Rain harvesting? Yes, my system is ready!

 After Saturday and Sundays rain/sprinkles, my tank is now at the 300 gal mark now.  There was a condensation line marking the water level.  With the 2 rain barrels added that's about 380 gal of stored water!

   The rains continued pretty much overnight Sunday into Monday.  Light but steady.  Tank level is now past the 400 gallon mark!  I measured the flowrate into the tank with a measuring cup.  The current rain flow off my roof into the filter  filled the measuring cup in 8 sec.  which equates out to 1 gal every 8 minutes, or 7.5 gal each hour. ( At that present rain rate) Overnight if it remained constant, would yeild 180 gal.
  Happy to have this project completed  Oh, now both rain barrels are full, at just about 55 gal each. so with the 400+ gal in the big tank and 110 in rain barells 500+ saved gallons of water for summertime use. 
  I know it's not much, but it's water that won't be turning my water meter!

 

 Update:

  While cleaning up my storage shed, I came across my Jeeps old hot water shower pump.  I collected a few plumbing parts, slapped my battery charger on a deep cycle 12 boat battery, and connected the pump to my rain tank.  Connected our 100' yard hose to the pump and now I'm able to water our entire yard with the rain tank!
  The pump I'm using is a 12VDC 4amp 3.75GPM Sure-flo "wash down" pump for boats.  I purchased it to make hot water shower system on my CJ-5.  (Hotwater came from heat exchanger I built out of copper tubing and 3" copper pipe) It worked really good until one rather brutal 4x4 trip I started to see engine coolant in the fresh water loop.  An internal leak opened so I simply kept system capped to not loose coolant and didn't use my shower.
  Pump still functions normally, when water is not flowing, it builds pressure in hose up to 40psi then shuts off.
Next step is to break out my solar panels (Photovoltaic) and connect my little 8amp charge controller and then connect the battery to the charger to keep the charge up some what.  I'm not expecting to much life from the battery I have, its an 03' year deep cycle, it appeared to still take a charge, where as it's brother didn't. Its dead.  So, over the next few days, I'll find out if the battery will work or die.  Currently, it's working ok.

 

Awesome work Troy, I keep working on my wife to replace our lawn with the new astroturf stuff. I have played soccer on it and it looks great and is comfy. Plus no bugs or bees for the kids to step on.

I've looked into the feasibility of field turf for our yard, too. Especially since grass doesn't grow in foggy Marina.
It's a great option. But it sounds like the main drawback is "cleaning up" after my dog. And my wife's 3 cats. And our loser couch-dweller's 2 dogs.

Great looking system, I've been toying with the idea of putting one under my deck to provide summer water for my (18) fruit trees and other landscaping.  My idea is for a 1500 gallon size, though.  why did you put it on concrete vs gravel?

 

 The ground where the tank now sits is sloped down away from the house.  I needed to build up the low end to level it and so I did by moving the dirt from the high side and then adding a few wheel barrows of dirt, compacted, to get a firm base then added re bar and cement to make pad 3" deep.  Either base is acceptable, granted gravel would have been much easier, but I life in a Redwood forest, the gravel would get ugly with redwood duff, & weed etc.  I wanted a base that won't absorb water.

  Update#2  I since I just went through and reorganised my shed I made it easy for me to get 2 of my 5 panels out from behind the rack they were stored behind, so I retrieved them today, dug out my aluminum angles and mounted the panels to the aluminum, then wired them together (In series this time) and I had 35.45 VDC with partially shaded afternoon sun.  Wired up the cabling from the panels to the regulator, the regulator already has wires to go to the battery. 
  I'll take pictures of everything tomorrow as I install it all.   I'm simply going to just set the panels on the part of my roof that I think gets the most sun, ( All 3-4hrs a day of it )
If I have to I'll angle the panels like there supposed to be, for me 37* is optimal, but I have a sloped roof, so I have to take into account the roofs pitch, end result the panels should be close to 37* when done.

 

Captains log stardate 7112009
  Sun was out this morning and on the front part of my roof at 11:00 am, so I hauled my solar panel array up to the roof, gathered up the charge controller and placed the array,  I used some retaining wall bricks to help lessen the backwards facing angle of the array.

First placement of the array.

Where the sun is on the roof at 11:am.

Really old deep cycle battery.

The pump and water connection.

100' hose used now to water entire yard.

My little 8amp solar charge controller.

Some cloud put a hamper on my full sun measurements.

Battery voltage in cloudy skies.

System shot. It ain't pretty right now but it works!

  These solar panels are "Solarex" 62watt panels.  Approx, 3amps open circuit current each panel.

 CGN with the water problems in Felton you are gonna need a bigger resevoir tank. Maybe underground type with pump.
 Off to a great start on your green home.

Awesome work, Troy.

 

  I'd really like to a much bigger tank, but putting one in the ground is out due to my yards terrain, getting a tractor down where I'd want the tank is not gonna happen.  Having another tank would be pushing the wifes limits.  So for this house, the 500gal tank (Plus up to 8 55 gal drums 440 gal, yet to be set up under back deck) will have to do.

   Update.

  My rain tank filled this last May, and we started to use it in in June as the weather started to heat up.  We used 2 1.5 gal watering buckets, using water from 2 55 gal drums set up for RH and I'd water my lower yard with the big tank.  I figured I used approx 15 gal to water a few plants.  After connecting the solar powered water pump, I timed my wife watering our upper yard.  She watered for approx. 15 min (Pumps capacity is 4.3gal/min X 15 min is about 60 +/- gal) or around 60 gal each watering.  Add to that, about 5 minutes for the lower yard so I figured about 80 gal/ watering. 
   Well we used the tank level down to just under 100 gal, or 1 days watering left.  Today, I took my pump and battery down to the creek I have running through my yard, and stretched my 100' yard hose down the hill and it was about 10' short of reaching the tank.  The pump actually moved water up to the tank (With a short section of hose added)  I was able to add 150 gallons back into the tank before the battery power started to go. (It's a 7yr old deep cycle so I'm not surprised)  My water level is back up to about 250 gal now!  Tomorrow after the sun is off the roof, I'll drag the system back down and continue filling for another hour or so, and repeat until I have the tank topped off!

  Looks like my 500 gal tank will only supply watering for 6.2 days (At the rate we 've used the water so far)
 3x week so we have little over 2 weeks watering stored (With a full tank).  I definetly need to expand my storage.  I think I can stuff 14 55 gal drums under my back deck, thats an additional 770 gallons, or another 9 days of watering. Now with my creek, at least I'll be able to continue watering with no rain.