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Rain harvesting


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Hi everyone, whilst it’s hot with no rain, I thought I’d research rain!!

 

im looking to harvest rain this is purely for watering the garden. Has anyone any ideas? Don’t want to spend too much but eventually we will have lots of shrubs/plants etc to water so will be using quite a bit. We will be having a pond (no fish) just wildlife it’ll be a place for the water to collect at the lowest part of the garden. I will introduce 2 water butts off the garage. The house and driveway will soak away into the mains.

 

so question is should I bury something to collect or should we just utilise this pond? Also pumps to hose is there such a thing? 

 

Thanks everyone

 

 

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Why not run your rainwater pipes to the pond, then have a pump back to a couple of taps placed around the garden. 

Will require a power supply for pump. 

 

I had a house on a terraced plot and managed to get a 5000ltr tank on the high side and the vegetables on the low side so I could water under gravity rather than a pump, but that depends on your garden layout. 

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That sounds a great idea but In Winter when there’s shed loads of rain water I’d be scared we flood everywhere. The water off the house will go directly into sewer system. The garage I’m going to look at diverting into water butts with an option to divert into sewer system as required. I haven’t done any research yet I just hoped someone one here had tried and tested method 

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I saw other threads where some are using IBCs to store rainwater for garden use. I'm thinking of this also but wondered about risk of freezing. Is that likely in the South of the UK if you have something like an IBC (1000L)? Mine would be under an elevated driveway so not surrounded by walls on 3 sides but a bit protected from wind. No idea on the maths to work out how many days <0 degrees would be needed to freeze one of those 

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I keep looking at this, but quickly realise that it actually starts to get quite expensive. And complicated.

 

I want to water a flower bed using gravity from an IBC/Water butt. But ideally i want to fit some lawn sprinklers too. That means a minimum 1.5 bar. So a pump required.

 

Then we need filtration on the incoming water. I can plonk the storage behind the summer house and collect that water. But its not enough water. The house and patio drain to a soakaway. Thats a lot of water. But how to get it to the the IBC? Ive got a chamber in the soakaway line that i could put a submersible pump into to pump when it rains. But again, more complication and expense. Or i could pump from the river to the IBC. But that 200ft away. So more expense and complication. And some control wiring to make it automatic.

 

Much as its ecologically unsound, turning the tap on is much simpler!

 

 

 

 

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@Taff, it doesn’t flood, you don’t just fill a tank from the house

the house goes to the tank in the top

at the top of the tank on the other side is an overflow that goes back to your sewer 

at the bottom of the tank is an outlet to a pump, supply electric to the pump and bingo all done. 

 

The downside is it’s cheaper to just turn on a tap. 

 

Until the water companies start charging properly, it’s just cheaper to use the mains. 

There have been a lot of topics on this on here, and unless it’s something you feel strongly about financially it doesn’t work out. 

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I wonder how cheap you can make it - I can get IBCs at £15 a go so was thinking 4 of these + maybe 100 on connection bits and 560 for a long hose down to a garden tap so about 220 all in excluding my time. 

 

Though thinking about this I wonder if it even makes sense - you need a perfect combination of enough rain to fill your tanks then no rain for a while so you can use your tanks vs the rain doing the watering for you! I wonder how often in a year that works out to be the case. Seems like you'd need a lot of storage capacity for this to work out remotely economically or even practically.

 

 

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Back to the drawing board then! Or maybe the tap ? it was worth an ask/exploration. We will still be putting a channel at the end of the garden running from both sides into a wildlife pond/water collecting area similar to a french drain. when some gadget/idea that will do what we need we could maybe utilise this. Thanks for all the feedback ?

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Do a time series based cost analysis.

Taking Thames water as an example, water and waste currently costs 2.28/m3

Using an inflation rate of 2%, it will take 64 years to get to £8/m3.

I currently pay, down in the South West, a gnats over that at £8.083.

 

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