Rainwater Harvesting or the Harvesting of Rainwater for my garden was a concept that I’d thought about for sometime before I actually went ahead and purchased my first rainwater tank. Looking back now though, I suppose I’m just like most people and didn’t really go ahead with it until I really had to…..
It was the spring of 2006 and we’d just come through another dry winter where I live in Melbourne, Australia. Despite this though, we weren’t under any water restrictions so I decided to go ahead and do something that I’d wanted to do for a very long time which was plant a new lawn in my backyard. I’d been holding off for the previous few years as we’d been in drought since 1997. So I went ahead and purchased some turf and before I knew it I had a new lawn installed complete which a sprinkler system and all the water I needed courtesy of my garden tap.
Now all I had to do was turn on the tap, sit back, relax and just watch the grass grow. How sweet was that? Unfortunately for me about one week after my new lawn was installed my plans came to a very quick and sudden halt. The state government decided to bring in water restrictions. This now meant that I could no longer use my garden tap to water my new lawn. I’d just spent several hundred dollars on turf and a sprinkler system and had no water to keep it alive. Without water and summer quickly approaching my lawn wasn’t going to survive for very long. I had to get some water from somewhere.
As it turned out though, I did find an alternative, the washing machine. This used several hundred litres of water per week and all I had to do was direct this water to my lawn and I was in business. The only problem was that the washing machine was quite some distance from the lawn so the only option at the time was to direct it into some buckets and then just tip it onto the lawn.
This in fact worked for a little while but it wasn’t long before it became quite a chore. I was going to have to find a better way than carrying buckets of water to keep my lawn alive. The answer was obvious, I had to install a rainwater tank, then I’d have all the water I’d need. In the meantime though my lawn was slowly dying. I didn’t have any time to waste so about one week later I was the proud owner of 4,500 litre (1,190 USGal) rainwater tank. I placed it in my backyard, connected it to the nearest downpipe (downspout) and then sat back and waited for it to rain.
My 4,500 litre Rainwater Tank
Luckily for me though I didn’t have to wait for very long. A few days later we got quite a nice shower of rain. I rained so hard that I could hear the water pouring into my new rainwater tank. I was now happy, it was raining, my tank was filling and my lawn would now be saved.
Little did I know, but after it stopped raining I was to be in for a rude shock. My 4,500 litre rainwater tank only had about 200 or 300 litres of water in it. The way my lawn was crying out for water, the water I’d just harvested wasn’t even going to last a week.
We had to get more rain.
Unfortunately though the rain I needed didn’t come and my lawn eventually died. This of course was a tragedy for me at the time.
I’d just planted a lawn that died, installed a sprinkler system I couldn’t use and purchased a rainwater tank that didn’t have any water in it.
It’s amazing though, how out of adversity most good things come. Something then became very apparent to me which turned out to be my first lesson in Rainwater Harvesting.
If you’ve got a rainwater tank you really do need to connect it to more than just one downpipe.
This then set me on a path of connecting as much of my roof to my rainwater tank as possible. Initially though this was easier said than done. Firstly I really didn’t want to have to set up a series of pipes around the outside of my house to direct the rainwater from each downpipe to the rainwater tank inlet. Secondly it had to conform to standards so that in the event of heavy rainfall my gutters and downpipes wouldn’t overflow because of a large volume of water being directed to just one inlet.
Eventually though I was able to satisfy my requirements and as a consequence I was able to connect just over 60% of my roof area to my rainwater tank.
This made a huge difference to the amount of rainwater that I could harvest. Initially when I first installed my rainwater tank it look about 110mm (4.3 inches) of rain to fill it. Now after I’d made my modifications it takes just 30mm (1.2 inches) of rain to fill it. This means with my annual rainfall of about 300mm I can now fill my rainwater tank 10 times throughout the year with rainwater whereas before I could only fill it less than 3 times.
Originally I could only Harvest enough Rainwater to fill my Rainwater Tank less than 3 times per year.
Now I can Harvest enough Rainwater to fill my Rainwater Tank 10 times per year.
The most amazing part of my story is the fact that what I was able to do was so simple and inexpensive to implement that most Handy Men can do it easily.
I now wish I knew at the beginning what I know now as it would have saved me a lot of time and money. The big bonus for me, is I can now fill my Rainwater Tank a lot quicker when it rains and Harvest MORE Rainwater for all the things I need it for.
To find out more about Rainwater Harvesting just click on the link.
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