Basic Rainwater Catchment Set-Up
In my third installment of sustainable living inspired how-to videos I show how my basic rainwater catchment set-up. (First video was on Composting.)
background
I first learned of rainwater catchment back in 2013 when I was living in Flagstaff, Arizona, for grad school. Part of my masters program entailed working with an action group on campus and mine was about water advocacy. I worked with freshman students every semester, and the first semester we worked with a garden on campus to write a green fund proposal for a rainwater catchment system for the garden to use. During that process I learned of different setups, the costs, and the process. During my time there I also toured off-grid and other sustainable homes that used rainwater catchment. Then a couple years later I interned and volunteered with Earthship Biotecture and learned more about how they collect rainwater and the water organization module. I hope to one day use rainwater for all my needs inside my off-grid home.
materials for rainwater catchment
It’s real easy. And even if you don’t have a garage or home you can still collect rainwater at your apartment with a bucket!
-Barrels. I got two 55-gallon barrels locally for free off of freecycle.org. You can buy barrels new or look at local auctions/estate sales but you want to make sure used barrels weren’t used to hold chemicals or something that could have leached into the plastic. On a smaller scale you could also just use a bucket. On a larger scale for your home, you would use 500+ gallon tanks.
-Gutters & Flexible Tubing. Our storage garage did not have gutters so we bought some to just put on half of one side of the garage. Since it rains here frequently that was all that was necessary. At the end of the gutter attach the flexible tubing and direct it to the barrel.
-Cement Blocks &/or Pallets. You will want to raise your barrel off the ground in order to put a bucket underneath to fill. If you raise the barrel high enough you should have enough pressure in order to attach a hose.
-Spigot. You will need to drill a 3/4 inch hole a few inches from the bottom of the barrel in order to attach a spigot. You could also drill holes towards the top in order to connect another barrel or for spilloff.
Want more Sustainable Living tips? I’ve got a whole page of them here.
And as always I feel it necessary to add the note that individual practices to reduce our impact on the planet are great and all but let us not forget who is really to blame for the climate crisis and who holds the most responsibility and the means to combat climate change—> Fossil fuel industry and big corporations. The following is taken from a piece I wrote in response to Naomi Klein’s book On Fire: A Burning Case for a Green New Deal. The quote starts with why I believe it’s difficult for a mass cultural shift in thinking and action when it comes to climate change.
It’s dealing with these feelings of overwhelming inability to help that I believe causes inaction by the masses, causes folks to push it away; we are essentially mastering cognitive dissonance in order to get on with our lives. However, I’ve recently been enlightened to the idea that this individualistic approach to combating the climate crisis misses the mark. We feel we must take it all upon our shoulders, which is exactly what the fossil fuel (etc) companies want us to think, to distract us from who’s really at fault. The only way change will come is to shift the pressure from our shoulders to those causing the destruction and those in power. And we do that together in collective action.