Just thought I'd give this thread a nudge and give y'all something to read. It's a piece I wrote just before I lost a well paying job, so the two water tanks referred to have yet to be delivered and we're having to make do with the larger of two old above-ground pools. (The smaller one being set up for growing fish.)

Rainwater Harvesting.

The ground has been levelled and a bed of sand laid ready for delivery of two x 30,000 litre rainwater tanks, which will be connected together. Now we have to pressure clean the roof of this old house to remove 26 years worth of dirt, mould and moss, install leaf guards over the guttering and valleys, and install first-flush diverters on the down-spouting, before connecting up to the tanks. Leaf guards are important not only for keeping debris out of the water, but also to prevent a build-up of leaf litter in the guttering, which would become an immediate fire hazard in our dry summers. It is also important that the leaf guards themselves should be fire-proof - there are some on the market that are made of plastic, which may add fuel to a fire that could spread from the gutters into the roof cavity. Roofs also tend to collect a lot of dust, bird droppings, bacteria, and little bits of decomposing insects and other small debris, which is often carried into the water supply when it starts raining. This is quite apart from the pollution that is collected from the air as rain first begins to fall, and comes down as acid rain. First-flush diverters prevent the initial flow of contaminated/acid water from entering the tanks, and are simple to construct with off-the-shelf parts from your local hardware store. After a tank is full, you then have an overflow, usually from a pipe which is located at the top of the tank, opposite the inlet pipe. Unfortunately, this is not really a good set-up, as fresh water entering a full tank merely flows across the top of the water already in the tank and out through the overflow, leaving the water at the bottom of the tank to grow stale, and also grow algae. By extending the overflow pipe down inside the tank, so that its inlet is about 6" above the bottom, stale water and any debris will be drawn off whenever the tank overflows. Very importantly, a small breather tube must be installed at the very top of this overflow pipe, to prevent it becoming a siphon and draining the tank. The overflow from a tank should be directed well away from any building as, during heavy or constant rain, excess water around the foundations could cause a range of problems. Another good idea is to have the tank fitted with an outlet to which a fire-fighting pump can be coupled.

My wife was at first horrified that anyone should drink rain water. In Japan, if you hang out your laundry to dry and it rains, you quickly dash outside and bring it all in before your clothes are eaten alive. Now, she just can't wait until our tanks are installed. Eventually we will have the two tanks connected to the toilets and laundry, as well as supplying water for the orchards and gardens. Several local councils in our state offer rebates when installing rainwater tanks, but typically, there's a catch or two; (1) To obtain the rebate, the tank must be connected to the laundry and/or toilets by a licensed plumber, (very expensive), and be inspected and approved by the water authority; (2) The supply pipe from the tank must first be led to a dual-reading meter on your property boundary, and this meter must be replaced every five years at your expense. Now why would this need to be done? Ostensibly, it is for information gathering and statistics purposes, however there is an ulterior motive. Sewerage disposal fees are calculated as a percentage of the water supplied to your property by the authority - even if a lot of the water is used on your gardens.
By supplying your own water, you are not only using less water from the supplying authority, but also reducing the amount upon which the sewerage fees are based. Never mind that you are being environmentally practical, think of the loss of income to the authority if everyone did it! Legally, we are not allowed to connect our tanks to the house for drinking and cooking purposes when there is a reticulated source available. (It would appear that the presence of a water reticulation system near your property renders any nearby tank water unfit for human consumption.) Provided that you do not have any cross-connection to the mains supply, you can do all of the plumbing yourself, as it is a low pressure system, so who in their right mind would bother to apply for the small rebate available?

Rainwater contains quite an amount of dissolved nitrogen, which partly accounts for the healthy growth of plants seen after rain. Town water on the other hand is usually treated with chlorine, which kills off a lot of the beneficial bacterium in the matrix surrounding the root systems of plants. Without this bacterium, plants are inhibited from taking up all of the nutrients that they require for healthy growth. It follows then that there would be a lesser amount of vitamins and minerals available to us from the vegetables that we irrigate with such water. And there would be no point adding extra fertiliser, blood & bone, wood ash etc. if the plants are unable to take up the goods due to damaged root systems. Jumping on to another hobby-horse for a moment, it's also worth noting that Genetically Mutilated (G.M.) Crops can be developed to resist many parasites, or, with the addition of vast amounts of irrigation water, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides that kill weeds but not the crop, improve yields out of sight. However, it has been scientifically proven that they also are not able to absorb their full quota of available nutrients, particularly iron and zinc. But hey! Let's not get too technical - let's just use natural rainwater on our organic gardens!

We also going to collect our grey-water in the old septic tank, (disconnected and cleaned out when the local Water Board forced everybody to connect to the sewerage mains), and this water is to be pumped up to a reed-bed bio-filter before being used for irrigation of the orchards. You can also save more 'good' water by using some of the filtered grey-water to fill the cisterns of your flush toilets - if your local council won't let you install composting toilets. (Whoops! Do I feel another project coming on?)

excellent post, thanks bro.

Yes great post and i WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT THE FISH RAISING like maybe open a thread in food? like do you use pump for the water or plants, and cleaners to keep the pool/pond decent? oh please let me know

I recently read somewhere that in Colorado it is illegal to catch the rainwater off of your OWN roof. The dimwits who made this illegal need to be sentenced to 6 months with only sand to drink. But to the point of catching rainwater, I have a possible solution . I have an aluminum frame I got while visiting my favorite dumpster. it is shaped like a tent, and has cloth where the roof of the tent would be. It is about 4 feet high and 6 feet long. The thing is probably a sun shade or something similar. Anyway, I had an idea. Turned upside down, it could catch rain and when placed one end slightly higher than the other, would funnel rain straight into a barrel or a tank. I may have to line it with a tarp so that the rain doesn't run through it. When the rain stops, turn it right side up again (like a tent) and use it for a sun shade. No incriminating evidence on your roof, and the frame could be hinged to fold in the middle and put in a shed, etc. .

The idiots running washington state threatened to fine a family in seattle for catching rain water saying it wasn't public or some crap like that, I'll see if I can find it and post it. Great Idea though,we're gonna do something similar but with different tanks.
Thanks,
Lost

Here it is check out how the idiots running the show in these states see things:
http://www.naturalnews.com/029286_rainw ... water.html

Isn't the exact article I was looking for but you get the idea. You think they'd applaud people for catching rainwater for whatever use they were catching it for.