Harvesting Water

By peterm, 8 March, 2018
Upper Water Tank

As part of the exterior remodeling, we added 2 tanks to the house to capture water for yard use. We get our water from the stockholders membership, but we’re on wells that can run low during drought.

Our approach was to drop in a flat 2000 gal tank under the deck as the primary source. We fill this tank with the downspouts from about 1/4 of our roof. It only takes 1-2 rains to fill this tank up.

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At the top of the hill, we have a galvanized steel tank that stores 800 gals and provide a gravity feed to a hose bib and the greenhouse.

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We pump uphill from the large tank to the small as the level in the upper tanks drops. We have a pump that kicks on, pushing water uphill until the upper tank ball cock triggers a shut off.

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We trenched our downhill fire road and drop the water down about 300 feet to a perforated section that drains the water out slowly.

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