RAINWATER COLLECTION FOR BEGINNERS | 16 Things To Know About Harvesting Rain Water BEFORE You Start

We built an off-grid rainwater harvesting system for our remote gardens. Here's what we've learned so far. Click "SHOW MORE" for links & resources!

INSTAGRAM: @oak_abode

0:00-0:52 - Intro
0:53-1:50 - Acidity
1:51-2:44 - Contaminants
2:45-3:45 - Minerals
3:46-4:42 - Cleanliness
4:43-5:28 - Affordability
5:29-6:13 - Reliability
6:14-7:16 - Off-Grid Compatible
7:17-8:10 - Self Sufficiency
8:11-9:48 - Scaleable
9:49-10:48 - Surface Area
10:49-11:51 - Debris
11:52-12:26 - Space Required
12:27-13:46 - Weather Dependent
13:47-14:12 - Legality
14:13-15:35 - Ingenuity
15:36-16:21 - Seasonality
16:22-17:03 - Final Thoughts

We're not experts, so we always recommend talking to the pros for the best advice. This post and comments below contain affiliate links, which may lead to a commission if purchased. This comes at no extra cost to you. Thanks!

[kencornelius]

We live in the mountains of West Virginia and collect rainwater for in home use year-round as well as our vegetable gardens on 2 separate systems. For our home I built an 8 X 16 X 4 foot cistern in the ground which is covered by a shed building. We lined the box with a pond liner. At full capacity it holds approximately 3500 gallons which is 3 months home usage. For the gardens I built another box the same size above ground on a platform. We drain it over winter to prevent burst pipes. The water is collected off our 650 sq ft home, a guest cottage and the cistern shed for the home. The garden water is collected off a shop roof and sawmill roof. Wasn't expensive to build, especially compared to a well and cheap to maintain and operate.

[josephbarker]

My community was living off of a single well. Last year the pump broke. It got scary until the pump got fixed. I'm excited to get my rainwater setup done next month!

[mfmcculloch]

Love your channel.
I have a little advice for when you get your well.
Many years ago, I worked on a service rig servicing domestic water wells in our area.
The well is typically dependent on electricity and wells do, occasionally have problems and need maintenance.
Sometimes it can take a week or two to get on the Well guy's schedule.



Unless you have an extremely shallow well, the cheapest installation is a submersible pump down in the well directly driving a pressure tank above ground ( in a heavy freezing area, the tank may be either in your basement or in a well house) and then you plumb from the pressure tank.
The problem with this approach is: if something happens, you only have what is in the pressure tank - and that is usually less than 100 gallons.



What a lot of folks down here do is:

Submersible pump in the well
Submersible pump pumps into a large, un-pressurized storage tank above ground - this is anywhere from 2, 500 gallons up to 10, 000 gallons. Since it only has the pressure of the column of water in the pipe on it, the submersible pump will generally work less hard and lasts longer between replacements. The Storage tank is generally either made from stacked concrete rings on a slab -or- it is one or more large black plastic tanks.
A Float switch in the tank turns the pump on and off to pump more water when the tank is down about 25% below full. You want to always keep the large storage tank at least 75% full.
A colorful ball or flag is placed on the top end of the float switch rod that sticks out above the tank. This way, from a distance, you can tell if the water level is lower than it should be, which tells you that you have a problem that needs attention. I have seen a few folks place a separate float switch driving an alarm circuit to notify them when the water level is below a set point. I like the visual cue as it does not depend on an electric circuit to warn me.
Come out of the large storage tank into a small pressure pump with a pressure tank and then run your plumbing from that. Again, in hard freeze country, this pressure pump and pressure tank can be in a basement or in a 'well house'.
Have a 'bypass' plumbed going around the pressure pump and pressure tank. This buypass will require a couple valves and a few fittings. If the pressure pump fails, this allows you to still get gravity flow water from the big storage tank until the pressure pump can be repaired.

A lot of information here. Read it, think about it, then read it again in a few days. Good luck with the adventure of your new property. I look forward to many more interesting and informative videos.

[scottclowdus]

Here in N Texas we get very little to no rain in the summer. I started harvesting the condensation water from my air conditioner. The average A/C system collects 10-20 gallons of water per day from the air in your home. My system is in the attic so I didn't need a condensate pump. Less than $30 of 3/4" pvc pipe and fittings.

