[Clive McDonald]

I have been making a few fumbling attempts at this because I think that is important. But my attempt has been very rudimentary.I would very appreciate comments from people with greater knowledge that myself. My eventual aim is to source all of my pre RO water from rain harvested from my house.
What I have done so far
Bought a rain butt and installed it at the side of my garage. My first problem is that wife my thinks they are unsightly and made me move it from the house where it would have had a greater catchment.
Anyway, when it rained it filled up.The TDS,even after coming down the garage roof and into the dirty gutter was 32. A hoselock fitted the tap on in and i used some muslim(a kind of fabric not a religion) to pre filter by putting it in the hoselock. The butt is slightly higher than the RO so I used gravity to feed it.

I have a booster pump(I have to use this with mains anyway) and when I connected things up it all seemed to work very well with very little waste. The pressure on my gauge was only about  two thirds of what it normaly is though.

So my main questions are am I running any risks?, such as particles that could get into the RO and cause damage, and is there any aesthetic solution to having these ugly butts dotted everywhere? I do have an area behind my shed that is screened off, I could have storage there if there was some way of getting the rain water from the house gutters to there.

Any knowledge help or comments on this would be appreciated.

[Bobs Window Cleaning]

Thats a cracking idea and hopefully you will get lots of posts. Im on a water meter and the dosh is better off in my account than Anglia Waters.

Bob

[Chris Cottrell]

point 1 : this is a very good idea but getting enough rain water may prove a difficult task

point 2 : if your tds of the rain water is only 32 you would be better to just DI it because putting it through the RO you are going to wate some of it anyway maybe 50% if you recycle this waste it will have an even higher tds reading

[Londoner]

I agree about the amount, how much water can you collect and store?

The tds reading is not likely to be calcium so DI and or RO might not be appropriate. Its probably just dissolved residues off the roof and a bit of airbourne pollution so pre filter through a 5 micron filter and then through an activated charcoal filter may well be enough.

[TennetClean]

What a good idea.

Here's my thoughts:
1- you may not be able to trap enough water for your total needs, but even if you manage to get a third of what you need from rain, that's still good.  Especially if you're ona meter.

2- Why are you bothering with RO if the water you're collecting is only 32 TDS?  RO will waste two thirds of the water you've gone to such trouble to collect and store.  With only 32 TDS I'd just use DI resin and forget RO.  You also wont need to worry about grains of grit etc.

3- you'll need to store a lot of water for it to be useful.  Rather than have water butts everywhere, why not dig a big hole and bury a large water tank in your back garden?

Out of interest, when you started this thread I measured the tds of rain falling and it was just 2.  Then I measured it coming from the drainpipe and it was 55.  Then, I was curious so I got up a ladder in the rain (not the smartest thing -I know! ) and collected it trickling off the tiles into the gutter.  The TDS was 43.  To me this means that as vince has said most of the muck is coming from the tiles on the roof.

[craig jwc]

I've used rainwater from a waterbutt and left the IBC to fill up.

I made sure any leaves etc was remove from the water and have used the water just running it through the DI bottle in the van. Obviously it goes through an in-line filter before the resin.

Like said though it's collecting the water that's the problem, you won't be able to collect enough to run on rainwater only

[jeff1]

Tie a stocking or an old pair of tights around the end of the downpipe, they have a smaller micron than muslim and will filter better.

[Clive McDonald]

Some brilliant replies, thankyou, you've given me a lot to think about. Digging a big hole in my backgarden? The main problem is that my wife might put me in it, but I do think this might be the way to go. Vince made a good point, given further factual info by tenet clean, I might not be even using the right filters.

Tennet mentions a third as a commendable figure, Craig says you won't be able to collect enough. Hmmm.

It occurs to me(yes i'm on a meter but it's not that expensive), that if i (or any of us)could run wholly or mainly on rainwater then from a sales and marketing point of view i (or whomever) could wipe the floor with any window cleaning operator in the country including concept thingy and ironic.


In other words if you could  harvest enough water, the prize could be far bigger than saving a hundred pounds on the water bill.

[D.Salkeld_Ltd]

My Idea is this:

Dig up my Driveway

It's about 3 mtr wide 20 mtr long and, say dug 2mtr deep.  Thats 120 M³.
1m³ = 1000ltrs thats 120000ltrs full.
Now I use about 750ltrs a week.  Thats 3 Years supply of water

OK it would probably cost £1000's to build the Artecian Well because I wuold have to put a reinforced lid over the whole "tank".

To puryfy the water I would use a DI vessel with a 3 stage pre filter set (1x sedimentry + 2 x carbon).

Mind you , if I then got an Ultraviolet filter I cold use the water in the house as well

But the I suppose Anglian Water would want to charge me something for it :

David

[Clive McDonald]

There might be implications with anglian, and planning consent issues.(possible problem with running private dwelling as commercial premises.)

However you would become invincible.

As this would be grey water you would not be subject to drought orders.The sales and marketing impact would be astronomical.Most responsible companies concerned with carbon footprint etc would almost be forced to use you, with domestic customers this is a hook like you wouldn't believe.

You could be the new Anita Brodick.