Harvesting rain water

This small 500 litre tank holds water for pot plants on the verandah and vegetables in the front yard. We bought it for $49 on sale at Bunnings.

It hasn't rained here for about six weeks. Our large green water tank on the front verandah is empty but I am hoping for rain to start falling soon. I checked the radar, rain is on the way. Hopefully, in about 30 minutes, even before I post this, it will be raining.

Collecting the rain that falls on our roof is an important part of our land management. We have three rain water tanks that hold 15,500 litres (4100 gallons), we even have a downpipe on the chicken shed roof to collect a small amount of water there. When our tanks are full, that water is used to keep our vegetables and fruit growing and to water the chooks, dog and cat. Using it everyday, that water will last us about two months.

This is the first tank we installed here, it holds 5,000 litres. We use this water in the green house and on the fruit and vegetables.

One of the first things we did when we came to live here 12 years ago was to install a rain water tank. That was a 5,000 litre iron tank which is located near the greenhouse. When the government decided to encourage all of us to buy water tanks with the introduction of rebates, we installed a second 10,000 litre poly tank. In the past few months we bought a much smaller tank on the front verandah (for $49) to help us water the plants on the verandah as well as the potatoes and avocados in the front yard. It filled up the day we installed it, it's been empty since Monday this week. We never use water from the tap to water anything in the yard but we use tap water inside the house. In the future, we'll probably buy another tank and use that water indoors.

We bought this 10,000 poly tank when our state government brought in a rebate system. I think it cost us about $800 after the $1000 rebate.

Collecting rainwater is both environmentally sound and frugal. We see it as using a natural resource and while we use the water in those tanks, we don't have to pay for tap water. Having your own water stored in tanks and barrels also makes you independent of the system if you need to be. None of us knows what will happen in the future, but if anything did happen to the dam we get our water from, or if there was a general system breakdown, we would be have our own water here. We don't use our tank water inside the house but if we needed to, we would.

This is just a little DIY downpipe off the chook shed running into a 20 litre bucket. It was made with recycled materials.

It feels good to know that if anything disastrous happened in our region that, with careful management of our rain water, vegetable garden, chickens and grocery stockpiles, we would be able to look after ourselves and our family for a few months. If you have not yet thought about gaining some independence from the system, I encourage you to make a move towards providing yourself with some protection.

Each of our tanks collects water from a different part of the roof. The iron tank collects from the back of the house, the poly tank collects from the large shed roof and the eastern side of the house roof, the small green tank collects from the front of the house and the little downpipe system just collects from the chicken shed roof.

If you're in Australia, check your local State and local government websites to check if you're eligible for a water tank rebate. In other countries, it's easy enough to make a rain barrel from recycled or new materials. Click here for instructions.

Hanno is due to do some cleaning and maintenance on our corrugated iron tank soon. When he does, I'll take photos and write about what he does.

I was hoping to end this post by writing that rain is falling. It's not, but according to the radar it will be soon. HURRY UP!

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