Here is my latest installment of my new toy, our rain water catchment system.
Late last week, I scrambled to get the line from the supply pipe connected to the water tank, because there was a good, wet storm forecasted to hit our area. What did we get out of it, or better asked, how much roof runoff water did we collect? From this one storm, we got over two hundred gallons. The tank was nearly half full.
Here is a picture of it after a milder rainstorm came through a couple of days before.
![water_tank-3]()
The brackish appearance of the water is a result of two things. One, the inside of the tank is a bit dark, a bit green due to the color of the material. Second, there was a lot of pollen that the rain washed off of everything during that rain spell, and it collected in the tank, and especially on the sides of the tank. But if you look closely, you can actually see the bottom of the tank, which the white hose is resting on.
On Saturday night, the majority of the precipitation occurred, and I, with all the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning, was going outside to see how things were going with the system. At first, the pump was doing a very good job, running smoothly and quietly, and at the other end, water was gushing forth into the tank as expected. After a little while, upon a subsequent inspection, I noticed that the water was just trickling out of the hose, despite the pump running as usual.
Thinking that the inlet to the pump was getting clogged by leaves and debris, I opened the manhole cover of the cistern and saw that the water level was nearly at the top of the small tank, and the pump was working away. I rolled up my sleeves, unplugged the pump, got down on my knees, and tried to reach into that black water to see if I could unclog the inlet. But the water was too deep and I couldn't reach all the way down.
What I tried next was at the other end of the line. The hose is connected to the supply pipe near the tank via a brass hose bib, the standard kind that you use to attach a garden hose to and with which you can turn the water on or off. I turned the valve nearly all the way off then all the way on, then backed off just a bit, again, hoping that if there was something stuck at this end, the movement of the valve action would break it free. Immediately after trying this, I could hear the water flow increase, gushing into the tank. Checking it visually, I confirmed that the water was flowing back at its normal level, as only a half horsepower pump can do.
But again, a few minutes later, the flow reduced to an even smaller trickle. So again, I worked the handle of the hose bib and again, the flow rate was restored. If were to rain all night, I couldn't conceivably stand there, babysitting the constriction that is the hose bib. In order to prevent this from happening until I could fix it properly, I removed the hose bib and decided that any water the pump would send for the rest of the night would be spewed out onto the walk and the lawn. This seemed to have done the trick. The cistern drained and the water flow continued to remain at nominal levels.
By the time I figured out the problem and instituted the emergency workaround, the storm was breaking up and the rain had stopped. The next morning, I was the proud owner of nearly 250 gallons of reclaimed rain water. Now to figure out how to permanently hook the tank up to the supply...
Late last week, I scrambled to get the line from the supply pipe connected to the water tank, because there was a good, wet storm forecasted to hit our area. What did we get out of it, or better asked, how much roof runoff water did we collect? From this one storm, we got over two hundred gallons. The tank was nearly half full.
Here is a picture of it after a milder rainstorm came through a couple of days before.
The brackish appearance of the water is a result of two things. One, the inside of the tank is a bit dark, a bit green due to the color of the material. Second, there was a lot of pollen that the rain washed off of everything during that rain spell, and it collected in the tank, and especially on the sides of the tank. But if you look closely, you can actually see the bottom of the tank, which the white hose is resting on.
On Saturday night, the majority of the precipitation occurred, and I, with all the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning, was going outside to see how things were going with the system. At first, the pump was doing a very good job, running smoothly and quietly, and at the other end, water was gushing forth into the tank as expected. After a little while, upon a subsequent inspection, I noticed that the water was just trickling out of the hose, despite the pump running as usual.
Thinking that the inlet to the pump was getting clogged by leaves and debris, I opened the manhole cover of the cistern and saw that the water level was nearly at the top of the small tank, and the pump was working away. I rolled up my sleeves, unplugged the pump, got down on my knees, and tried to reach into that black water to see if I could unclog the inlet. But the water was too deep and I couldn't reach all the way down.
What I tried next was at the other end of the line. The hose is connected to the supply pipe near the tank via a brass hose bib, the standard kind that you use to attach a garden hose to and with which you can turn the water on or off. I turned the valve nearly all the way off then all the way on, then backed off just a bit, again, hoping that if there was something stuck at this end, the movement of the valve action would break it free. Immediately after trying this, I could hear the water flow increase, gushing into the tank. Checking it visually, I confirmed that the water was flowing back at its normal level, as only a half horsepower pump can do.
But again, a few minutes later, the flow reduced to an even smaller trickle. So again, I worked the handle of the hose bib and again, the flow rate was restored. If were to rain all night, I couldn't conceivably stand there, babysitting the constriction that is the hose bib. In order to prevent this from happening until I could fix it properly, I removed the hose bib and decided that any water the pump would send for the rest of the night would be spewed out onto the walk and the lawn. This seemed to have done the trick. The cistern drained and the water flow continued to remain at nominal levels.
By the time I figured out the problem and instituted the emergency workaround, the storm was breaking up and the rain had stopped. The next morning, I was the proud owner of nearly 250 gallons of reclaimed rain water. Now to figure out how to permanently hook the tank up to the supply...