Rain Water

Brett · Post by **Brett** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:21 pm

Hi

I live in ireland in a very rural part of the country, Im considering using rainwater instead of tapwater as I dont trust the tap water in our area as it comes from a local water scheme (although im running a UV). I have heard that collecting rain water in areas where pollution are low is ok, so I would be ok. How would I go about setting up a collection system, my thoughts were connecting a water butt to the down pipe system comming from the roof (its all new and clean both roof and system) maybe setting up a foam or carbon or both (not to sure how to work this out yet) at the point of entry from the piping to the water but to act as a filter and carbon to remove any bad stuff. Then I was thinking of putting a Pump inside the water collection unit to circulate the water to stop it going stagnant.

Any ideas or veiws would be appreciated,

Post by **John** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:05 pm

What material is your roof and pipes made off?

hullfishman · Post by **hullfishman** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 4:39 pm

if i was going to collect rain water i wold let it rain for an hour or so before i started to collect it to make sure any pollutants from the atmosphere had rained out first. make sure the container you use to hold the water is of food grade as some plastics leach chemicals into the water, i think it is coloured plastics that can cause problems
regards
dave

Post by **John** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 7:30 pm

hullfishman wrote:i wold let it rain for an hour or so before i started to collect it to make sure any pollutants from the atmosphere had rained out first

Brett · Post by **Brett** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 10:54 pm

Im not sure what material the roof is (some kind of tile/slate) the drain pipe is white plastic, I havnt purchased any container for it yet, but have the extra pumps and stuff, I was considering keeping the Water container in my shed which is a 1-1.5 meters from the drain pipe, so I could posibly put a heater inside. I had a simular method in the Uk I used with my RO storage unit, I would only need to work out a method of excess drainage when it fills up. It rains alot over here so wont have a problem with not getting any water that way. The atmosphere is great in the west of Ireland and very little or no pollutants in not near any big towns or citys the onlt thing around is fields and cows (methane gases). I cant use a Ro here as we are on a meter and its very expensive.

The only other idea I had is there are some local springs near by I was going to run along to them and try out some samples and see the quality of them.