Rainwater Harvesting - solutions from RainWater Harvesting Ltd

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Dave and Helen said:

safely filled away

Is it with my car V50, can't find it anywhere, or the book with the radio code in it.

[Blooda]

We have a system from the above company, and use it for Toilets and Washing Machine.  We have attenuation built in as we are discharging surface water from the roofs to a combined sewer and we had a limit of 2 l/s to achieve from the water board.   So the driver to us was getting compact attenuation system.  

 

Water is too cheap so there is probably never a payback time.  

 

 

[Thorfun]

17 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Some  interesting points, generating my fairly random thoughts.

 

Why would the water be 'stale'? It flows in and out, and although it will stratify a bit, it is not static. In any heavy rain, the flow will be considerable and mix all the water.

Then it goes into flush toilets and a bit of staleness isn't an issue  Does stale mean low in oxygen?

 

Inside the harvester tank is cold and totally dark, so no organisms should flourish there.

maybe stale wasn't the right word. i've gone through previous emails and it was said that the dirtiest water is at the top of the tank so it's good to overflow that.

 

it might be sales BS, who knows?

 

17 hours ago, saveasteading said:

( I got our worst bricklayer to build the bulkhead, so it had lots of little leaks.)

😂

[mike2016]

I'm hoping to build this year and a rainwater harvesting tank is in the plans but I'm not fully convinced I'll go ahead with it. A proper tank and pump would need to be installed just as the groundworks gets started as the build will block access to the rear of the site after it commences so I have to decide really up front. I could plan to add one to the front garden at a later date but my house is two storey at the front vs single storey at the back so the best roof area is at the rear but it's still an option. 

I like the shallow tanks but if there's any flooding they could move about. A nice deep concrete tank is better in my opinion for housing water and in laws......

The pump is the weak link, they can be expensive, I'm not a fan of water tanks over my head but if you have pressurized pipes everywhere a leak anywhere is going to be bad no matter what you do! 

I was thinking of a hydraulic ram pump but that runs continuously so you'd need a gravity tank, overflow (which runs continuously) and a cutoff above that again to avoid flooding the house. The missus will love the constant sound of running water, if it can be made to go that high? 

Maybe the loft tank should be filled once per day via a timed switch on the pump with a cutout for low supply water? Just size the tank for x flushes and washes and have a low water alert for the gravity tank? minimize the cycles anyway. 

The tank itself - you can get all the gubbins off a dedicated seller. Someone a few years ago here suggested a concrete ring on a pad that you tank yourself and would cost a LOT less than a precast dedicated model. 

In a way you're diversifying your water source like you do with mains electricity & solar PV. Both are excellent methods to reduce dependency and you can always upgrade filters to go off grid down the road but that's a different topic. 

Rain here in Ireland rarely stops, there's only been the odd dry spell lasting 7-8 weeks so unlike PV in the Winter, it's more available all year around. Will water become scarcer due to supply issues / more demand / periods of drought in places like SE England, probably. 

I can always plumb my new house for rainwater by adding an additional manifold and running mains to it for now. This would feed all the W.C's and Washing machine. I would have a line run out to the garden I could tap into and align the drainage accordingly. Then it's just a mater of dropping a few shallow plastic tanks I can carry through the wide passage, dig a hole with a mini digger and plumb it in and add electrics for the pump, not a big job at all. I'd keep the options of mains into the rainwater manifold with a double check valve to ensure no back leakage into the mains water supply / manifolds then. Can flush it out then for holidays / get some chlorine through it to keep smells at bay. 

[saveasteading]

23 minutes ago, mike2016 said:

if there's any flooding they could move about

Not if tied down to a concrete base and properly backfilled. From discussions with a digger driver* it is clear thst most builders do not follow any instructions...so establish the design and manage it yourself.

 

*He dug the hole, put in our stone base, hoisted the digester tank, and backfilled. Later did the soakaway. He had done many tanks, mostly digesters.  We have no water table.

He said he had never seen anyone use a level for height or horizontal, used a concrete base, or used more than a rubble soakawsy. Scary.