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New Perspectives for Troubled Times Green Gardens, Saving Water, Saving Fish Rain
Barrel to Toilet Installation: A Practical How-To Guide If want to submit an article related to
rain water, send an
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Why I
Harvest Rain by Dan Borba I made my first rain barrel in March of 1999 and since then I've learned lots of good reasons why someone ought to harvest rain water. A big one for us Homosapiens and 200 other species is salmon. We all depend on salmon living and dead and harvesting your own rain water keeps more of the water where the salmon need it and if rain barrels are good for salmon then they're good for us too. Another reason that can't be over-looked today, especially considering the recent black out on the east coast, is that it's a good off the grid source of water. It also decreases our need for a larger infrastructure, it conserves our natural resources, it's chemical free(i.e. plant friendly) and it provides water to us for free(the only fair price for water, in my opinion. If you want to see 'unfair', just check out the price of water and air at your not so local gas stations). These are all individually reason enough to harvest the rain but the best part about it to me is the shear child-like joy I get out of having my own water system. I can use it and move it wherever I like,except uphill, that is, and it's fun! I've learned how to move water from one barrel to the next a hundred yards away and how to connect barrels up in a line to increase my harvest. I don't just use it for my garden but also to wash off my hands and tools, mix cement, clean my car or just to splash on my face. And with my Catholic upbringing using rain water is guilt free!(some of you will know what I mean). And it is no small amount of water coming off your roof either! A 1,200 square foot roof in Tacoma has roughly 27,000 gallons/year falling on it! With 4 downspouts that's about 7,000 gallons/year running thru your rain barrel! And rain barrels are just the beginning. There could easily be rain water toilets, rain water washers and gray water systems and we in the general public can put these together, we don't need "experts"! And please, if your utility company tells you they are saving water, simply ask them if they have a rain water toilet? It ain't rocket Science! (p.s. use this last expression at your own risk!) | Top | Index | |
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New Perspectives
for Troubled Times When I called the the Tacoma News Tribune,
I didn't think I would be sitting down to my computer composing a story
about harvesting rainwater, but rather that a reporter would do as reporters
do, "Report on this story." Here goes:
Last year Dan's rainwater harvesting techniques were so successful that he collected over 60 barrels of rainwater totalling about 3,500 gallons! He received a lot of attention from the city and fellow garden growers alike. Do to public safety hazard, the barrels had to be dumped.
Harvesting the rainwater is as ancient as the Egyptian pyramids of Giza. (more facts)
drought (drout) also drouth (drouth). n.
[Middle English from Old English drgoth.] droughty adj. Note: This article is work in progress! Send your comments to Dan Borba. By the way, The Tacoma News Tribune finally did report on Dan's story; however, they would not grant him permission to post the article on his website, and to think I gave them the idea. Oh well, I guess will have to wait for something to change the tides. BTW, the Tacoma News Tribune is continuing to revisit Dan's progress with harvesting rainwater from his roof top and spurring a quite movement of rainwater harvesters! | Top | Index | |
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Gardens, Saving Water, Saving Fish by Kirk Kirkland A close examination of residential water use shows plenty of places that water can be recycled to keep your garden green and our local rivers full of fish in the low flow times of the year. September river flows are crucial for salmon. With a portion of our city water coming from the Green River and local wells, saving water at home leaves water in the river when the fish are ready to swim up stream. Moreover, this eventually helps the birds that feed on salmon remaining after spawning. In the ordinary home, there are a number of ways to recycle water that keeps plants green during the dry months of summer. The easiest place to begin is with a rain barrel. Start with a plastic garbage can under each rainspout. Dip a watering can into the barrel to water flower boxes and drought sensitive shrubbery. When I needed more water, I re-placed these cans with a 55 gallon rain barrel at each down spout with a faucet at the top which delivers the excess from a rain storm to sprinklers around my house. But with an ambitious gardener in the family, I was soon looking for other sources of water, more capacity. Washing clothes uses 16% of a houses water supply, about 100 gallons a month per person. I placed a rain barrel next to the washer and directed the washer's outflow into it. Just a garden house was needed to carry it out to the roses on the next hot dry day. A friend of mine saved the cost of a rain barrel, by routing the output of the washer directly to the roses with