Catching Rainwater Can Fullfill All Your Water Needs

The meaning of water catchment

There are several ways to get water for your property. Most people get their water from a city or local municipality. This can be expensive for people developing land. You need to pull permits, dig trenches, tap into existing water lines, then plumb the lines all the way to your house. Once at your house, you need to install shut off valves, and plumb the house. This is costly and in some cases, it’s not even an option. If you plan to live in the county, you’ll need water lines that run out to your area. The next concept is to drill a well. This is a great choice for many, but it can be expensive due to the fact that most states require professional well drillers to come out and drill your well. This can be as cheap as $1,000 for a shallow well, or over $10,000 for a deep well. Just because you have a well drilled doesn’t mean it’s drinkable straight out of the ground. The water source you’re tapping into might have a variety of issues. Contaminants can be present in ground water. Some areas have high levels of iron, salts, minerals, and other things you don’t want in your water. For example, the area I’m looking to buy land in has high levels of naturally occurring radiation (radon) in the water. Radon is a serious issue. It kills 30-1800 people each year due to water contaminated with it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to drink water with radiation in it. Most of the contaminants can be cleaned from the water, but it isn’t as simple as drill a well and drink the water. On top of drilling cost, you’ll need to test your water for these contaminants. So what is the solution? Water catchment!

Water Catchment Can Solve Your Water Needs

Water catchment is a much more simple method than almost any other method. There are two main components to this system. The first is your “harvest” area. I’ll cover options for this further in this article. The second part is your is holding that water for future use. You have many options for this and I’ll cover those in more detail below as well.

Honestly, I spent a lot of time searching for a solution for my water needs and I can’t find almost any method more suitable to living off grid then this. There are very few concerns with the safety of rain water. One of the main issues is bird poop and other animal feces. Whatever method you use to gather your water, there is a good chance birds and rodents are pooping on it. As it rains, that poop will get washed into your holding method. Many birds and rodents carry nasty viruses that will make you sick or in extreme circumstances, kill you. I was tempted to list those for this discussion, but ultimately decided that it posses more of a risk to scare you than the actual health risks. With proper filtration and use of things like UV light, you can mostly guarantee your water is safe to drink. I mention it in passing so you are aware of the risk and make sure you do clean your water before drinking it.

Now onto the fun stuff (at least to me!). It’s amazing how much water you can collect from rain. Based on the USGS rainwater calculator, on a surface of 40’ x 60’ (The size of a large blue trap that you can buy at Home Depot) you can gather 1,496 gallons of water from 1” of rain. To put that in perspective, the average person uses about 12,000 gallons of water per year for all their needs. So that one blue tarp will provide all your annual water needs with just about 8” of rain per year.

Let’s take that to an extreme: Even in desert of Death Valley, one of the hottest and driest places in North America, it gets an average of 2.4” of rain per year. You would only need four tarps to gather more than enough water for one person. If you conserve your water just slightly, you’ll only need 3 tarps. Personally, I want enough water to grow crops and provide enough water for the needs of four people.

Here Are A Few Options For Creating Your Rainwater Catchment Area

Tarps: Most home improvement stores will sell traps at a really cheap price.

Plastic drop cloths: These are cheap, but with that they are also fairly flimsy. You’ll need to replace these a lot as the wind (which usually comes with rain) destroys them, but for a quick way to fill up a holding tank, they could work.

Billboard Vinyl: You can buy these for about $30-$40 each. The are typically 14’ tall and range from 24’-48’. I personally think they are expensive, but if you can find a good supplier for less than eBay sells them for, then go for it!

The Roof of Buildings: Regardless of which other method you use, you should be using ever roof you have to gather water. Your home, shop, garage, barn, greenhouse… anything! You need to provide yourself with cover from rain anyway, so gather that rain!

Rain Catchment Platforms: Some people are building what amounts to a roof without walls to specifically gather rain. I find this silly, but it is an option. If you are going to do this, why not build the platform off the ground seven or eight feet and have a covered area for a nice place to relax out of the sun?

Here Are Two Methods I’m Considering Myself

Creating a soil cement area: I want a lot of water and from my calculations, a 400’ x 400’ area can be build with cement and the soil. Soil cement has been used for decades. I did some research and found out that this method was invented by Benjamin Harrison Flynn to pave roads in Louisiana after WW1 Australia also did this to build many of their more remote roads. I estimate I can build this for about $15,000. It is my second option.

