Design considerations for rainwater collection

[Maast]

I've finally gotten serious about collecting and storing rainwater and I've bumped into something that I thought I'd share;

Because I have all the rainwater going through a sand filter before going into the storage tanks it turns out I need surge tanks at the six individual downspouts to hold and slowly release the water through the filter and into my collection tanks (a series of 330 gallon IBC totes).

Initially I had everything going into a 60 gallon surge tank just before the filter but it became real obvious real quick that one good downpour and it would be totally overloaded and waste water down the slope. Having 50 gallon collection tanks at the downspouts also lets the roof grit and other chunky bits settle out before being filtered. I've got micromesh gutter guards and 5 gallon "first flush" devices installed but there's still a lot of chunky water that gets through.

The final advantage is that it lets me use 3/4" 160PSI irrigation polyethylene piping to route the water around the house and to under the deck, a HECK of a lot cheaper, and easier to deal with than gluing together rigid PVC or ABS piping.

Since I can hide the piping in shallow trenches and route it around difficult spots or in hidden areas it also looks a million percent better too. When you look at the house you dont see pipes going everywhere, all you see is rain barrels, and even those dont look like barrels - they look like planters.

Thought this might help somebody else out who's looking to rainwater collection.

[Stercutus]

pictures would be nice, maybe a diagram?

[Delsaw]

Love to see some pictures as well. Moved into our new house and still need to get a rain barrel or two. nothing like you, thanks to living in the burbs and HOA. Though I would like to do some filtering before the water gets in the barrel. Thanks for the post and reminder to add this to my ever growing to-do list.

Matt

[phil_in_cs]

backgrounder on slow sand filters from the CDC http://www.cdc.gov/safewater/sand-filtration.html

Edit to add similar from WHO http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_hea ... ns/ssf/en/

[Halfapint]

backgrounder on slow sand filters from the CDC http://www.cdc.gov/safewater/sand-filtration.html

Edit to add similar from WHO http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_hea ... ns/ssf/en/

That is some fantastic reading. I just printed that off and will add it to my folder on water treatment. Also Moab I would love to see a picture of your setup. I'm really looking at getting the acreage here in the next couple years, and top priority is getting a good rain water collection set up.

[Maast]

Right now everything is torn up while I'm installing the system, I'll post a few pics when it doesnt look like a collection of random junk thrown together.