rethinking my water situation -OR- man plans, god laughs, man gets a bigger tank
 

Florida, particularly south Florida used to be wetter year round. I have lived here since '82 and the winters were always a lot drier and we have seasonal brush fires but it is usually only a few dry weeks before the drizzles start and then rain in feb through the summer and into nov.

in the last few years this has changed and the dry period is now a legit season stretching almost 4 months. This coincided perfectly with my increased passion for orchids and desire to catch rain water LOL

i grew into a three barrel system, one on each side of the house and a smaller on in the aviary for the quails and herbs

i found myself out of water by december the last two years and i started to do some research.

I am not supposed to catch water (dumb) so i have to be slightly clandestine and keep the catchment hidden from the street- this is my major constraint, and i only have a minivan so i cant haul massive stuff.

after a long time of searching i found an IBC tote (250 gallons) and got it delivered for $80 total ( i love Letgo)


i spent the few moments of baby0break time over a few days and slapped this together just in time for the rain last night

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a1dcff07_c.jpgUntitled by J Solo, on Flickr


it filled 1/4 of the way in a night and the other three all over filled so i am in pretty good shape for H2O for a little while.

i am going to try to not use city water at all since i cant get any reliable info about the TDS or what's in it LOL


tips, tricks and opinions welcome
:waving

Question... what did you do about the poisoning stuff they sprayed on your roof prior to installing this?

I went up there with my lil residential pressure cleaner and rinsed. For hours....

Then I let it get rinsed by nature for a few months.

I did a taste test before I hooked any of them back up.

I also asked a buddy who is a chemist and he said most of any chemicals would have degraded enough in that time so as to be as dangerous as the normal air pollution that lands on my roof.

Looks great. Shame about having to hide the setup, we are actively encouraged to collect water here.
We have a tank connected to part of the roof and verandah. Not had it completely empty in the 3 years we have been here. Rains a bit more here than in the city and burbs.

YouTube has some good videos on 'prepper type' water tote installations.

Hubby was plumber so Ive absorbed a bit of general info over the years.
But, as they say, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing!
Also I don't want this to sound like Im try to teach you anything, you obviously know what you are doing.

Options for more storage, if needed, are another tote on top. Probably not good in your case looking at the height of the tote to your gutters. Plus a bit more complicated setup requiring 'burp' valve on lower tote, not to mention weight mitigation.

Side by side, this leaves options as to the inflow pipe placed high or low.
High means tote closest to gutter fills first then overflows into next one. Or low placement so all connected totes fill to the same level.

One thing that seems to be standard across the installs Ive seen is either painting the tote black or wrapping in black plastic to stop algae growth.

Awesome info.

I am a thick skinned dude who likes to learn. Please please always tell me any advice

Painting it is a great idea! I think I’ll make a view strip to see the contents and get me some spray paint

Thanks DC. I figured you'd done something. Heck, you may have talked about it before and I forgot.

A fun option to keep algae at bay would be get a roll of that reed fencing and make it look like a little tiki hut. With all the palm leaves around, you could even do an authentic roof. I did that once to my Great Pyer's dog house, but with a planted green roof...just for fun. :biggrin:

that's a cool idea!! a hula skirt of sorts!!!

Yes, very tropical, very Floridian. :biggrin:

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PS Don't forget to add the pink flamingoes.

when i was a kid there were flamingos on the beaches....i have not seen one in like 20 years

The algae growth is good for irrigation water. It prevents growth of harmful water molds. It provides nutrients to plants when used for irrigation. Algae-filled water is being used as organic fertilization on some Arizona farms. I would not paint the tanks.

When "a Dry Place" gives advice on water....smart people will heed it!

Silly! I'm in Kansas. I'm talking the plastic pink ones! Actually, I even have a few fancy metal ones here and there. Also some black and orange ones for Halloween. Because I'm just cool like that. :biggrin:

Huh, I wonder why they don't allow you to collect water, seems a bit silly...

Hey, you could have real flamingos in Kansas, you never know! After all there are a bunch of them, both the chilean and carribean species, that are often seen in the northern parts of the Netherlands and Germany, they even breed. And it sure isn't a tropical country! In my town we even had a couple of the flamingos stay a few days in the floodplains along the river.

The dumbest reason of all...aesthetics. They don’t want a lot of people doing ugly diy raincatches. Sooooooo dumb

That's so dumb, just beyond dumb for words. I can understand that they can be quite ugly, but couldn't they just require that the raincatchers be made more visually esthetic? (nice fence or plants around it). In my allottment garden that I rent from the municipality, rain barrels are also forbidden due to them being ugly and the gardens are located in one of the prettiest nature areas in town. We are allowed to bury them however, or shield them from view using natural materials. I have my 200L bright blue barrels in the ground (though a pain to scoop water out with the watering can), and one neighbor has vines growing over his IBC.

Algae growth is OK if the water is going to be retrieved with a hose. But if it feeds into a sprinkler system, clogging is an issue. A little is OK but if it turns into a mat with loose stuff floating around, maybe not so great. My suspicion is that in the Floridian heat and humidity, algae will grow pretty weedily.

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Maybe a battery-powered or foot-operated pump to get the water? Would save your back.

Fortunately for me, it’ll be going right into a watering can. Maybe I’ll get ambitions for a hose one day but at24” off the ground....that’s barely a trickle

You can get a small submersible pond pump for under $100, then connect a hose and away you go.

I found a Danner Pondmaster pump, 700 GPH (= 11-12 GPM), with dimensions 5"x3.8"x4.2"

Once you have a hose & nozzle attached, flow goes down, but 2-4 GPM is adequate for watering.

I have a pond pump and I was all set to do something similar buuuut no AC on the side of the house. It’s like 85’ to the nearest outlet and that is in front of the house, 200’ to the one in the rear.

I was thinking about what it would take to make a solar rig

Panel, battery, inverter.....

Might be cheaper (and a lot easier) to hire an electrician and get an outlet where you need it. One can never have too many outlets.

this is probably the best way to go

I live in an old house, where the entire 2nd floor is a single circuit. Needless to say, I can't run 3 ACs on that.

Solution A: Rewire the whole house (= $$$).
Solution B: Drop an outdoor extension cord out of the window in the 3rd bedroom, and plug it in downstairs in the dining room (= $20).

Lol. See!!
That’s what I am talking about lol

I have a zero ga cord, 100’ and 50’ 00 ha that I use to power things from the generator after hurricanes....

Maybe I just bury the long one lol!!

Hmmm... especially in a wet climate (but anywhere, actually), I'd have a second thought, and probably a third, about burying a bare extension cord for long-term use. (I can also see some critter chewing through it.) It should be pretty easy work for an electrician to run conduit from an existing outlet to a new one. And, I think, a whole lot safer.

Yup, DC. Don't be silly. You're a good friend who told me, yeah, run a new electrical line up onto that new sleeping porch orchid space. Cheapest solution ain't always best. Duh.

I was totally joking about biting and extension cord. Tha k you two for caring though :)

I am going to price out the electrical work bc it would be the only way lol

I am willing to be silly not willing to be dumb

A 12v on-demand pump run off of a battery could be another option. You could plump it with a drop stick and check valve.

Your neighbor's house is probably closer than yours... wait until they're not home, jump the fence and plug it into one of their outdoor outlets. ;)

Hahaha