Any suggestions for harvesting rain water?

Discussion in 'Finding, Purifying, and Storing Water' started by branchd77, Jan 19, 2016.

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  1. branchd77

    branchd77 Administrator Staff Member Gold Supporter
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    Does anyone have a cheap suggestion for harvesting and storing a good amount of rain water?
     
  2. Jason

    Jason Active Member
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    Plastic 55 gallon barrel with some sort of filter on top and just run your gutter into it, just boil the water before consumption.
     
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  3. LHCB

    LHCB Active Member
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    I found IBC totes locally (food grade) uncleaned (this is useful for verifying they were not used for chemicals in their previous life) for $65. 275 gallons and on ebay there are filters down to .01 microns to use in the top fill holes. I'd still want a Berkey or similar gravity water filter before consuming but they fill quickly from my garage gutter.
     
  4. Lakeisha Brown

    Lakeisha Brown New Member
      8/23

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    I had no idea rain water could be consume. I am so thankful I found this forum. I am in the military and this tip could help me one day. So once you collect the rain water, you have to boil it and then it's okay to drink?
     
  5. Bonzer

    Bonzer New Member
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    Apartments in my area are required harvest water in order to get permission and to be built. Harvesting water here is done in order to raise ground water levels. They dig up soakage pits and direct the rainwater draining from terrace to the soakage pits through PVC piping.

    You may adapt the same method to harvest and store rainwater into big cans. A UV water purifier may be used to get clean drinking water from the same.
     
  6. rickymuus

    rickymuus New Member
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    Build a well aerated tank underground in your compound. Collect rain water to your tank until it is full. Treat the water with some bleaching agent and cover it properly. Use a clean container when fetching the water.
     
  7. koolhandlinc

    koolhandlinc Expert Member
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    I followed the events in the Philippines with the NPA. In the process I saw a pictures of the Marines using tarps and capturing rain water. They just tied the corners to trees. When the rain was coming down. They took cups anddrank and scooped into canteens. I found food grade plastic barrels on the net a few years ago and could not afford them at the time. They were about 75 dollars each with shipping. (Never purchase used barrels from the side of the road. Some chemicals can't be cleaned out no matter how hard you try.) My current preferred method is to roatate our scent free bleach. We use for cloths but I store it back and rotate stocks. I use 1 spoon full per 5 gallon bucket. We have a creek nearby.
     
  8. CivilDefense

    CivilDefense Expert Member
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    Here in the Pacific Northwest, it falls out of the sky all the time. We are setup with some of those blue, 55-gallon containers. Once filled up, the water can be run through a Big Berkey water filter, and we have plenty of potable water. For irrigation, flushing toilets, etc., it doesn't have to be filtered, of course.
     
  9. BethSztruhar

    BethSztruhar Member
      23/29

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    We use barrels to collect it, so then we can use it to water our garden. I think this is the cheapest solution.
     
  10. JMS

    JMS Member
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    When I was a child we had a water butt. This was a barrel that had the gutter leading to it. When it rained the water would run across the gutter and down the pipe into the water butt. The water butt had a little tap on it so we could help ourselves to water the garden whenever we wanted to. It was always a great help when it was sunny for long periods. Sometimes there would be a water ban because of a drought but we could use the water we had saved up from the rain in our water butt. I never realised until reading this thread that we could drink it though.
     
  11. Corzhens

    Corzhens Master Survivalist
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    We regularly collect rainwater. It is the start of the rainy season here now and the rains are coming every other day or so. We use the big basins to catch rainwater and store it in the 5-gallon plastic bottles that are used for drinking water. When there is no rain, we can irrigate the garden with the saved rainwater. The trick in storing rainwater is to have a lid so the water cannot be infiltrated by insects. Mosquitoes love stored water and they will make it a breeding place.
     
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  12. koolhandlinc

    koolhandlinc Expert Member
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    I purchased 3 360 tanks. 2 for my brother and 1 for me. Mine was hooked up to a guttering system. I never could keep it clean. Always had leaves and such.
     
  13. Anniee

    Anniee New Member
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    Get a big plastic tank. For the roofing, make sure it is streamlined such that the water would follow a single path, then set your plastic tank covered with a filter (net probably) at the drop point. We have been collecting rain water ever since I was small and it helps in some of the household chores. You can set the path to a small garden backyard or a dam for later use.
     
  14. Tumbleweed

    Tumbleweed Expert Member
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    I think that the answer to this question would depend on what kind of climate you live in, and how much water you are trying to collect. If you just want a few buckets full, then a gutter that runs into a barrel will do the trick, As @Corzhens mentioned, you need to make sure it is covered well enough that mosquitoes do not move in and set up a larva breeding area in your stored water.
    If you are living off-grid, and need a larger amount of water, then putting in a system to catch the rainwater into gutters and funnel it through filters and down to an underground storage container is an excellent way to go. It does take a lot of effort to get this set up, as well as the cost of the water storage tank and piping needed to run the water from your gutters into the tank.
    In Idaho, I had a friend who had electricity but no water . She had to haul her drinking water; but she had set up raingutters on the roof of her home as well as the outbuildings, and all of the water was piped into a large underground holding tank. She used a pump to get the water into her house, and she could use this was for almost everything except for drinking water.
    However, in the heat of summer, we usually didn't get enough rain for her to keep water in the tank, and she had to use her truck to haul water home for bathing and watering her garden.
     
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