Smallholders Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: Collecting rain water  (Read 8531 times)

devonlady

  • Joined Aug 2014
Collecting rain water
« on: February 17, 2015, 09:07:00 am »
This may not be the place to answer my dilemma but it seems to be the place where the clever people lurk.
My good neighbour's pigs have ploughed up a patch of a quarter to a third of an acre for us to do veg. boxes for family and a few friends. Problem is watering! We do have mains water and with an extra mile or so of hose pipe it would be no problem BUT we are on a water meter. I have an idea to get some of those huge, square plastic storage thingys to save rainwater in, but how?
I envisage something like huge up-turned umbrellas :-\ but how? and what? I know how to be frugal with water, ie halved plastic bottles, lengths of plastic drain pipe and direct watering but how to get the rain water into the cubes? :fc:

Dan

  • The Accidental Smallholder
  • Administrator
  • Joined Oct 2007
  • Carnoustie, Angus
    • The Accidental Smallholder
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Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2015, 09:32:32 am »
If you've got a shed at the site use the run-off from the roof.

If not, build a simple shelter with a single pitch roof (e.g. four posts and a sheet or two of Onduline or wriggly tin), length of guttering at the bottom feeding into your IBC (the square plastic storage thingy).

It doesn't take much surface area to keep a reasonable water supply - we do it from the roofs of our hen houses which are about 10x6'.

Or there's this, which would last 2 minutes with our winds.  :D


Q

  • Joined Apr 2013
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2015, 09:34:59 am »
I have an allotment neighbor who has one of the IBC containers (1000 ltrs) - it is currently 90% full and from a tiny shed roof running water into some guttering then piped into the IBC.  This shed roof cannot be much more than a metre square. 
You just need to capture the rain from a big flat area. Could you erect a few corrugated panels by the edge of the field into guttering?
I have a vacant plot next to my allotment so I re-tilted his guttering into my water butt - I think the charge might be 'Rain theft'
If you cant beat 'em then at least bugger 'em about a bit.

devonlady

  • Joined Aug 2014
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2015, 10:21:13 am »
Oh. isn't it easy when someone else knows how ;D ;D Thank you both!

Bramblecot

  • Joined Jul 2008
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #4 on: February 19, 2015, 08:56:31 pm »
At the allotments here they have no piped water and are not allowed sheds ::)
One chap has a couple of old water tanks (like loft tanks), made a roof from recycled plastic sheeting about 8' x 4', put the roof at a slight angle with guttering at the bottom, S-bends into the tanks and - voila!- covered rainwater tanks :thumbsup: .  The whole thing only stands about 4' high and no-one complains except the green-eyed other allotment holders :roflanim: .

Slimjim

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • North Devon
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #5 on: February 19, 2015, 10:41:41 pm »
I collect the run off from my small sheep shed in an IBC thingy via a gutter and short length of drain pipe. But to allow a bucket under the tap it's up on a couple of pallets. I've fitted a fine stainless steel mesh where the drainpipe leaves the gutter to keep leaves out and because I use the water for my sheep, I didn't want it going green, so I have covered it with an inverted giant black polythene bag. It works really well and saves lugging buckets a very long way! Good luck.

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #6 on: February 19, 2015, 11:38:25 pm »
One barrel may not be enough to water the whole patch if we get a dry summer.  You could mount a second one on a trailer and collect the water from your roofs at home, then trundle it along to your veg patch. 
We use those giant 1000l black orange juice barrels, about £160 now I think, to collect water from various buildings around the place.  Some are for livestock water, others for irrigation.  We have had them freeze solid in the winter, but being rubber they don't split.  They occasionally overflow so we run a hose to the ponds, to flush them through.
We don't have mains water.  Where the water has to be moved uphill we use a small pump, but mostly the system is designed to work with gravity.

I like the idea of making sloping roofs without a shed underneath to catch the rain  :raining:
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

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Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

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cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2015, 01:59:46 am »
My friends used three inter linked 1,000 ltr heavy duty black polythene  orange juice barrels laid on their side on industrial grade heavy duty plastic pallets as the platform.

 Don used two big lorry ratchet straps to lightly tie them together top & bottom and made a simple 2 2 deep tray out of two 2.5 mtr  x 1.5 mtr x 19 mm thick sheets of construction ply with 44 mm CLs for the edges of the tray then covered it in pond liner . One corner was lower than the others and from there he piped it into the lid of the end barrel at a high point, for this he used a old kitchen sink drain . for his filter he used a quality stainless steel knitted pan scrubber stuffed in nthe tray outlet pipe at the top .
The inter barrel connections were at the bottom of the barrels in the lids using 44 mm waste pipes with screw up connections so he could dismantle things , to move them and wash them out with his power washer if needed . He used only one outlet ..a 50 mm stainless steel ball tap  . There was a simple clear sight tube , water level indicator made out of 22 mm ID clear plastic soft pipe set in the lower interconnecting pipe work.
 
Don's first experiences of having the barrels vertical was that the soil around them became sodden when they over flowed and the weight of the barrel caused it to tip to one side in the sodden soil , eventually they fell over splitting the barrels . That's why he went for the laid on their side way .

He also said that he found the water got too hot in the summer to give to his stock straight away or use on his veg plot  ( the tanks were in a suntrap between two interconnected buildings )  , having the tray above the barrels acted as a sunshade &  helped keep it a lot cooler .

He also had barrels split as well as the tops spring off due to 14 days of minus 10 oC. so for winter he usually drained them to half full when ever he passed them .
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

devonlady

  • Joined Aug 2014
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2015, 07:30:04 am »
I will guide the great nephew's nose to this information, it all sounds good and has ensured me a worry-free night's sleep.
My aim is to ensure healthy, chemical free veg. and fruit (eventually) for my family at cost price, so the cheaper we can produce the better :thumbsup:

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: Collecting rain water
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2015, 08:50:32 pm »
A simpler cheaper way could be to dig a large hole , line it with a  cheaper grade pond liner and put a polypropylene tarp or more pi=ond liner on a sloping frame up at an angle low to the ground with a wooden spar downthe middle to run rain down the frame & into the mini pond .
Perhaps you could then use a simple photo voltaic operated pond pump to raise pond water a couple of feet into a reservoir  barrel from  which you fill the buckets as needed  run the water through gutters /scrap pipe , channels of lined with polyether. ( 400 mm damp course strips etc on / to the beds as needed ( think of the Chinese using such cheap methods to flood their Paddy fields.
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

 

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