Rainwater Barrels

Living 'off grid' without mains water (and sadly not enough cash to get a well dug just yet), means rainwater harvesting is a way of life. Rainwater Barrels seem to be taking over my life and my plot, at the moment. And, as you can see from the picture my rain water barrels are certainly not improving the look of things around here!

At the last count there were seven big blue rainbarrels (each with 240 litre capacity), one water storage cube (1000 litres), two fiberglass water tanks (each with a capacity of 3000 litres) plus one underground water cistern constructed when the house was built 100 or so years ago, which holds around 7000 litres.

All those rainwater collection methods and do you know what we are just about to run out of water! It only goes to show that you really never can have too many rainwater barrels.

I come from a city background, happily using (and wasting) as much water as I liked. Oh sure, I had the obligatory single rainwater barrel (but we called it a 'water butt') collecting water from the shed roof. I thought that was pretty 'green' and it meant I didn't need to worry about installing an outside tap in the back yard as I had a barrel of water available whenever needed.

In hindsight of course, this really was pitiful. It could never offset the endless flushing of a toilet cistern with chlorinated, purified, treated, pumped and expensive potable water. The long showers, even longer baths and Sunday car washing. No, that is an exaggeration I never was very good at keeping the car clean even when water was always on tap.

Moving to a land of endless hot summers and no mains water has given me a whole new perspective on water use and more importantly the common sense in collecting as much free rainwater as we can.

Last year we ran out of water after the summer. We had a delivery of 7000 litres at the end of August. Now that probably wouldn't last a week in the average American home. But here, topped up with all our harvested rainwater we have survived for over ten months without having any more delivered. This week, it looks like our supplies are about to run dry, but with storms forecast for the weekend hopefully we will get by a little longer.

I find it remarkable that not more people harvest rainwater. It is free.  No matter how cheap your mains supply of water is for your pocket, it is always wasteful to the environment to be flushing it all down the toilet.

I know most people would not need or want to shower, wash clothes or do the dishes with rainwater, and even I don't drink the stuff (well not until its been filtered through the surrounding limestone mountains and I've collected it from a local spring). But everyone can use collected rainwater to irrigate the garden at least. I don't even think its too much to ask, to plumb your toilet to a rainwater barrel too. The downstairs wc wouldn't be that much of a nightmare to switch away from treated mains water would it?

I know, you're thinking I just don't use any water, that's how I manage to survive on rainwater. Well no, I use plenty of the stuff. We are virtually self sufficient in vegetables so they use nearly as much water as everything else put together. Admittedly I recycle greywater from the washing machine to water garden plants, but that doesn't save a great deal really.

The key to surviving on rainwater alone is having enough methods of collecting it when available. Every roof needs some form of water barrel or cistern. And any rainbarrel should be sited so that you can add another to it in the future. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is when all our rainbarrels and cisterns are full but it continues to rain - such a waste!

Of course if I was suddenly given a mains water collection it would make me extremely happy, and no doubt my summer showers would be longer. But, I wouldn't stop collecting as much rain as possible. It's great to see plants thriving on rainwater that is completely free and if you collect enough in the winter you can beat the hosepipe bans and still keep things green and lush no matter how hot it gets.

You don't have to be out in the sticks to benefit from harvesting rainwater.  Everyone should do it.  It is an easy way to reduce waste and keep our reservoirs a little bit fuller for all of us. Rainwater barrels can be as cheap as mine or as pretty as those from Amazon - they all do the same thing.