Water catchment systems

The guck in the barrel won't affect anything unless you want to drink that water.

Just drill a hole on the side neat the top and put a nipple on it, attach a hose and run it away from the Fondation.

If you're collecting more than the barrel holds you need another barrel. Just keep adding barrels until you can't fill them all. Equilibrium!
 
I'm looking to use it for gardening and emergency water to drink. I have a few life straws here which supposedly filter a shitload of gallons of water. Just trying to get it as clean as possible


The guck in the barrel won't affect anything unless you want to drink that water.

Just drill a hole on the side neat the top and put a nipple on it, attach a hose and run it away from the Fondation.

If you're collecting more than the barrel holds you need another barrel. Just keep adding barrels until you can't fill them all. Equilibrium!
 
I filter our rain water thru a kaydin and or berkey filter and also have a distiller that makes distilled water as well as other comsumable amber colored nector of the gods.

Keep in mind not all state governments take kindly to folks stealin what they consider to be their water.
Colorado, Oregon and washington come to mind but im sure there are others that have that same draconian view.

You better filter it really well before drinking it.
You don't want anyone getting dysentery during an emergency
 
I filter our rain water thru a kaydin and or berkey filter and also have a distiller that makes distilled water as well as other comsumable amber colored nector of the gods.

Keep in mind not all state governments take kindly to folks stealin what they consider to be their water.
Colorado, Oregon and washington come to mind but im sure there are others that have that same draconian view.

No one will know, it's in the back of my house and i'm at the end of the street surrounded by 120 acres of wildlife.
 
I went out to check on it and it was already full again. G'damnit. If I didn't catch it I would have had water in the basement again. I really need to figure out how to attach an overflow hose or something. There is only the hole that collects water from the down spout and one whole for the bung plug. Suggestions?



Hope you got this sorted out. It's raining cats and dogs out there!
 
I went out to check on it and it was already full again. G'damnit. If I didn't catch it I would have had water in the basement again. I really need to figure out how to attach an overflow hose or something. There is only the hole that collects water from the down spout and one whole for the bung plug. Suggestions?

go to home depot and buy a 10' piece of pvc pipe and 2 90 degree elbows. (I used 1" but you might want bigger if you get a lot of flow).
Step 1. Drill a hole the size of your PVC pipe's outer diameter in the side of your barrel, near the top.
Step 2 Cut your pipe into 3 sections - A. about 6" B. the length of the hole you made in step 1 to about 6" off the ground and C. the remaining pipe
Step 3. Put the the elbows of both ends of pipe B, then put pipe A onto one end.
Step 4. Put pipe A into the hole you made in step 1.
Step 5. put pipe C into the other elbow (now 6" off the ground) and turn it so that it directs the overflow water away from your house.

This also works if you want to add another barrel, just move the elbows to the last one in your array and put a piece of straight pipe between the two.
 
I have the flex d ownspout when its full i detache it face it away from the house... also where the barrels are is no basement .. That's on the other side of the house. Design has some major flaws with the barrel but i got them for cheap and i make it work
 
I have the flex d ownspout when its full i detache it face it away from the house... also where the barrels are is no basement .. That's on the other side of the house. Design has some major flaws with the barrel but i got them for cheap and i make it work

If you ran another flexible downspout section from a hole near the top of your barrel it would just overflow on its own and save you the trouble. You could also direct the water wherever you want, like to a secondary barrel, tertiary barrel, quaternary barrel, etc.
 
AFAIK, there are no restrictions in Mass WRT getting rain water into barrels - out west, well, water rules are different.

As for the caveats WRT human consumption - remember, bears may sh!t in the woods, but birds sh!t on your roof. And, while guano may be "all natural", that does not mean it's good to eat. Like whole wheat bread. [laugh]
 
Sorry to bring back an old thread - but if people are capturing water, it's also good to remember there is a lot of water under the ground.

I've had a water problem in my basement since I moved into the house 17 years ago. The lot is sloped - so I figured if I could drain it away somehow I would solve the problem. I've worked on running drain pipes along the footer of my foundation , and I also put in drain pipes along the footer of my barn after the foundation was poured. The plan was to have them all run to the lowest part of the lot (one back corner) and drain to grade. Well somewhere along the line I screwed up - and the end of the pipe ended up being about 4 inches below grade.

The soil is very moist and almost has standing water there in the spring time - so I figured that was no good. The solution I decided on was to build a drywell/cistern to drain the water into - and from there I figured I could pump if needed. I looked around at different methods of building a "tank" - and the cheapest method I came up with was to build a square "tank" using cement blocks - fill in the voids with concrete and reinforce the whole thing with rebar - and then coat it with this stuff from Quikrete called Quick Wall

https://www.quikrete.com/productlines/quikwallsurfacebondingcement.asp

The sides of the bag actually say it can be used for building water tanks.

I ended up with a "tank" that will hold about 750 gallons - and is buried underground. It goes down about 10 feet once I was done (the grade was actually brought up as well as the tank being buried).

