Now that you know a little more about rainwater harvesting systems (What are they? What is their use? What factors influence the success or failure of these systems? And many more things) we now want to tell you how you can make a rainwater harvesting system, what rainwater harvesting materials you need and many more things that will surely interest you and that can help you a lot in creating your sustainable system.
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What rainwater harvesting materials are needed to create a sustainable system?
Before talking to you about the necessary materials for rainwater harvesting and how you can make a system to capture water, it is important that you understand that there are many more possibilities and that we simply seek to give you a simple, economical, fast and effective option.
Materials for the catchment area
The catchment area can be different depending on the type of system you are looking to design. In this case we will take into account the simplest and most recommendable system, the system that uses the roof of the home or the shed as a catchment area. In this case, you will not need to make an investment in materials for the catchment area since such an investment will have already been made previously.
Similarly, if you want to design a roof for the catchment area, we recommend doing it with corrugated metal sheets, they can be a little more expensive, but they offer more advantages than other materials.
Materials for the collection area
The second area that must be worked on is collection, this area consists of those channels that must collect the water that falls from the rain and hits the roof to then fall into the discharge.
The materials used in this case can be PVC pipes, some type of metal or even wood or bamboo.
Materials for the download area
For the materials in the unloading area, you can use either PVC pipes or metal pipes.
Materials for the storage area
When storing the water, it is important that you have a waterproof material, that it has a lid that closes perfectly and that can be cleaned without problems. It is usually recommended to use cement, ferrocement or masonry.
How to make a rainwater harvesting system step by step?
- Step 1. Know a little about the rainfall in the area
Before starting your water harvesting project, it is extremely important that you carry out a study on the rainfall in the area and the local hydrological cycle.
- Step 2. Make a decision regarding the water catchment system to design
In this case we have made the decision (as discussed above) to design a water collection system using the roof of a house or shed.
- Step 3. Start the build
After finalizing the catchment area (the roof of your home or shed) it is important that you make a fairly effective design of gutters that will capture rainwater. These channels, as you should know, go to the edge of the roof and their installation is not complex at all.
- Step 4. Be careful with the download area
This point is key in the creation of these types of systems since a good design of this area depends on how clean the water reaches the storage device. Here you must create a kind of system (known as an interceptor) that must be in charge of filtering and cleaning the water, thus seeking to remove all the materials that the rain brings with it.
At this point, the use of filters or aluminum mosquito nets is recommended, as well as different installations that reduce the amount of water that enters the system to control the number of materials more quickly and easily. - Step 5. Adjust the storage area
For the storage area, you may have chosen different types of containers, for example, if you decide to opt for 100 liter plastic containers you can join several containers using tubes or hoses for a more effective operation.
Another possibility, as we said before, is to make the containers or water tanks of cement or other materials, in this case, it may take a little longer to obtain the results and the installation may be more permanent.
In the same way, you must do maintenance to your tanks gradually to avoid the appearance of bacteria and other substances that you do not want in your water (not for planting, much less if you have decided to consume it after making it drinkable).
What is the approximate cost for the development of a rainwater harvesting system?
As you may have intuited, the budget you may need to create a water harvesting system will depend on the specific needs you may have and on some of the decisions you make during the process (materials to be used, size of the system and many others). more things).
That is why we cannot tell you about the costs of the rainwater system or give you an approximate budget for your project, what we can assure you without any doubt is that sooner or later (sooner than later) you will recover your investment by becoming independent from the network and not having to spend as much money on bills at the end of the month.
We are also sure that what may seem like a small change in the recycling of rainwater will mean a total change for your environment, for nature and for your way of living, you will feel much better about yourself and you will know that you are contributing a grain more sand in the recovery of a planet that we have gradually destroyed ourselves.
As you can see, there are ways to develop water harvesting systems that are neither as complicated nor as expensive as it might seem, these types of systems can be very helpful for your crops, to save costs and to become a little more independent from the state. and from the network.