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50 comments on Abundant Skies: 8 Principles for Successful Rainwater Harvesting
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50 comments on Abundant Skies: 8 Principles for Successful Rainwater Harvesting
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Very nice post! Even though I have two good shallow wells on my property, one of them only eight years old, a good high water table, and decent yearly rainfall, I have been researching putting in a medium sized rainwater collection system for potable water consumption. The wells I use exclusively for agricultural use and fairly soon for my washing machine and toilets (composting toilets are too expensive). My drinking water is from a private provider and expensive. Even the most stringent water consumption I still have a minimum fee to pay, one I would like to eliminate as I further reduce my income. My house roof is an asphalt one, but my pole barn is metal so it is a perfect candidate for water collection. I have also been considering putting in a small pond in a ravine on the north side of my property, but I’ll have to test to see if the rainfall is sufficient to fill it; I suspect it is as many in my township have homemade ponds. Any experience with the black plastic cisterns? I was thinking of putting one on a six foot high platform so I can have decent water flow.
Siwmae (Hiya) Bruce!
My composting john consists of three containers in a small compartment: a bucket to sit on (tall and capacious, with comfortable seat); a smaller bucket containing variable mixes of sawdust, dry soil, forest floor duff, and wood-ash, and a pint-volume scoop (throw in one scoopful after each sit-down); and finally, for liquids, a gallon plastic can on a cord, to hold it suspended at standing dick level.
That's it. Cost? Can't be much, Mostly I scavenged and improvised. (My semi-detached partner lives in her own house with a flushing john, all very orthodox and dainty -- for now....)
All solids and liquids at my place are caught, mostly separately, though that's not absolutely crucial, but keeping the liquid out of the solids bucket helps to keep the smell of the whole john sweet and foresty. All the products of my john go back, via composting systems, to my permaculture ground. Fatal phosphate bottleneck? What bottleneck!
I admit that I've not yet solved the problem of converting women to this system -- and maybe hyper-fastidious men. But the average male shlub can cope with it without a thought. With women, it's not the technical matter of separating the liquids from the solids as they sit which is problematic. That technique has been solved very ingeniously, and can be seen in action at the place of a friend of mine at Fachwen, Arfon, Gwynedd, Cymru Gogledd (North Wales to English-speakers), Britain. Google 'Cae Mabon' and then look for the 'Loo with a view' page. This splendid structure serves several hundred visitors a year, of both sexes, and works faultlessly, without any flush water whatever. No, the problem with women is the matter of -- perhaps too much -- fastidiousness, encouraged by our unsustainable hitech lifestyles right now in the over-prosperous (for a short while longer) West. But that will adjust, I think, perforce.
Incidentally, this post contrasts starkly with the techno-optimist eega-beeva chat over on yesterday's guest post by Bill James. Guess which post strikes me as most persuasive........
But I suppose that future reality will -- with luck -- be some unguessable blend of the two approaches, plus other serendipity that we can even guess at the moment.
Thanx for the reply and the info! I used to collect my urine via a homemade urinal years ago and I need to get back to doing that. It was great for kicking my compost during the winter. I’m thinking of installing a urinal on the wall and plumbing it to a collection barrel where there is a slope on the south side of the house. I’d kind of like to have a crapper that would be a little more sophisticated than a bucket or require a separate building with two holding areas (the minute I would build a separate structure the assessor would raise my property taxes). If anyone knows where there are plans or blueprints for a composting toilet system that uses no or little energy, either on the web, magazine, or in book form I would greatly appreciate the info. Not using my Norweco septic system for processing feces would greatly reduce the aeration requirements in the processing tank.
It's not strictly "composting," but take a look at the Sunny John mouldering toilet system.
Also, the classic Humanure Handbook is available to read free online.
Jeff beat me to it. I've lent a paper copy of Jenkins' book to a dozen people. All were skeptical (as was I), now hold graduate degrees (whatever that's worth), and accepted the practicality and safety of Jenkins' system after reading the book. Four of the twelve have put the system to practise.
I may or may not have used the composting toilet system described in Jenkins' book for the last four years. The possible experience may have led me to the conclusion that the system described is simple, cheap, nearly fool-proof, and except for a few minutes while dumping buckets into the compost bin, stink-free. No need to seperate liquids from solids either. Just do your business and cover with a scoop or two of sawdust.
I may or may not have experience with the syste, but my wife most certainly has not (but she's fine with a commercial composting toilet that is in the works for the house we're building).
"I was thinking of putting one on a six foot high platform so I can have decent water flow"
Not sure what you mean by "decent flow rate", but I put a 500 litre tank on a 6ft platform in the vegetable garden to improve the water flow rate. I shouldn't have bothered. I then did what I should've done in the first place and calculated the height necessary to give a decent flow rate. IIRC to get 2bar pressure the tank needed to be something like 17 meters high. Doh!
In my case, the old saw - "Too great haste leads us to error" - is yet again proved correct :(
Thank you for the advice.