Rainwater harvesting in barrels? What? Enough for a car wash? GO Big. Barrels are for east coast and Oregon. Texas? Waste of time. GO BIG. GAD ASS culvert cistern og other tank.

Thanks!

How many souls in your household? That seems like a lot of water to use...

Just 2 , no system to use rainwater for anything but plant s yet. Just picked up two 330 gal IBCs. Oh we do have guests maybe twice a week. We replenish the water at 800 gals so we really use about 1700 per every two months. Not sure if the design committee will want less water. House will be remodeled starting in January with better greywater use, insulation.

ACParker13 since it's Texas, the way they mix our concrete actually needs watering from time to time to keep it from cracking from getting too dry, and _extremely_ few houses have basements. Most are pier & beam. I'd be surprised if his house, in Austin, had a basement. Lots of bedrock there.

I would recommend some spray paint on schedule 40/30/35 pvc that is exposed to the sun. over time it will become brittle. pvc doesn't like the sun. (which you seem to know) neither does pex. however, pvc can withstand chemicals and critters when buried underground unlike pex. if I were to run a water supply line under the surface of the yard I would use poly pipe (used in sprinkler and well systems). at my store the yellow striped poly is for irrigation. blue and red for potable water. waaayyyy cheaper than pvc and you can get a hundred foot roll of 1" for the price of a couple of 4" solid core schedule 40 pipes. the one thing to remember is to blow the lines dry before the freezing temps start. also, I would remove any valves from the line and place temporary caps/plugs until the weather is ready for another go:)

highonimmi MDPE alkathene is used for supply here in UK The same as Poly pipe?

Thanks! It works great, have some minor seepage issues around the seals at the bottom of the tanks, but the loss is so minor that it's barely noticeable. I still hope to fix that sometime, but it's tough now that the tanks are full! I may make a follow up :).

Thanks! You're right, I don't get a lot of pressure, but the bottom of the barrels are roughly level with my gardens in the back yard... I know this because I accidentally drained them this summer by leaving the hose running ;) so I don't plan to get a pump. A pump would also probably require some filtering, which starts to add up $$$. As far as 2 improvements, good question. #1 would be to come up with a better sealing scheme for the barrel drains since they still stay moist (not enough to notice water loss, but enough to keep things mossy). #2 would probably be to add barrels. They fill up pretty fast in a good rain, so I could store more.

Brian F What is it that you use this for?

TheStavros1001 You're probably right. To be honest, though, the first flush isn't catching much stuff as it is. We don't have any large trees dropping leaves or anything, so it's really just a bit of gravel from the shingles that collects in there. A roof that gets dirtier would likely need a more serious filter scheme.

Brian F Howdy! It's also bird residue, and dust that accumulates and gets washed down that tints the water into various shades of brown. However, how clean you want that water also depends on two things: what you use it for, and how often you have to clean the system out. If you're satisfied with what you get out of your system now, then no need to change it. I use a 55 gallon barrel for my first flush, but I still use that water for things that don't require pristine clean water, like washing out my food cans for recycling, washing out trash cans, washing the car, mud off my boots and clothes when I work in the yard, etc. For these things, I don't need crystal clean water. As a result, I rarely need to drain the first flush barrel. Oops, I mean the second barrel, after the first flush barrel. I actually empty the first flush barrel a lot by using that water, not by just draining it out on the ground.

TheStavros1001 has some good points. Additional bonus of using that water as "grey" water or lawn water - bird / squirrel / biomass residue makes a good fertilizer for the soil.

+TheStavros1001 Yea, the pain with rain water collection is that you only want the water from the middle of the rainfall. First few gallons you don't want because it just was used to clean your roof and w.e junk floating in the air, and the overflow you don't want flooding your foundation.

+2Awesome sending overflow to a rain garden would probably work.

Michael Fields The spout is on the other end (runs around the house) - that's how I get water out of the tanks to use them. A spout on the other end might be handy if I need to completely empty the tanks, but I haven't needed to yet.

I found them on Craigslist by searching for "55 gallon barrel." The seller was in Cedar Park and had a bunch at one point, don't know if they're still selling them but I just searched and found some others selling at $20.

Cinqmil He only needs to fill 1 barrel at the top because they are connected. You are correct. He could have saved a few bucks lol.

Cinqmil The key word is "eventually" - you're correct that the tanks will even out, however the 1" pipe at the bottom is much smaller than the pipes coming off the gutters. If I only drained into the first tank, there's a high likelihood that the inflow rate would exceed the rate at which the bottom pipes could convey water to the rest of the tanks. So in a good rain the first tank might start overflowing well before the remaining tanks fill up. Now, in a good rain there is generally more than enough rainfall to fill them all up, so maybe I could afford the water loss, but my thinking was to try to distribute the inflow across all the tanks (or at least more than one) to reduce the potential for waste before everything's full.

