Effective Tips for Homesteaders to Harvest Rainwater

Homesteading is a perfect way of living if you want to be self-sufficient in terms of foods and amenities available to your home. One aspect of homesteading is maintaining the water storage. Rainwater is one of viable sources of water which can be used for drinking as well as other purposes.

Nevertheless, if you want to do the rainwater harvesting, you are going to have to choose the purpose of that rainwater. The way you store water is dependent on this purpose. You can use this water for cleaning, laundry, bathing and even drinking.

Based on what you want to do with the water you can design the storage and filtration mechanism. For instance, if you want to store water for gardening, you are not going to have to worry about filtering water. As a matter of fact, the presence of debris in the water may act like compost. However, it is not the water that you want to use for bathing, laundry and cleaning. You will have to install a filtration system to use this water for such purposes.

Legal laws related to rainwater harvesting

Rainwater harvesting is legal in most of the states. As a matter of fact, some of the state laws encourage this practice. However, there is a permission required for rainwater harvesting in some of the states. And in some states, collecting rainwater is entirely prohibited. Therefore, you need to check legal regulations regarding rainwater harvesting before you do something in this regard.

Now, we are going to mention a few tips that you can use to harvest rainwater.

Find the right equipment

To set up a water filtration system at your home, you are going to need only a few components. The first and foremost piece of equipment is the barrel in which the water will be stored. One major miscalculation that people make while buying a barrel is not paying attention to its size. You may require more water and the barrel you have might not have enough storage capacity.

You will also need several water buckets lying around in your property. If you want to use water for cleaning, bathing and drinking, you will need the buckets which are made of food-grade materials.

Most of the barrels available in the market have the capacity to store 275 gallons of water. And they are usually equipped with the spigot and center top and side bungs. They are fully enclosed in order to keep the additional dirt and debris out of the barrel.

Proper water filtration becomes pretty much necessary if you want to use rainwater for drinking and cooking. Therefore, you are going to need to attach a water filtration system with the supply that runs to the barrels to store water.

Maintain your equipment

You are going to have to do much more than buying food grade materials if you want to keep the water as clean as possible. Make it a habit to perform yearly maintenance of this entire system to make sure that it is functioning the way it should be.

The maintenance includes cleaning out your barrel, the gutter, rain heads, and water diverters. Moreover, you will have to replace any malfunctioning parts to make sure that stored water quality is not affected.