Have you ever considered rainwater harvesting?

Yes, I know it’s illegal in some places, but the rest of us can put rainwater to good use!

You don’t have to let the rain that falls on your roofs just roll away –  you can harvest it.  You can divert the rain from your roof thru a gutter system and downspout into a rain barrel. You can then use this free water for watering your plants in your garden. Plants naturally love rainwater and this makes a good use in your water management and water conservation plans.

I looked at the specs of a house in Hawaii that has an underground water catchment system in a cistern that holds 30,000 gallons of water.  Very impressive.

I know a fellow that is building a house and building a round turret onto the house to hold rainwater.  Both of these houses are off-grid and will utilize the water for day to day purposes including drinking water.  They’re using ultraviolet light to purify the water for drinking purposes.

Another uses a metal roofed barn to catch the water used in their home.  They have three 9000 gallon polyethylene tanks to hold the water, a 5 micron cartridge filter as well as a Sanitron UV filter.

A rainwater catchment system can be put in place cheaply if you start small.  You could start out with a 55 gallon plastic rain barrel, decide you like the savings of both money and water and grow into a larger system.

These can be added to an existing home very easily and they make an excellent backup system.

Your capacity to collect rainwater will depend upon the size of your roof and the annual rainfall in your area.  You can get a rough estimate of the square footage of your catchment area by using the footprint of your house.  For instance a typical 1000 square foot home in an area that receives 20 inches of rain a year can harvest over 11000 gallons of water annually.

There’s a handy chart you can use to determine the average rainfall for your area at this website:  http://countrystudies.us/united-states/weather/

Underground storage of rainwater is on my list of wants for my dream home, how about you?