Being Prepared - Water

Following the little series of articles on how to cheaply create electricity and store it we need to look at something else we will be short of in the future and that is water and like electricity it will be hiked in price and water meters will become mandatory, oh they are in all new builds, but many are also being taken out.

What do we need water for is the first question and clean tap water is called potable water and we use potable water for many things we don’t need it for and one example would be for the toilet cistern as its only function is to wash the effluent from the toilet bowl, another is watering the garden. In many ways we can replace potable water as this is what is being charged for and we can recycle to some extent and use the same water more than once or we can move from using different types of water where high quantities are used, such as watering the garden where old washer and sink water can be reused as soapy water was once the pest remover from gardens and now we have replaced it with purchased chemicals, but why? MONEY.

In many cases people use water for growing crops and often this water is evaporated off by the sun which is why the ground dries out and our crops don’t grow properly until we water them and why many crops fail in drought ridden areas and food prices rise. Watering the surface of a garden ensures only the surface is watered and this surface is the hottest part of your garden and quickly evaporates the water off; water deeper and it takes much longer to evaporate and encourages your crops roots to go deeper for the water and produces hardier crops.

What do we need potable water for and how can we reduce its use where we have a water meter and we pay for what we use? The car can stay dirty or it can be washed when it rains, and the clean water we use can be collected and NOT discarded and used for something else.

Water falls from the sky and it hits many things such as the ground, building roofs, and many other things so we can prepare in stages and collect some of this water for minimal costs and the little we do spend will be offset by the crops we grow for our food and the cost of growing them and not buying them so our garden helps with our food. If we have a house and we can run the downpipe from the roof into a water butt and that water butt has an overflow pipe running from it back into the original downpipe we can catch a water butt full of water and it’s a water butt of water we don’t pay for and we have intercepted this water. We can take this further and connect this water butt to two more water butts and we have now intercepted three water butts of water we don’t pay for and comes in very useful in watering our crops during heavy periods of drought.

Let’s look at the B/S and the usual rhetoric they spout (no pun intended) is that we have insufficient rainfall so let’s scrutinise this claim; many countries have less rainfall then us and are in much hotter climates than us and they don’t have water shortages, so why. The answer is simple as they have less so they use it wisely and store what they have so we don’t have insufficient rainfall at all as what we have is insufficient water storage and this is the responsibility of the water company who sends you bills to supply you with clean water and treat your waste and now we can see through their rhetoric and lies or excuses. They are not so short of money they cannot pay the Australian teachers or Canadian hedge funds profits but they claim to have insufficient funds to invest in their own infrastructure and to put this into context, if a factory roof blew off would the factory owners expect the factory workers to pay for it as this is exactly what is happening, you pay their profits so they can pay their shareholders profits and all while not delivering the service you pay for.

We begin with a little survey and identify any collection surfaces we have and how accessible they are and if we can safely locate collection containers there, if and how we can connect them together and how we can install the containers and screen them as forward planning can save lots of money now and in the future and cost savings are crucial as many cannot afford expensive schemes.

What surfaces do we have? Immediately we have our house and this usually has the largest roof and this may include any outbuildings such as the old outhouse, coalhouse, toilet on older council houses, any garages or sheds and any greenhouses or other permanent structures capable of collecting water. Remember the more collection surfaces you have, the more choices you have to install a water collection scheme which is very effective and unobtrusive and do not affect your everyday lives, but collect large amounts of water in most types of rainfall and quickly fill your storage capacity.
How much storage capacity can you cheaply and easily install and can it be unobtrusive and readily screened off and not take up any gardening space you have and can you easily connect it to your chosen collection source and remember the smallest source for collection can quickly fill a single water butt and even the smallest greenhouse can collect water and installing some small guttering can collect sufficient water over a period of time. Imagine a small 8 ‘X 6’ greenhouse has a collection area of around 32 square feet of collection area per roof side and even in light rainfall it collects useable quantities as both sides of the roof equals 64 square feet..
You may have a free standing garage with a pitched roof and you can store several water butts behind your garage, out of sight and out of the way in what is generally dead space so you bring this dead space back to life and give it a purpose and give yourself more storage capacity. Much the same would apply to any shed with a pitched roof and already we have identified several collection sources, but can we go further? Actually yes but this involves a cost and only you can work out the cost and establish the benefits and if they are worth having. By this I mean taking a flat roof and turning it into a pitched roof as a pitched roof has more collection capacity than a flat roof and any pitched roof accelerates water off it so you collect more water over a prescribed period.

