mikedilger on Nostr: Update on my rainwater harvesting issues. The guys came today and drained and cleaned ...
Update on my rainwater harvesting issues.
The guys came today and drained and cleaned out my tank, and also installed a diverter (which I'll talk about in a second). The water cartage will arrive in about 4 hours and fill the tank about halfway (it takes ages for me to drain a tank, and a decent rainstorm can fill the tank, so half a tank is plenty). At that point I'll have potable water again. This water flows through two whole-house filtrers, a 20 micron and a 1 micron filter.
I have what is called a "wet" system which means the rainwater goes underground and then back up to dump into the tank. The water level remains at the height of the tank inlet, and that includes in the downpipes from the raingutters, which is about halfway from the ground to the roof. It stays full of water ("wet") all the time. Insects could fly in and create larvae, and the sun hitting white downpipes warms that stagnant water quite a lot, making the situation worse. When it rains, water pours into these pipes from the gutters, as does dust, bits of roof lichen, leaves, pine needles, anything that gets onto the roof. The rain collection is slow enough that organic matter that has gone down the rain gutters just collects in the bottom of these pipes (which run underground) and rots over time. Once the density of that organic matter gets high enough, it becomes like a black-grey stinky sludge... not something anybody would associate with drinking water, and the cause of the recent sewer smell in my drinking water.
So my tank collects water both from my old sleepout and garage, but also from my new house. These are two separate collection pathways. The new house pathway is clean and fine, the new downpipes are solid black (they block sunlight), and there is a diverter at ground level. The old house pathway is stinky and contaminated and had (until today) no diverter.
So they installed a diverter at ground level on the old pathway. After every rain, I am to open it up and let the water come flooding out onto the lawn. The force of water is supposed to flush out most of the organic matter as this happens. My new system for the new house has one of these, but the old system never did and I didn't even know it was supposed to (it was like that when I bought the property).
I'm also going to divert the gutter that is closest to the trees into a drainage ditch and no longer collect water from it, because that gutter gets leaf matter a lot faster than the other ones do.
The guys came today and drained and cleaned out my tank, and also installed a diverter (which I'll talk about in a second). The water cartage will arrive in about 4 hours and fill the tank about halfway (it takes ages for me to drain a tank, and a decent rainstorm can fill the tank, so half a tank is plenty). At that point I'll have potable water again. This water flows through two whole-house filtrers, a 20 micron and a 1 micron filter.
I have what is called a "wet" system which means the rainwater goes underground and then back up to dump into the tank. The water level remains at the height of the tank inlet, and that includes in the downpipes from the raingutters, which is about halfway from the ground to the roof. It stays full of water ("wet") all the time. Insects could fly in and create larvae, and the sun hitting white downpipes warms that stagnant water quite a lot, making the situation worse. When it rains, water pours into these pipes from the gutters, as does dust, bits of roof lichen, leaves, pine needles, anything that gets onto the roof. The rain collection is slow enough that organic matter that has gone down the rain gutters just collects in the bottom of these pipes (which run underground) and rots over time. Once the density of that organic matter gets high enough, it becomes like a black-grey stinky sludge... not something anybody would associate with drinking water, and the cause of the recent sewer smell in my drinking water.
So my tank collects water both from my old sleepout and garage, but also from my new house. These are two separate collection pathways. The new house pathway is clean and fine, the new downpipes are solid black (they block sunlight), and there is a diverter at ground level. The old house pathway is stinky and contaminated and had (until today) no diverter.
So they installed a diverter at ground level on the old pathway. After every rain, I am to open it up and let the water come flooding out onto the lawn. The force of water is supposed to flush out most of the organic matter as this happens. My new system for the new house has one of these, but the old system never did and I didn't even know it was supposed to (it was like that when I bought the property).
I'm also going to divert the gutter that is closest to the trees into a drainage ditch and no longer collect water from it, because that gutter gets leaf matter a lot faster than the other ones do.