A Look at the Rainwater Catchment System

We began considering a rainwater catchment system after watching a few green design videos and doing some research. You can see in the Links and Products area in the right margin that there is a link to BRAE Rainwater Catchment systems. You can click on that link to learn more about their systems and services, but here I'll post a brief overview of the system and the process we've encountered so far.

The system itself is a simple concept that has been around for hundreds of years. We collect rainwater and use it. (Sounds pretty simple, so why all the fuss?) Well, people in the US - especially in more populated areas - aren't accustomed to using these types of systems because municipal water supplies are well-established and commonplace. Our municipal water supplies here in the Midwest and eastern US are plentiful at present time. However, in other parts of the US and in other countries, fresh drinking water is scarce and comes at a premium. It's just good practice to begin conserving water and using common sense approaches to water use. To us, it makes absolutely NO SENSE to use chemically-treated drinking water to flush waste down the toilet. We also don't believe in landscaping irrigation because if you use the most appropriate plants for your location, they will survive and flourish even in drier times. Another issue, especially in developed areas, is that of stormwater run off. When rainwater used to fall on vegetation, everything was good. But since areas of vegetation are cleared and impervious surfaces like pavement, buildings, and roofs are put in place of the old vegetation, there is nowhere for the rainwater to go. So elaborate stormwater systems are built in most communities. What most people don't know is that there is no treatment of stormwater, so anything that goes down a stormwater sewer is sent directly to our local lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands. This means oil, gas, and other automobile fluids from our streets and parking lots, trash, and debri are sent directly to our waterways. So reducing the impact of our house and paved areas on our local stormwater system is an issue too. So all of these ideas brought us to the idea of our rainwater catchment system.

Our house will use rainwater that falls on our roof to flush our toilets, wash our clothes, and use outdoors. The basics of the system include the collection area (roof), transport material (gutters and downspouts), filtration to keep our debri (downspout filters), storage (a cistern), and a pump. Our roof will be a metal roof which is a great collector since provides cleaner water than asphalt shingles which can contribute particles to the water. The gutters will have a simple covering to keep out debri, and the downspouts will contain additional filtration. Because of our temperate climate, our cistern will be installed underground to protect from freezing, but above ground cisterns can be used in warmer climates or the cistern can be placed indoors in a basement. (However, the size of the cistern can be an issue with an indoors installation). We will run separate supply pipes to our toilets, washing machine cold supply, and outdoor hose bibs. These supply lines must be marked as "Non-Potable, Do Not Drink." The water will be pumped through the supply lines to these locations. In calculating the size of our cistern, we had to consider the size of our family (and potential growth with the possibility of elderly parents coming to live with us or additional children), the size, quantity, and type of water appliances, and our average amount of rainfall. After our initial calculation of a 2,000 gal tank, we were able to derease it's size because we selected dual-flush toilets for the bathrooms. These toilets give you a choice of how much water to use for each flush - either the standard 1.6 gallons for a large flush or .8 gallons for a small flush. This saves our gamily of 4 over 6,000 gallons per year, so we could purchase a smaller cistern - 1,500 gallons. Given that our location receives fairly steady rainfall throughout the year - about 40 inches per year, we felt confident planning for a 30-40 day dry spell. But in the event that we did run the cistern dry, we've planned for one outdoor hose bib near the cistern so that we can run a hose to the cistern for emergency filling. Which brings me to issues of regulation . . .

Regulation: Originally our county Water and Sewer District and General Health District referred us to the state Environmental Protection Agency. I told a representative from the Ohio Department of Health and EPA what our intentions were for the system and we were told that the system would not be allowed. I pressed for more information and the "why nots." The representative told me that anything coming into the house was considered "intended for drinking use" and must be disinfected and filtered to the level required for drinking water. This meant installing additional disinfecting and filtration equipment (and additional cost). When I told the representative that the whole point was to NOT use drinking-level quality for flushing toilets because that was just silly, the rep told me it was more of a health issue and it was their responsibility to protect the health of the public. When I asked what the health issue was he said. "Someone could flush the toilet and the water could splash up into their mouth." At this point I realized I was really dealing with bureaucracy and not a logical approach to the issue. So I went to my research and my consultant at BRAE and we put together a presentation of documents, including other projects and states where similar systems have been installed. After presenting the Ohio Dept of Health and EPA representative the documents, they officially changed their stance on the system and declared that they no longer considered toilet water to be intended for drinking purposes, so there was no longer a health issue that concerned their office. They would now defer all approval and judgement to the local county level regulatory offices. One small step . . .

At the county level, we had to deal with the General Health District and the Water and Sewer District. Originally we wanted to place a municipal backup onto the cistern so that in case it went dry, it would automatically be backed up from the municipal supply. However, that was an issue for our local officials and they were going to require us to install TWO backflow preventers on the system and have them inspected annually at our expense - which also became a construction issue since the cistern was underground and we needed annual access to the underground backflow preventer. Sooooo we came up with the idea of simply removing the backup connection to the municipal supply and simply running the hose to the cistern if it ran dry. We also increased the size of our cistern (again) slightly to make sure the chance of running dry would be decreased. So we ended up specifying a 1,700 gallon underground cistern. We still do not have county approval, but we are fairly confident that with the backup connection removed, and all of the lines and fixture labeled as "Non-Potable, Do Not Drink" that they will have little to say, at least we hope . . . .

The basic estimate on the system is around $2,900. Because the price of water is not very high, the payback in years may seem like a long time as opposed to just using municipal water, but it's the idea of water conservation and improving the quality of our environment that's the focus. If we serve as an example for others to follow, we can hope that someday all families will make good use of our free rainwater and leave the precious drinking water for drinking! We'll be sure to update you once the house is done and post our annual water usage from both the cistern and municipal supply!