flush your toilet with rain water

[xboxman]

i was thinking when my toilet got plugged up with calcium deposits or what ever this stuff is thats in my city water.

so i was thinking about getting a 55 gallon drum or 2 and hook my gutter to the drums and use a small DC water pump with a solar panel and hook this to my toilet tank then rig a float switch to fill the tank then i wont have this calcium deposits in my toilet and save on my water bill all at the same time .

this wont work in the winter unless you all can think of something for winter ?

 so any one have any ideas that i have not thought of yet ?

thanks

[vawtman]

Hi Gameman

 It does help to clean the innards once and awhile.

 Has long has the collection tanks are higher than the tank level no pumps would be needed.

 Has far has winter goes, that will take some creativity to have a tank above the tank indoors.

 Maybe put a cool decor on it.

[xboxman]

yeah i have had this one for about 10 years now ....with no cleaning at all LOL

thanks for the tank ideas

i think i can save about 100 gallons per month with the rain water

[Norm]

  I tried that once saved enough water in one day

just from 170 sq.ft of roof to fill 2 55 gal drums

...were very wasteful but it was enough to flush

the toilet for 2 days..that was about 1/5 of my roof area . Just dipped a 3 gallon bucket in one

of the barrels and dumped directly in the bowl.

  I figure for every gallon of water I use from

the city I'm charged $.005 tp get it and $.005

for sewerage....(they get you coming and going)

so for flushing with rainwater I could save about

$15 a month on my $60 average water and sewerage

bill. But that is not the only place I could save....if I used it for washing clothes and bath...I could also save on soap....soft water is

terriffic for washing.

             ( :>) Norm.  

[scottsAI]

Hello gameman,

Many stories out there on collecting rain water. Too many to list.

Most systems divert the first 5 to 10 minutes of the rain water before collecting it.

Cleans off the roof first. Pollution stuff.

Simple automatic systems, fill a bucket up first the weight pulls a lever to divert the water into the storage tank. Small hole in bucket, self drains allowing automatic reset.

RV pumps are low cost, have internal pressure switch for simple systems.

Check on eBay, found them for $25 to $40 including shipping.

SHURFLO 2.8 gpm 40psi seems to be durable. Flojet, aquajet...

For systems with dual sources, I bring in a second pipe, turn off the house water and connect to the alternate source. (can switch over quickly if something goes wrong)

Have fun,

Scott.

[Volvo farmer]

Scott, do you have any links on how to build one of those roof washers? I gathered up over 2000 gallons this summer and it's sitting in a below-grade tank waiting for me to need it for gardening in the spring.

I searched twice on the web for roof washers but didn't really come up with anything I could build.

[zap]

Hey Volvo have you seen this pdf? http://www.twdb.state.tx.us/publications/reports/RainwaterHarvestingManual_3rdedition.pdf

Maybe you could rig something like this.  The purple line is the actual diverter and the green line is chain, string, etc.





Square downspout would probably be easier.  The red bucket all by itself shows the drain hole in the bottom and a cut out in the rear up next to the downspout so rainwater could still flow in when it starts tipping.  You might need to do a small lip at the bottom of the hole in the downspout to fill the bucket up enough.  You'd have to play with the bucket and hole sizes.  The only problem is the system would cycle some unless the hole in the bottom of the bucket was real small.  I'm not sure what you'd do in winter.

I've never tried anything like it but it seems like it should work.

[jimovonz]

That would do the trick but I think it is more complicated than it needs to be. I use rain/roof water exclusively and it is common here in NZ. My system simply has a T in the 4" feed to the tank (5000gal) with a piece of pipe on it big enough to hold about 10 gallons of water. There is an irrigation dripper in the end along with a screw cap to allow for cleaning. This pipe has a floating ball in it that rises up to the 'T' as the pipe fills with water. When the ball reaches the top it blocks that side of the T and water flows into the tank. After the rain stops the pipe slowly empties via the dripper. Has worked fine for years and I clean it out a couple of times a year (we have no trees or anything that sheds bits onto the roof!) I did add a bit of fine stainless mesh in the end of the pipe to hep keep the dripper free.

[scottsAI]

Hello Volvo farmer,

http://www.irc.nl/page/29189

Bunch of follow up links for different systems.

Article discussing the amount of first flush based on location.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/eng/research/dtu/rain/martinson-ff.pdf

System designs

http://www.itdg.org/docs/technical_information_service/rainwater_harvesting.pdf

How this?