Are there any rules? No, but a little understanding goes a long way and the first thing to understand is evaporation which occurs when water is heated by the sun and a quantity evaporates, these are called evaporative losses and any loss means you have less water, so minimise them. If we imagine a large reservoir and establish the fact it has a large surface area which is exposed to the sun and in summer this sun heats a large surface area, it evaporates a lot of water as evaporative losses and suddenly your reservoir loses a lot of water for nothing. You can minimise your evaporative loses by simply minimising the surface area of the water exposed to the sun, you can the sink a proportion of your water butts underground as this is cooler in summer and keeps your stored water cooler and your evaporative losses are minimised.

What shape water butts are best? Actually while many are former containers bought, borrowed, or recycled from work which are round they are not the best shape if connecting several together becomes necessary and ideally you need a square or rectangular shape such as an IBC container if possible as their flat sides mean less sealing is necessary so any rubber gasket can be thinner than those necessary on a round container. Ideally IBC containers can be best used as they can be stacked and have large storage capacities and with one 1000 litre IBC stacked on top of another IBC container you have minimised your ground footprint and still have 2000 litres of storage capacity for approximately 1 square metre of floor space.

Is there an ideal way to connect storage containers? Actually yes and this is determined by your connection system and for rigid pipe I would suggest the push fit waste water pipe as this comes in 30mm or 40mm diameter and if you select 40mm diameter pipe it moves a lot of water from one barrel to another which is good in a heavy deluge as it fills all your connected barrels quickly and maximises your collection capabilities. Always mount your storage barrels in such a way that you can fit a tap and fit your watering can under your tap as it’s amazing how many people make this simple mistake. Fit a single pipe connection in the middle of your barrel as this means your first barrel becomes half full before water flows into your second barrel which also becomes half full before filling your third barrel. If you get a leaking pipe it also means you only lose half your water and not the whole lot and this is beneficial in a long, hot summer when the ground is dry and your crops need water.

You can use smaller connection pipes and you can get metal nipples which screw to your barrel and you can connect a standard garden hose to them to connect your barrels together and you can use two connection pipes and these should be 1/3rd of the barrel height from the floor for the first pipe, then 2/3rds of the barrel height from the floor and the connecting hose needs to be fairly tight but not straight as this could be too tight and pull a pipe off. Using this small diameter hosepipe has limitations in that the small bore does not move water quickly and in a sudden deluge your collection barrel may become filled and your second barrel does not fill quickly enough and you lose water; however there is a simple solution and instead of using two barrels you use three barrels instead. If you fit a nipple to each side of your collection barrel and stand a secondary barrel each side of your collection barrel and as it fills it drains twice as much water to two secondary barrels and you get more saved rainwater.

One other major issue is with air and as a barrel empties it needs to draw air in and as it fills it needs to push air out and any restriction will slow the filling of your barrels so do not restrict air and the simplest way is not to fit any lids but most wild animals looking for water will be attracted to your open water source and you will find dead animals in it on most hot days. You now need some method of allowing sufficient free air flow without having a ready access to your barrels water for wild animals and on the screw on or clamp on lids of round barrels you take four match sticks and stick them on the sealing surface at 12 o clock. 3 o clock, 6 o clock and 9 o clock and screw or clamp your lid on and you will have an adequate breather gap. It will not restrict water coming into your barrel or impede it draining out of your barrels.

For IBC containers I would fit a small air drain on top of the bottom container and use a straight connector for garden hose and on the top container I would use a 90° connector near the top of the container to allow the air to drain from the bottom to top container; for the main water transfer pipes I prefer 40mm diameter solvent weld pipe. You drill both your bottom and top containers in the side about half way up from the bottom and fit solvent weld adapters which simply bolt in with large plastic nuts, ensuring the washers or seals are fitted, ensure the adaptors are fully tightened. Cut two short pieces of pipe to fit your connectors and your two 90° bends and push fit them into your containers and measure and cut your longer connecting pipe and fit this and ensure you are happy with it. Take it all apart and apply solvent weld adhesive to each joint in turn and assemble it until it is all fully assembled and solvent welded, leave for 24 hours to fully dry and you will have a leak free assembly.

Your top container will fill to half full and anything else will then drain into your bottom container and fill this and the remaining upper half of your top container will fill until both IBC containers are filled and you have 2000 litres or more of stored water for the dry summer or any drought and I suggest fitting the top and bottom IBC container with taps and Hozelock type tap fittings as you can attach a short hose to fit the tap and go into your watering can and you can fill from your top container first and empty it before using your bottom container.

