a separate drinking water supply! over the kitchen sink.

Regards

Rob

You're right its nothing new. It doesn't make sense to use drinking water to wash cloths and flush the loo. The cost of extra pipwork is not much but tanks and pumps are. As i didn't need a tank it was a good proposition for me.