When we had the massive snows 2 winters ago - I dropped a pump down into the tank once the snow started melting. I lost count but I must have pumped that thing out at least 12 times - from completely full to only 6 inches or so left in the bottom. And as I was pumping it would be filling right back up again.

Point is - literally thousands of gallons of water passed thru that thing.

If you had a way of storing it - I bet there are a lot of places in New England where literally thousands of gallons of water could be captured underground with strategically placed drain piping.
 
Sorry to bring back an old thread - but if people are capturing water, it's also good to remember there is a lot of water under the ground.

I've had a water problem in my basement since I moved into the house 17 years ago. The lot is sloped - so I figured if I could drain it away somehow I would solve the problem. I've worked on running drain pipes along the footer of my foundation , and I also put in drain pipes along the footer of my barn after the foundation was poured. The plan was to have them all run to the lowest part of the lot (one back corner) and drain to grade. Well somewhere along the line I screwed up - and the end of the pipe ended up being about 4 inches below grade.

The soil is very moist and almost has standing water there in the spring time - so I figured that was no good. The solution I decided on was to build a drywell/cistern to drain the water into - and from there I figured I could pump if needed. I looked around at different methods of building a "tank" - and the cheapest method I came up with was to build a square "tank" using cement blocks - fill in the voids with concrete and reinforce the whole thing with rebar - and then coat it with this stuff from Quikrete called Quick Wall

https://www.quikrete.com/productlines/quikwallsurfacebondingcement.asp

The sides of the bag actually say it can be used for building water tanks.

I ended up with a "tank" that will hold about 750 gallons - and is buried underground. It goes down about 10 feet once I was done (the grade was actually brought up as well as the tank being buried).

When we had the massive snows 2 winters ago - I dropped a pump down into the tank once the snow started melting. I lost count but I must have pumped that thing out at least 12 times - from completely full to only 6 inches or so left in the bottom. And as I was pumping it would be filling right back up again.

Point is - literally thousands of gallons of water passed thru that thing.

If you had a way of storing it - I bet there are a lot of places in New England where literally thousands of gallons of water could be captured underground with strategically placed drain piping.
Two points come to mind...

One, have you considered a water level switch and more or less permanently installed pump? And you do, a flow meter might be interesting data.

Two, large tanks with questionable heritage are around. A decommissioned propane torpedo shouldn't run much or even a new heating oil tank. Perhaps not certified for drinking water but you can filter or use for non potable purposes (flushing, maybe showers). Of course if you have city water they might get annoyed.

Sent from my chimney using smoke signals
 
Two points come to mind...

One, have you considered a water level switch and more or less permanently installed pump? And you do, a flow meter might be interesting data.

Two, large tanks with questionable heritage are around. A decommissioned propane torpedo shouldn't run much or even a new heating oil tank. Perhaps not certified for drinking water but you can filter or use for non potable purposes (flushing, maybe showers). Of course if you have city water they might get annoyed.

Sent from my chimney using smoke signals

Actually - yes I did consider the switch with a permanently installed pump thing. There is a piece of 4" pipe going down into the tank and I was going to run a well pump down into it.

I'm pretty familiar with the way the water level goes on my property after watching it for about 15 years. At the height of the summer the water level is probably about 6ft or more below ground (depends on where I look - the lot is sloped). In the spring, or late fall when it's wet and doesn't get very hot out - the water level at the lowest part of the lot can be darn close to ground level. The water level is also not "level" - it actually follows the grade somewhat. The best example I can think of is to compare it to a sponge - if you saturate a sponge with water and put it on a grade - the water will slowly filter out of it (unless there's something downstream holding it back) - but it will retain the water. The water does not immediately go "level".

The ground is the same way - but - if you put in piping underground the water will flow to that piping and drain away to wherever you direct the piping.

I only mention this because I don't think a lot of people realize that there is potentially a way to retrieve a significant amount of water from the ground without drilling a well. As far as roof runoff goes - the rain barrel idea is a good one and it's cheap and quick to setup, but water that has been run thru the ground is at least a little bit filtered out. Helps to keep the bird crap out of it.

Another thing I found out is - if the lower part of a tank goes deep enough below ground that it's significantly below the frost line - the heat coming up from the ground will keep the whole thing from freezing. It was cold that winter - I inspected the tank a number of times while there was still significant snow on the ground - it was full of water - and the heat coming up from the tank was actually warming the ground around it and keeping the water from freezing.

If water storage wasn't so damn expensive I would bury a few thousand gallons worth of tanks and save the water to sprinkle the lawn during the warm season. Municipal water is pretty cheap though - so it's hard to justify the cost of significant water storage around here.
 
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For all my Survival buddies out there; I'm a New Englander that did live out in the SW for awhile. Water is a huge issue out there and became a specialty topic of mine.

For your approval a water treatment system to be used with any water catchment system. It is worth investing in for the long haul, never know when one might need it.

Good build series, easy construct, worth following and has life saving applications in austere scenarios!

Eyes down range people,
JG1777



And a DIY catchment system video as well!

 
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I recentely purchased a ICE tote 250-1000 LT . which is a good amount of water for my ducks , chickens goat and yard. I might end up expanding it with another one in a year or so depending how this summer goes.
 
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