Q&A for How to Collect Rainwater

You can use it to water plants, keep it in a bowl for stray birds, wash your car with it or for bathing your pets if you have any. These are just some of the things you can do with rainwater.

For non-drinking purposes, such as bathing or clothes washing, running the water through charcoal and sand will clean it of most impurities. For drinking, additional purification is required through heating, chemical, ozonefiltering or other methods, in order to kill bacterial growth and pathogens.

The water which you collected from the rain saucer, or from the roof of the house is supplied to the big containers with a pipe line and is connected to the bore.

Use items such as watering cans, a children's pool and pots.

Yes, you can use rainwater to water your garden. If storing the rainwater in a container, just be sure to close the container so insects don't find their way in. If you want to purity the water, you can boil it and let it cool prior to using.

Yes.

Keep it covered when it is not in use. Those small insects may very well be mosquitoes, which can cause several health problems for you. I suggest you get rid of that water and collect more, this time keeping it covered.

$20.00 average cost for a 55 gallon barrel + $10.00 for spigot and .5 hour of your time.

It depends if you keep the water moving or stationary. Moving the water around will keep the water clean longer that a stationary storage unit.

Drip irrigation is a form of irrigation that saves water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of many different plants, either onto the soil surface or directly onto the root zone, through a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters.

Find out what's the best way to recycle the water you use for showering, washing dishes, etc. Maybe you could use that on plants that you have on your balcony or garden once it's filtered.

Running it through a bed of charcoal and sand will purify it enough for non-drinking purposes. If you want to drink it, you need to purify it further, which is typically done using chlorine-based chemicals. You can buy them (they are typically provided in survival kits), but buying in bulk can be a bit dodgy, as chlorine-based chemicals can be dangerous.

If it rains on the hill, you can catch that rainwater. You could use gravity instead of a pump to move the water downhill to a tank, if you want.

It depends on your location, since pH changes from place to place. You might have to treat it.

CPVC is more stable and won't corrode as fast as PVC. It's more resistant to sunlight and temperatures and better for the outside environment.