I am such an enviro-geek

[NightWatcher]

Today I doubled my rainwater collection system for watering the plants and the garden that will be following in the next few months.



Now I have the capacity to harvest 110 gallons. I have the greatest lady and she humors my whims and even agrees that it would be cool to live off the grid someday. So, right now everything is just practice for that day in the future. I realize that water is cheap and plentiful today, but someday we might not be so lucky. I've even been researching converting the toilets to operate on greywater, but I doubt that I'll try that anytime soon. I have worked to try to get the home as energy efficient as possible and my next project is to save up for a modular PV solar power system. We've a couple of years before grants and tax credits run out.

[Deja Q]

1. Clever...

Now if it would only rain...

[hobbit709]

5. Rain, what's that?

We're already over 10" behind for this year out of average annual of 30". We're in a severe drought status here. Last year 3 goddamn hurricanes hit TX and in Austin we got a total of .01 inch.

[Kali]

2. isn't that 150 + gallons?

or are your barrels smaller?

funny you posted this - my local watershed group put on a rainwater harvesting workshop (and a plumbed barrel give-away) today.

[NightWatcher]

3. I only added one more barrel and changed the first one around

I placed them on a solid foundation instead of the wooden spool that the first one was on. I have a total of two 55 gallon barrels.

[Kali]

8. d'oh!

:blush:

[hippywife]

4. We have two in our garden, too.

It's a real boon in the spring when it rains so much here in OK. We miss it in the summer when we've used it up and no rain in the foreseeable future.

Great job! :hi:

[marzipanni]

6. I had a friend when I was a kid whose dad had a big wooden barrel

to catch rain water. If you live in an unpolluted area, and your rainwater is clean, rinsing your hair in rainwater makes it really soft.
We used to eat hot maple syrup poured on a bowl of snow until he, an army survival specialist, told us they were testing atom bombs and the snow might have some radioactive stuff in it. :(

During the drought in 1972 in Northern California, when the expression, "If it's yellow, it's mellow; if it's brown, flush it down", was coined, people came up with some good ideas. One I liked was a big funnel at the kitchen sink which had a hose clamped to it, and the hose went out the window to a collection barrel below so you could pour your dishpan full of rinse water into the funnel.

We don't have a low flush toilet so I put a gallon jug of water in the tank. Why waste water if you can avoid it? Now we are beginning to come to terms with how wasteful we are with water; we can use our old good ideas, like yours, just as we see in hindsight that the gas-saving cars of the early 1970s made sense, not huge SUVs.

[trof]

7. I've done almost exactly the same thing.

2 35 gallon plastic garbage cans.
Great minds think alike.
:-)