Have fun,

Scott.

[zap]

That's why I included the pdf file.  On page 9 you'll find a picture of just about the exact same system you use.

[thefinis]

Should have known where that file was from before I opened it. I have several friends who run their homes on just rain water most of the time. LOL One of them uses well water to flush their tolit so as not to waste the rain water. The best I have seen as in ease of use and ability to drop out the dirt is one where the downspouts have a T just under the gutters(3' or 4' pipe not sure which) and the pipe to the tank leads off this horizonally. The downspout pipe then goes to ground level with an elbow and a screw cap fitting. The cap has a small hole drilled to slowly drain the standpipe between rains. Every so often he removes the cap while still standing full of water to flush the pipe or if system tanks are full. You have to have a leaf screen in place before the water enters the downspout.

If you can put the catchment tanks in a nonfreezing area then you should catch water anytime it gets warm enough to thaw the ice or snow if your downspout to tank pipes don't stand water in the winter. The standpipes would not work well for this as they would most likely freeze before draining when the temp starts to drop or they might drain water as fast as it thawed.

Here is one of those "What the F---ing H--l are they thinking of" items. The state of Colorado,USA has declared that it is illegal to catch your rain water as they own it. Not sure what started this but my guess is it had something to do with snow melt.

Finis

[Titantornado]

>  Here is one of those "What the F---ing H--l are

>  they thinking of" items. The state of Colorado,USA

>  has declared that it is illegal to catch your rain

>  water as they own it. Not sure what started this

>  but my guess is it had something to do with snow melt.

Ha, yea, they own the rain now, eh?  Wonder what else they own. The clouds?  The air? Uh oh, maybe the wind?!?!?  Heck, why stop there?  How about the sun?  Yup, I can see that happening.  No rain, wind, or sun can be harvested, as the state owns it.

You laugh, but one third of that statement is already true.

[Titantornado]

Do away with the pump altogether.  If the water drum is higher than the toilet tank, you don't need it.

[thirteen]

If you are going to use rain water the barrels should be made of plastic. Some oil distributing companies have them free. You could put the barrels up in the attic but for freezing maybe in the garage they could be stacked two or three high if braced. A solar pump could pump the water upstairs for usage down. Find out what amount of water is needed to flush the toilets maybe you could decrease the water needed. A half gallon is a half gallon. In some areas they are haveing acidic rain.  In some places they charge you for the summer rates a set fee because of the extra water usage. Maybe if your system works you could maybe ask for a reduced fee. Would a waterless compost toilet work for your household?  I would suggest you get a water filter for your coffee or just for drinking water.

[nothing to lose]

Here is another great water saving tip for you.

Try to wash all your clothes in one day or 2 days together. Fill washer as normal, use cold water (big business guys are saying it's just as good now, since they trained so many people to use hot already).

When the wash cycle ends dump the water as normal, it's dirty and yucky. Let the washer fill and run the rinse cycle, CATCH the rinse water in a barrel, rinse water is pretty much clean water and some soap. Next load fill washer with used rinse water from first load. Let the washer dump that wash water, catch the rinse water again for the next load.

 Do this till you run out of dirty clothes to wash! You will save about 50% of the water you would normally use for each load of clothes, depending on washers and settings, but it's alot of water in any top load washer!

That rinse water is plenty clean enough for wash water. Don't let it stand around for days or weeks, it will get nasty, so the last load just let it dump, or filter and flush toilets with it

Hey, filter that wash water and dump in a few tablespoons of Clorox and flush toilets with that

 I would not drink it, but who cares for flushing toilets!

[mkseps]

take a look at:

www.solorb.com/elect/solarcirc/tanlfill/index.html

Gene

[mkseps]

Sorry:

It should read:

www.solorb.com/elect/solarcirc/tankfill/index/html

Gene

[mkseps]

try this:

www.solorb.com/elect/solarcirc/tankfill

[Jeff]

I've been using rain water, and rinse water from the washing machine to flush the commode for 4 years now. I use one 55 gallon drum indoors, and it's higher than the tank on the commode, so no pump required. I did later add a clear tube to more easily see the level in the drum. Rather than adding any system to allow the rain water to "flush off" the roof, there's a simple gate valve (on/off) just before it goes into the drum. After it rains 10-15 minutes, if the tank needs water, I turn it on. There's another on/off valve and a "Y" on the output of the washing machine. I can honestly say "in 4 years, I have not had to pump a bit of water to flush the commode".