Water harvesting off roof catchments.
The water harvesting from the Holzmiete roof catchment has finally been been completed. All the guttering was installed and connected to the 900ltr tank. The 30 square meter catchment will be adequate to fill the tank in a fairly short period in a good rain event. The tank is a basic source for hand wash and so I don't expect it to drain empty very often.
With this I have extended the overflow pipe to act as a top up source into the main house water tank. The roof of the house and the shed feed into this tank and with the past season it has rarely come close to filling.
With volunteers coming to site regularly now, there is considerably more used than usual. Every little bit counts though and every attempt must be made to capture and store this resource as it is not always guaranteed.
This increase in water consumption has highlighted that people coming onto the farm need to be further trained in their habits toward water use. As most people coming to help are city folk, and it is really evident that they are so used to water being a resource that is on tap 24/7.
The hand wash sink was also plumbed in and drain pipe was fitted and laid into the same trench as the overflow pipe. The drain pipe has been strategically placed to feed under gravity pressure into a small native garden near the main hose tank.
With this I have extended the overflow pipe to act as a top up source into the main house water tank. The roof of the house and the shed feed into this tank and with the past season it has rarely come close to filling.
With volunteers coming to site regularly now, there is considerably more used than usual. Every little bit counts though and every attempt must be made to capture and store this resource as it is not always guaranteed.
This increase in water consumption has highlighted that people coming onto the farm need to be further trained in their habits toward water use. As most people coming to help are city folk, and it is really evident that they are so used to water being a resource that is on tap 24/7.
The hand wash sink was also plumbed in and drain pipe was fitted and laid into the same trench as the overflow pipe. The drain pipe has been strategically placed to feed under gravity pressure into a small native garden near the main hose tank.
This eight thousand litres water storage system was implemented when we started to build the kitchen garden. As there was not yet a regular water source for the garden I had to implement a system that we could use to gravity feed the garden from. The plan was to initially fill tanks with the fire fighter pump on the back of the truck and then pump out into tanks in the garden area. We positioned 8 x1000ltr IBC's behind the car port to act as a wind break as the car port was destined to become an outdoor kitchen. We levelled up the ground and lay down some 8x3 sleepers as a platform for the tanks. All the tank outlet face the garden for access to garden watering. The tanks were levelled with adequate room for the carport roof to be diverted into the first tank with enough fall for water to run.
The IBC's have a lid on top and I noticed that red lids have the same hole size as the pipe I was intending to use to connect them all together. The hole size was 50mm and a really nice fit prior to sealing with silicon. Plumbing material were sourced and measured with 90deg fittings entering the top of the tank. Camlock fittings were sourced to make the tank outlet connectable to the fire fighter pump hoses for alternative filling or draining.
The tanks were then covered in roofing iron as protection for the tanks from the sun as the IBC's can get brittle when exposed for long periods.
The IBC's have a lid on top and I noticed that red lids have the same hole size as the pipe I was intending to use to connect them all together. The hole size was 50mm and a really nice fit prior to sealing with silicon. Plumbing material were sourced and measured with 90deg fittings entering the top of the tank. Camlock fittings were sourced to make the tank outlet connectable to the fire fighter pump hoses for alternative filling or draining.
The tanks were then covered in roofing iron as protection for the tanks from the sun as the IBC's can get brittle when exposed for long periods.