[larryb]

Love your channel! I got into chickens this year for the first time and have enjoyed all of your videos on them. My 10 YO Grandson wanted me to raise chickens. Also have been mulling over collecting rainwater for my chickens and my garden, first year for that as well and started late this year. I just also want to say that your presentation is excellent and a joy to watch!

[grouchyoldprepper]

Water is *Heavy*. 1 gallon = 8.3 lbs, so assuming your barrels are 55 gallons apiece then your weight load is 913 lbs. if you're not using treated lumber to rest your barrels on, then the water overflow can accumulate at the barrel bases and rot the wood fairly quickly. When I rebuilt my system 5 years ago (2 80-gallon barrels for total weight of about 1, 328 lbs) I used treated lumber and put a vertical support post directly beneath the rain barrels, with the bottom end sitting on a concrete block.

[Madaboutmada]

I have a small setup (Four 55-gallon barrels) on a 3, 000 sf lot with an 800 sf 1890s home in Toledo Ohio. The primary reason was because in 2014, the City had a blue-green algal bloom from Lake Erie. This was so toxic, we couldn't even touch it, much less brush teeth, cook, etc. While this was my backup plan on the likely chance of another such event, I love being able to water my garden without getting huge water bills. I have saved a lot of money from a pretty simple concept. Fun fact: 32 sf area (like a standard piece of plywood) plus 1/4 inch of rainfall will fill one 55 gallon barrel. Just remember to purchase food-grade barrels. Some of these things used to contain chemicals.

[Aprons.Overalls]

You have a knack for reading our minds into our future homestead projects! 👍👍😍 We have a large barn next to our garden with a metal roof that we would love to start collecting rainwater from for watering the garden and we'd also like to collect rainwater from the chicken coop we just built (using your plans) so we can easily replenish the chicken's water dishes. Thank you so much for sharing. I love that you used the video format that has worked so well for your many chicken videos and we're looking forward to seeing your rainwater collection system in full swing!

[BAMFsTactical]

I collect and store 825 gallons off my shed already and was staring at my chicken coop thinking I should start collecting off of it too then I was gifted 2 x 55 gallon barrels and so now I am building another rain catch system. If it ever rains here in Texas again…

[Markam]

Just watched a video from homesteadenomics on a system he just installed. I did a system similar to yours for my mom a few years back. It worked great. Only tip I would add is always have more storage then you think you need.

[ST]

I live in the suburbs of Chicago and have one of my downspouts feeding a 55gal drum which I use to water my plants

[melvanini]

Where I live in South Australia, all new homes are required by law to install a rainwater tank. It's so dry here that we really benefit from collecting it. One of my friends has it plumbed into the house for general water use. They can still use mains water if the rainwater runs out, but it's great to have the option.
In fact, most of our mains water is rainwater collected in reservoirs. The ground water here is way too alkaline to drink. Some people still have their house running on bore/well water, but they can't drink it. It's still fine for cleaning but not drinking.

[russellborrego]

Good video. We've been harvesting rainwater from our roof for at least 12 years now and storing it in plastic barrels and even garbage cans.

I use it to water our garden plants and to keep our pool filled. We have a well, and a well pump that we had no idea of the age on when we bought the house but it was clearly old. I figured why not take advantage of mother nature & gravity and extend the well pump's life while not adding to our planets pollution. 17 years after we bought the house, the pump finally died this year. We have never once put water in the pool by any other means than rain water for the last 11 years.

[jamesparish]

We are off-grid and have two, 1000 gallon tanks. Adding 1500 more. Go large. Go larger than you think you'll need.

[nikkitobin]

Wow ... I've been harvesting rain water for 4 yrs and never knew the science of it ... Thanks 🥰

[amandacasanova]

Found your channel while thinking about getting chickens. Ordered some chicks ordered a custom coop and a few days ago was telling my husband about collecting rain water for our garden 🤣 clearly this channel is for me!!

[hillcountrylivin]

Good pros and cons from someone who is actually experienced with rain water collection. Thanks.

[hkschubert]

Thank you for this very enlightening video !!
I will put rain collection vats at the 4 corners of my newly built house & use the rain water to feed my raspberries & corn & potatoes & onions & carrots & tomatoes & mushrooms !!

[monicaroberts]

First time I ran into this concept! Like it!!

[antalya]

This is Great Info! Especially for a Newbie like me :). Thanks a lot for the sharing. God Bless You and Your Family.