Can you work out your water requirements? Actually yes as most gardeners have the 2 gallon or 10 litre watering cans and you merely count the number of full watering cans you use daily and multiply this by 7 to work out your daily and weekly requirements, if you multiply the weekly amount by 4.3 you have a monthly quantity and if you multiply this monthly quantity by 2 you have 2 months supply of water and I suggest aiming for this. 2 months supply is ideal for the British climate as you will rarely require more than this and as a lot of the year has rainfall you may empty a lot of your captured water but a few hours of rainfall will replenish it by some amount and extend your captured water quantities and allow more than 2 months of water supply.

How many systems do you need? This is the “how long is a piece of string” question as it depends on your water usage and collection capabilities; followed by your storage capacity and in most cases you will have multiple water storage collection systems around your property and most will have to be out of sight. I will suggest using a standard garage for the suggested project and assume this has either the standard pitched roof of older garages or the flat roof tapering to one end of more modern garages. To begin you need to fit guttering to either side to collect water from the roof and channel it down to one end and join the two sides together and fit an outlet junction for the downpipe, next you decide on your barrel types and mountings so they are clear of the floor and if you fit a tap, you can put your watering can under it. Next is to decide how many storage barrels you want and what type they are and if you want a tap fitted or you are going to dunk your watering can in them as this determines your connection method and the simplest method is to just have multiple barrels connected together with a single centre connection of 40 mm pipe. You mark your barrels and drill them to accept your chosen fittings and fit them and if possible make them screw fittings with thick washers/seals to allow for the curvature on round barrels, drill and fit your tap if applicable and never put it at the bottom, fit it part way up the barrel to leave a small sump to collect detritus. I prefer push fit fittings so bolt them in position and cut your 40mm pipe to length and push several barrels together and remove the lid from your centre barrel to make your water inlet from the guttering, select a fitting to fit your downpipe and insert it in your lid so the downpipe pushes into it and now it’s breather time as the air has to be expelled as the barrels fill with water, if you have the round barrels with screw fitting lids they often seal on the top flange so put 4 matchsticks on this flange and screw your lid back on and it will have a 1-1.5mm gap to allow air to exit and enter.

If you have other types of barrels then you may have to make a breather and this is simply done with 20mm pipe for electric cables and the screw fitting they fit into, cut a hole in your container or its lid and fit the screw adapter, push about 6” (150mm) length of 20mm pipe into it and cover the end with cotton cloth and fit an elastic band over the pipe to hold it.

For larger breathers you can get the 40mm waste pipe flanges in plastic and you fit them with small nuts and bolts or screws and bolts and you take about 12” (300mm) length and fit a blanking cap on the top and in the upper half you drill multiple holes pf around 8-10mm diameter and cover with cotton cloth and fit a rubber band top and bottom, it will let air in and out and ensure you drill enough holes to allow sufficient airflow.

If you go for the more complex two pipe system you can eliminate breathers on every barrel in a multi barrel system and fit your top pipe higher and as high as possible as this will force the air through them and back to your central collection barrel and only this will need a breather, albeit it a larger one.

If you go for the IBC containers you can fit a lower and higher pipe and either sit them on top of each other, or side by side and adopt a single or double pipe system but be aware with all these systems that water weight 1Kg per litre and an IBC container will weigh over a tonne for a 1000 litre container and over 2 tonnes for 2 containers so ensure their mountings are sufficiently strong.
Plan your system and think it through and work out all the issues before installing anything and do what works for you now and in the future, remember today you may be fit and healthy and capable and also remember it only takes one accident, injury or ailment and everything can change. Make sure your wife or husband are conversant with your system and all its components and exactly how it works so if something does happen to you then they can take over and continue your work and get the crops you were growing.

Why multiple systems? Because you may have multiple rain water collection points such as your house, garage and greenhouse and you may convert your flat roofed shed to a pitched roof to get another collection point and in most cases a central collection point may not be practical or feasible. Keeping your collection barrels local to the collection source keeps your pipe runs short and your costs down and that is a bonus. If you have four systems and one with a central connecting pipe springs a leak you only lose half the water from that one system and your other three system’s remain intact and if one system springs a leak you can transfer this water to your other three systems and use them.

If you have installed a simple solar system you can integrate the two and obtain a small 12 volt pump and this can be used to transfer water between systems if necessary or it can be used to transfer water to deep watering systems which use more water, but require less watering as this water doesn’t evaporate quickly as surface water does and this may mean you deep water every three days instead of shallow watering every day.