Thoughts on rainwater collection

[elhoff]

Having done the solar power thing, I've been thinking about my water usage a lot lately. I thought about installing some rain barrels recently, but I'm not really sure how helpful that is. Here are my thoughts so far:

- My household used 168,000 gallons of water in the last year. That is actually slightly less than the previous year. It is 9000 gallons more than the average for single family homes in Davis.

- Davis gets ~17 inches of rain per year. Like most of CA, most of that rain occurs between December and April. It is dry the rest of the year.

- I have about 1700 sqft of roof. With enough storage capacity, I should be able to collect about 16,000 gallons of water from my roof each year.

- Rainwater is easiest to use for landscape watering since that requires minimal treatment.

- I believe that about a third of my water usage is for landscape watering. That is 56,000 gallons just for the landscape.

- Landscape irrigation is only required during the dry months, I would have to store the entire 16,000 gallons.

If I collected 100% of the rainwater from my roof, and stored it in a 16,000 gallon tank, it would only provide about 1/4 of the water I need for landscaping, and only about 1/12 of my total water usage. So the big questions are:

- Is it worth it for 1/12 of my water usage?

- Where would I put a 16,000 gallon water tank?

Honestly, I think my money is better spent on conservation for now. Maybe rainwater collection next year after some relandscaping and plumbing updates.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/techmage_/]

my parents are installing a water tank at their place out in rescue. they're putting it up the hill from the house and feeding it from their well. they were talking solar for a while too, at least to power the well pump. my mom likes the idea that if the power goes out she can still have running water. between the gravity-feed from the tank and the solar panels she's probably going to be ok once they have it all up and running.

this whole thing became an issue a while back when the power went out. as it stands the well is electric powered and at the bottom of the hill. when the power's out nobody can shower, cook, have a glass of water, nothing. it sucks.

[artistic-chaos.livejournal.com]

What about putting in one of those things that makes the water hot immediately? It'd save a decent amount of water if we didn't have to run the water for awhile at the shower or the bathroom sink to wait for it to heat up.