plastic pipe. She waits for hot dry days to wash. Showers and baths also generate a fine soapy water that is good for gardens. It is about 15% of the household use. The trick is to re-route the shower and tub drains before the gray water mixes with outflow from toilets or kitchen skink. However, this requires a financial commitment to water recycling. A friend who used this technique had the plumbing changed to route the water into the garden in summer and down the sewer during the wet times of the year. Without plumbing skills, it is hard to achieve this goal. Most homes use 21% of their water on landscaping. Allowing the lawn to dry out during the summer months can reduce part of this. It also saves lawn mower gas and your time, since no mowing is necessary from July 15 to September in most years. A careful selection of native vegetation further reduces the need for water. These natives are designed for wet winters and dry summers. Local nurseries can point out which ones would work best for your landscaping scheme. Where my sister lives in Florida, the city offers recycled water to residents for use on lawns and shrubs. The gray water is piped from the local sewage plant where its been treated. This way the water used for toilets and dishwashers comes back for a second trip to the house and is returned to the soil where it eventually lifts the water table and recharges the aquifer beneath. This is a complete recycling program and the beginning of making our cities sustainable. In Pierce County, our dry season is only two months long, you can make a large contribution by starting with a couple of rain barrels. This, combined with water redirected from your washing machine, lets you go a long way toward finding that 21% needed for most residential gardens. This small step toward sustainability in the city can go along way toward guaranteeing a little sparkle in the local rivers in late September when the fish come home to spawn. |
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Rain Barrel to Toilet Installation: A Practical
How-To Guide Intro A few years ago, I bought a 90 gallon rain barrel and hooked it up to my rain gutter on the far side of my house. I used it once in a while, but found it time consuming to fill watering cans and so it went mostly unused. Living near Seattle, I get about 37 inches of rain a year. I often see installed rain barrels around here used for gardens and flowers that are full and overflowing, not living up to their potential. I thought there must be a simpler way to use more harvested rainwater year 'round. My solution was to relocate my rain barrel on my back porch and then hook it up to my downstairs toilet. This configuration sets the rain barrel about 8 feet above the toilet. When flushed, gravity refills the toilet with rain water from the barrel. I did a lot of hunting around on the Internet and was unable to find much practical information about doing this on a residential basis. It is my hope that this web page may inspire and help others to hook up a rain barrel to their home black-water (toilet) system. Intro A Practical How-To Guide Why Harvest Rain Water? Many of you probably think I'm nuts by harvesting rain water in Seattle. After all, water is plentiful here, right? While is it true that we get a lot of rainfall, up to 60 inches per year in some places, the summer months can be very dry. Climate change has made our winters here warmer and there is less snow in the mountains to fill our reservoirs during the summer. Watershed collection for our growing urban population can offset critically needed water from rivers during the fall salmon spawning season. Recent summers have been dry enough for the local government to call for voluntary and sometimes mandatory water use restrictions. While it doesn't come close to making up for our gas-guzzling, high-consuming lifestyles, rain harvesting does have a positive impact on our environment. Domestic potable water collection requires effort, energy, and chemicals for purification and transport. Toilets use 20 to 25% of water consumed in a residential house. Why are we flushing drinkable water down the toilet? In some other countries of the world, rainwater harvesting on a residential level is a mandatory part of building codes. Your house is an "impermeable surface". Rain would otherwise hit the ground where your house is and soak into the underground water table or enter a natural stream. Instead, rainfall from the roofs of many urban homes is tied into the sewer system. During periods of heavy rain, this storm surge from houses, parking lots, and streets into the sewer system can max out treatment capacity, causing raw sewage to flow out untreated into waterways. Harvesting some of this storm surge can reduce peak demands on our water treatment facilities. Besides the more important environmental issues, most of us in urban areas pay for domestic potable water. I have calculated that each flush of the rainwater toilet (1.6 gallons) saves me just over 1 cent. Costing less than $100 to install, this system will pay for itself over the years. Also, I have the satisfaction of a small level of self-sufficiency from an urban lifestyle otherwise dependent on society for survival. Click the following link for instructions on:
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