rain barrels

To my surprise I learned last night that the city of San Francisco is encouraging residents to buy rain barrels. We started our rain barrel "experiment" more than a year ago and it has saved us plenty. Our neighbors have been skeptical and many thought we were losing it, calling us modern day luddites. Fortunately there is no home owners association to stop us from doing the right thing. Rain barrels are not only the right thing to do, they are the smart thing to do.

Even in California, where a long dry summer is the rule, rain barrels can be put to good use. They fill very quickly during our regular rain storms and can provide us with all the water we need for at least six months out of the year. We use the water for everything except drinking. That has reduced our consumption of municipal water to below 50 gallons per day for a family of four. Using the water to drink is possible but it takes a rather expensive setup and constant monitoring. That, I believe is asking a lot and we are nowhere near needing to go there.

Apart from saving water, which is scarce today and projected to grow even scarcer over the next decade, rain barrels can also help with mud slides and overflowing storm drains. Much of the water in urban and suburban areas falls on roofs. Much of it falls within a very short period of time as California storms tend to be very intense. All of that translates in to torrential flows that can cause a lot of damage. Ironically enough residents here seem to believe that damage is inevitable and part of the deal. It shouldn't be.

Storm drains are a major expense for cities and tax payers. Much of your local tax money goes towards storm drains. Building them, maintaining them, and cleaning them. Every year many city crew work weeks go into cleaning drains that easily clog with dirt, dust, leaves, and debris.

If citizens did nothing but capture the water from their roofs during a storm and then release it slowly (and preferably over their vegetation) we could save tens of thousands of dollars in storm drain maintenance. We could prevent many of the feared mud slides that destroy homes and that nobody can insure against. We could prevent flooding that causes further havoc and destruction.

All of that can be done by simply cutting your downspouts and directing the flow into 55-65 gallon drums. A screen cover takes care of mosquito breeding. If you have a big roof, you may need a few drums in series, as one minor storm will easily fill all those drums in less than one hour.

The more uses you can find for the water the better. Easiest is to irrigate the yard (or your lawn). Next comes toilet flushing, which is a major environmental disaster and very easy to fix. However, people may not like the idea of doing so with buckets. It is trivial to install a small alternate flow head that fills the tank automatically, but it takes some expense and creativity. You need to build a parallel system that can use rain water and regular water. Also very easy is to fill the washing machine with a bucket (esp. top loaders that wastes water galore).

Rain water is very clean. It does not contain harmful chemicals and it is quite soft too. Once the roof is "washed clean" after the first storm of the season, the remaining water is some of the highest quality water you can get (if used immediately). If you plan to store water for more than a few days, you will need to take precautions to prevent bacterial growth. But that only matters if you plan to drink the water. For all other uses, only mosquito abatement is a concern. That is handled with a screen cover. If in doubt,  you can add some special mosquito tablets from the hardware store.

Time to get your rain barrels America.

water use so far

Here are my water use figures for the year. This is for a 3,200 sq ft home near the California Coast, with four inhabitants and a small vegetable garden. Initially, while it was still raining, we used rain barrels to collect water for both indoor and outdoor use. That included all uses except drinking water which we get through the "normal channels." 

It rained reasonably regularly during the first two billing periods, but during the last one, we did not have a single drop of rain, and none is expected until at least mid-October. To deal with no new water, we are actively recycling grey water and use grey water for everything, except drinking, showers, and cooking.

During the first billing period (about 2 months), our average daily use was 39 gallons a day. During the second period, it was 36 gallons a day, and during this last period it was 50 gallons a day. The increase reflects the absence of rain.

I would say that this was done without resorting to extreme measures and without any real restrictions. Nothing that affected our quality of life or imposes hard labor. Some people may find recycling water objectionable but it is actually quite easy to do, and takes little or no extra work.

For those of you who are minding your expenses, I have to say that saving water, unfortunately, does not result in much dollar savings. It is not worth it and we are not doing it to save money. Unlike gas and electricity, our "water" bill has so many other items (sewage, altitude charges, seismic improvements, etc.) that have remained fixed that the savings is negligible. That is very sad indeed. 

Here we are in the middle of the second year of a drought and there is really no incentive for people to save water. We hear on a daily basis how officials are discouraged by the weak popular response to a call for conservation, but nobody should be surprised. Instead our good citizens are enraged that they have to save some 10% over previous years, while other water districts have not imposed any such measures or higher rates. Grow up, people !

It is absolutely shameful and embarrassing the way California wastes water. Not to mention the many impediments they put in the way of people trying to save water. Many health officials are using the West Nile virus "threat" and other excuses to discourage people from using rain barrels or installing collection systems. There are no incentives and no houses are being built with rain water collection, even though this would add a minimal cost to a house that will be priced way over $1MM.

I wish the governator would take notice. There are plans in the works for desalination plants in Southern California, and other "grand engineering" schemes that will waste tons of energy so people can flush perfectly good water down their toilets. We have already destroyed one of the most productive salmon fisheries on the Pacific Coast, but there is no end in sight to the destruction people want to inflict just to have a green lawn in the desert and outdo their neighbors.