Natural water run-off: This is my first option. As I’ve been seeking solutions for gathering large amounts of water, The soil cement was exciting… until I found out I would cost me $15k. That caused me to rethink my approach. While looking for the land I want to buy, I would look at the parcel from a satellite view. I noticed it’s fairly easy to see where the water run-off is coming from and going to. So I thought, why build a platform if the earth is doing this for me? Easy and free are awesome! I then stumbled on a video of rain run-off in the desert and it confirmed my findings. In fact, the desert is so notorious for creating runoff because of the dry ground. How many times have you heard about the risk of flash floods? My goal is to use this natural process to gather my water. There are some concerns though. Mainly, I need to figure out a way to screen out the dirt/mud/rocks caught up in the water. I have a couple solutions for this. The first is to just dump the water into the holding tank with all that dirt. I can pull that dirt out of my tank at some later point in time. The downside is this will create a lot of ongoing work with no end in sight. Each rain will cause more work. A solution could be to create a temporary holding pond/tank to allow the water to settle and then pump out the water from there.

(add a sketchup design to show this)
https://water.usgs.gov/edu/activity-howmuchrain.html

Okay, so now I have the water, how do I store all of it? I have considered a couple solutions. Here are my thoughts:

Use standard water storage tanks. You have a variety of choices: underground or above ground; metal or plastic. The prices are typically about .60 cents a gallon. A 15,500 verticle above ground tank will cost you about $10,500. That’s a large enough tank for one person’s annual water needs. If you have more than one person on your property, you either need a method to fill that tank more frequently or you’ll need more tanks. Personally, I won’t pay this much for my tank. I think there are better options. Build a pond/pool: I did some calculations and a pool that is 20’ deep, 20’ wide, and 40’ long will hold just under 120,000 gallons of water. That gives me 20% extra volume above my annual needs. I can dig it out of the ground, so that removes a lot of the structural requirements. I plan to seal my pool with either concrete or clay. I’m still on the fence of which is better. Concrete will give me a more defined pool with clean lines. Clay is much cheaper, but won’t have nicely defined boundaries. I’m leaning towards cement. Imagine a swimming pool and you’re on the right path. Natural pools are also tempting. I’ll update this article when I start building and share my findings along the way.

Whatever option you decide to go with, decide what is important to you. For me, having a lot of water is important. If you don’t need as much, then maybe a plastic above ground tank will be more than enough. I’m sure there are a lot of options I haven’t considered. Here is a link to the calculator I used to figure out the volume of water different sizes will hold:

Rain Fall Calculator

State Laws And Water Catchment

Sadly, in America, it’s not an absolute right to collect rainwater in many states. A lot of states claim they own all the water; even the rain. It is one of the main reasons I didn’t buy land in various areas I searched. I’m not going to list all the regulations due to the fact that these policies are changing constantly. You’ll need to verify your own state and the laws governing rainwater collection. Some states, such as Oregon, allow you to harvest rain, but only from your roof. Colorado, is one of the most restrictive states. It allows for up to 110 gallons of rainwater to be collected. I personally find that offensive, but I’m never going to move to Colorado. Utah is almost as silly. They’ll allow you to collect up to 2,500 gallons if you register with them. If you don’t, you can only gather two 100 gallon tanks worth of rainwater. Many states outright make it your legal right. In fact, Alabama actually makes it a private property right! Way to go Alabama! As far as I can tell, Alabama is the only state that makes it a land right.

The states that give you the right to collect rainwater with little to no restrictions include:

Alaska
Arizona
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New York
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Filtering Rainwater To Drink

Rainwater is naturally clean. It’s the planet’s own reverse osmosis system! The contaminants are introduced through pollution in the air and within the rain catchment system. You should clean the area that you plan to use to catch rainwater. Getting rid of animal droppings and plant debris will help maintain a healthy system. From there you have a few choices:

The easiest is to just boil the water. Boiling water will kill most of the bad stuff that will hurt you.

You can filter your rainwater with professional filtration systems. These have a larger upfront expense, but can make it easier for you over time.

You can use more consumer friendly filtration systems. One really well known system is a Berkey Water Filter System. The prices range from $280-$360 depending on how much water you need. Unfortunately, the bureaucracies of Iowa and California prevent this system from being sold in those states. Feel free to call your legislators in those states and give them crap for this. Everyone else gets the right to use A Berkey system if they want. Why shouldn’t you? With that said, the Berkey will clean your rainwater and make it taste great. (I do get a small commission if you order one from my link, but that’s not why I’m promoting it! It’s just a well known system that does a great job.)

Build your own filtration system: It’s not difficult. You’ll need clean sand, activated charcoal, and a few other things.

Summary

A fresh supply of water is critical to the success of any off grid situation. Using rainwater harvesting methods and water filtration, can provide all the water your family needs to survive. I hope this inspires you to consider cheaper land to make the move towards self-sufficiency a more smooth process for you. If you enjoyed this post, please share it. It really does help!

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