Cinqmil When you bottom fill, you need to vent the air out the top or the barrels won't fill up as the air doesn't have a place to go. Connecting them with a pipe moves all the overflow to one spot instead of just oozing out the top of each barrel, and can be directed away to where ever he needs.. In my opinion, top filling would work better, but that again depends on what you want out of your system. Bottom filling makes it slower to fill the barrels as the water rises in the barrels creates back pressure on the bottom fill. Top filling has no back pressure to deal with. As long as the bottom valves are closed during filling, with top filling the water in the first barrel has the dirty water that the first flush didn't catch, but the second barrel will have cleaner water than the first, because it doesn't fill up until the first barrel is full. Likewise, the third barrel has cleaner water then the first two for the same reason, the forth, etc. Filling from the bottom means all the barrels have the same amount of dirty water in them because they all fill at the same time.

Basically it is a manifold to help with large amounts of water entering those small openings the barrels come with. Picture this. You have a regular glass and a pitcher of beer. pour the beer in the glass all is OK. Now try and pour the beer in a beer bottle with a small mouth. Well you will end up spilling most of it. Now if you got a funnel and a system like he has it will be much better.

I don't have a complete list of parts since I pretty much just figured that out at the hardware store, but I'll PM you a link to a bunch of pictures I took which, combined with the video, should give you a pretty good idea. Good luck!

No, not yet. I didn't even use up all the water last year, but we got a decent amount of rain. We'll see about this year...

Oh okay. I can't wait to get started on mine before the Spring rains. Take care.

Mainly to save money on another piece and this scheme took up less space.

The only overflow is that angled fitting at the end of the pipe at the last tank. I don't actually know how much comes out of that compared to just overflowing out of the tanks, but the short answer is I don't have anything special for overflow. It wouldn't be a bad idea to direct it to the backyard where it'd have more area to soak into, but as it is the water does sink into the ground before it gets to a drain. The system is working well, there's some gradual seepage around my fittings at the bottom of the tank, but the water loss is unnoticeable. Good luck!

Thanks - so much good info for not having to spend a fortune to collect rainwater!

Not really, they're pretty well closed off. I haven't noticed that being a problem, although I should double-check.

yes from the top or by just draining from bottom

Mainly so they wouldn't be visible from inside.

The brand is "Raingo" by Genova.

***** This is just for irrigation. I would definitely need to invest in a filtration system before this could be used for drinking or even washing.

***** actually, there are filters you can use that will take care of that. look into sawyer filters, big berkey, etc...I have a few different kinds. I can take water from a pot hole and make it safe and taste like heaven. you can use strainer/filter that can be cleaned via backwashing. then use a whole house filter system as your first line filtration. next, use the water purification system found in many prepper/do It yourself stores. you can find some reasonably priced products. I work in the plumbing department at a major diy store. while I would have done a few things differently (I have several years of experience in both designing and practical hands on projects) I will say you did a great job thinking this through. you're only using this for irrigation purposes. I would have some drums outside and have quite a few inside as well. I'd run a line from the pipe down into my basement. if you don't have one then where ever you deem safe and secure for storage. this would be my potable water. I have lived through too many water rationings and health warnings for bad city water. once I move to my next location I will have a back yard garden (with chickens and pigmy/dwarf goats:) and rain water storage for both irrigation and potable water. again, great job, hun. I wish you much success in your rainwater system. I grew up in north texas. I feel your heat/drought pain.

You have any links for a swirl filter? i'm designing a system right now and I haven't heard of them. Anything specific you recommend?

aquaponicstube.com/aquaponics-components/the-poor-mans-diy-aquaponics-swirl-filter/

no.

If they want my water they will have to pry it from my cold dry fingers...LOL! They do not own the water, if that were true then they could be sued for flood damages. It's just bureaucracy run amok and overreaching libtards.

Mars Rover You don't know much about politics, do you? Liberals are generally more open to off-grid kind of things. Rainwater catchment, solar and wind energy, backyard veggies, that sort of thing. However, in my red ass, right wing state, the governor has instigated an extra tax on people who use solar energy and sell the excess back to the grid. They are trying to stall the tide that is going to wash away big oil's grip on us all. Ours is not the only right wing state to do that. Again, Dem/libs are for the people, and republicans are for wealthy people and rich corporations.

You are such a stereotypically stupid liberal. Have you ever heard of the Constitution and Bill of Rights? Liberals when they gain control are Fascists that will make you kneel before them. Look at history, hell look at this Administration. The real Conservatives were there for your rights with minimal government. Nowadays many R are RINOs and no better than the Democrats. They just want to keep the status quo and maintain their power, not look out for you. Don't be brain dead and blame wealthy people. Learn from them and figure out how to get your part of the American dream not just a part of your fellow American's taxes. Don't believe the BS they indoctrinated you with in school. Don't you realize the Unions want you to cause social unrest so they are "needed"? Keep the politics out of renewable energy and hopefully our Permaculture future.

^^Typical conservative uninformed hatred. Spew, baby, spew. We shall all rue the day the tea party fucks took over the permaculture movement from the hippies.

Some places are just now starting to come around. Colorado opened the (flood) gates on August 10th. ;)

Glad to hear that Colorado has FINALLY joined the real world on rainwater harvesting.

Not in all states. FL for example it's encouraged

You seem like a really sad person. Get well soon! :(