Rainwater harvesting

[beardface]

Looking at putting up a new pig shed and thinking of rainwater harvesting for drinking and washing anyone doing this?

 

[Ballygreenan]

Washing probably OK, be careful of potential salmonella in drinking water tho unless you plan to treat it.

 

[Pan mixer]

Surprising how much dirtier harvested rainwater is than falling rain, even with filters.

Washing only I reckon. Too risky for drinking by far.

 

[Kidds]

Surprising how much dirtier harvested rainwater is than falling rain, even with filters.

Washing only I reckon. Too risky for drinking by far.

In Australia the rainwater is for unfiltered drinking in the house never mind stock, so why not here?
What makes it so dirty? Comparing it to Oz, they are more likely to have tin roof where it would be fibre cement here. Might that be the difference.

 

[manhill]

Not worried about the taste? Ugh!

 

[Agrivator]

It works perfectly fine, particularly if the downpipes are running straight into drinking troughs on the outside of the shed.

If you are collecting the water into storage tanks, make sure that you can empty and rinse them periodically. Seagulls roosting on the roof might deposit Salmonella, depending on which rubbish dump they visit, but I can't think of any other disease risk.

 

[Ballygreenan]

Bird droppings is one potential source of contamination, rotting leaves ect lying in gutters is another

 

[Chasingmytail]

why not fit a filter system? I am sure plenty of people use a special filter under the sink. Try some of the sustainable living FB pages.

 

[Bald Rick]

Was thinking on this and concluded that it’s a total waste of time as our “rainfall events” now seem to consist of it pissing down for a few hours then dry (esp spring to autumn although seasons are moving) so the chances of collecting usable amounts of water to use over a time period are limited. Better with a borehole

 

[Longlowdog]

Surely it would be no more difficult to do this than for folk drinking water from a borehole? Ours is pumped from borehole to a 2k litre tank, through a particulate filter and a UV light and a recommended but optional ph rectifier. Bit bigger scale but simply has to be cheaper than metered water even after allowing for consumables.

 

[brigadoon]

Water a shed this way - get some chlorine tablets and dose the storage tanks on a regular basis, use black tanks to prevent algal growth, clean the gutters.

 

[Tarw Coch]

I’ve got a few troughs like this about the yard, never caused any problems.

 

[som farmer]

sounds a good idea, but sometimes there have been 1000's of starlings on our roofs, not this year though ! And we have a resident white pigeon, stock doves etc, if anybody can convince me that, we should be harvesting the water, and use it for the dairy to drink, please try. At the very least, you would have to have a pretty complex filter/treatment system. On the other hand, red tractor might love it !!!!!

 

[dannewhouse]

Whenever I have costed and calculated it properly it's not cost effective imo.

You need a large holding capacity to use any real amount, I'm talking towards 10k litres for the 100 head cattle I costed it for.

If you plan to pump the water, this reduces any savings considerably so needs to feed from down pipe into tank then out tank to trough, (best to use low pressure ball valve on troughs) then my idea was to add a mains supply to the holding tank maintaininng say 10" of water, the chlorine etc will help against some problems but you need a fancy ballcock which is above water level when tank full, I found one that worked with a float/weight on a string.

The return for me was a lot of years. Very easy using mains, also have a "second supply" which helps ease costs!

 

[som farmer]

we used to 'top' up our own spring supply, simply by putting a ballcock in the resevoir, 10ins above the bottom, worked really well, every thing on low pressure. Put a borehole in, and pumped direct to resevoir, on a timer, again worked very well, and saved a water bill. Trouble started, when we powered up the system, to enable us to get water, where their was none, low pressure is one thing, high pressure is another, hoping we have found all the blown joiners etc, taken a few years, and a lot of new pipe, but the savings are huge, 280 dairy stock, drink an awful lot of water.

 

[dannewhouse]

we used to 'top' up our own spring supply, simply by putting a ballcock in the resevoir, 10ins above the bottom, worked really well, every thing on low pressure. Put a borehole in, and pumped direct to resevoir, on a timer, again worked very well, and saved a water bill. Trouble started, when we powered up the system, to enable us to get water, where their was none, low pressure is one thing, high pressure is another, hoping we have found all the blown joiners etc, taken a few years, and a lot of new pipe, but the savings are huge, 280 dairy stock, drink an awful lot of water.

Your not supposed to ever let the water level get above a ballcock ...

 

[som farmer]

Your not supposed to ever let the water level get above a ballcock ...

what they don't know, doesn't concern them, the metre was best part of a mile away from there, we only 'powered' up, when the pipe was getting 'leaky', as it went across 3 different farmers fields, before ours, and along a road verge, decided easier to remove meter ! So, presumably, we are 'compliant' now.!!!

 

[neilo]

what they don't know, doesn't concern them, the metre was best part of a mile away from there, we only 'powered' up, when the pipe was getting 'leaky', as it went across 3 different farmers fields, before ours, and along a road verge, decided easier to remove meter ! So, presumably, we are 'compliant' now.!!!

'They' know because the water companies are employing clipboard warriors doing unannounced spot checks on farms (or actually all supplied businesses) looking for just that. The fella I had visit said they were aiming to do all farms in time.

I have a 10000L rainwater harvesting tank in, but use it only for sprayer water. It's not worth the hassle or expensive of fitting anything up for the amount of drinking water my stock use. I have a 'topping up' ballcock as described above ( https://www.kiwikit.co.uk/product/rainaid-valve/ ) and he still insisted I make a letterbox shaped overflow hole in the tank, below the level of that valve (apparently a round hole could be blocked by a loose float of the valve broke). I have an isolating tap on the line to that ballcock, but that's not enough because of the 'what if' scenarios on his clipboard...

He did say they had cut letterbox openings in lots of old water troughs on previous inspections too, where the service boxes weren't sat above the side of the trough.

 

[som farmer]

and we all have to pay for it, just been advised by the EA to fit a metre on our borehole, why ? so we can see how much you use. Is it illegal not to have one ? no. so no metre. Asked to buy some ordinary 1/2 ball cocks, for a friend in cornwall, he had had a water inspection, had to change every drinking tank, over to the new ones, with the bit of plastic pipe on top, which keeps the water safer ! None of the trough lids would fit, properly with them ! normal ones here were cheaper. He's at the end of a low pressure pipe, at the bottom of a long track, with a steep hill behind him, with the water coming from the top. Serious risk of polluting the mains, given 14 days to alter, and they came and checked ! End of line, as well.

 

[Northeastfarmer]

Be better off with a borehole for pigs