Now Playing: "No Regrets" Authority Zero
I (successfully?) built my first rain barrel this evening. I will hopefully post pictures when I get more of them done. I was surprised when the hardest part of the whole enterprise turned out to be trying to find a saw that will cut 4x4s in a straight line. My dad's circular saw is a piece of shit.
One thing that always amazes me is how easy things turn out to be. like building a wall. it looks hard, but its easy once you actually do it.
anyway, back to rain barrels. I read someplace that the roof of an average sized house collects roughly 200 gallons of water per quarter inch of rain. thats a lot of water. to put it in perspective-- new shower heads are suppose to limit water usage to 2.5 gallons/minute or less. Thus, if you take a 10 minute shower, you could be using something around 25 gallons of water.
Now, if you get your water, whether city or private, from a well or well field, you've just washed yourself with fossil water-- water that has been underground for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Its the same water that you use for washing dishes, or watering your yard, or flushing your toilet. Have you ever drank the water out of your toilet? you could. its the same water that comes out of your faucet.
This always kind of gets me. It seems pointless to use perfectly good potable water for flushing shit, especially when your house is a great non-potable water collection device. I think our toilet upstairs uses around 3 gallons of water per flush. There is also the fact that at least 50% of household waste water is "greywater." This is water used by washing (the aforementioned shower?); that is its "dirty" but not "polluted" with sewage. Such water would be great for toilets. So, imagine this-- a filtered rainwater cistern that could be used for washing that could then be used for sewage. Such a system would drastically reduce a household's water consumption. Just a thought . . . .
One thing that always amazes me is how easy things turn out to be. like building a wall. it looks hard, but its easy once you actually do it.
anyway, back to rain barrels. I read someplace that the roof of an average sized house collects roughly 200 gallons of water per quarter inch of rain. thats a lot of water. to put it in perspective-- new shower heads are suppose to limit water usage to 2.5 gallons/minute or less. Thus, if you take a 10 minute shower, you could be using something around 25 gallons of water.
Now, if you get your water, whether city or private, from a well or well field, you've just washed yourself with fossil water-- water that has been underground for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Its the same water that you use for washing dishes, or watering your yard, or flushing your toilet. Have you ever drank the water out of your toilet? you could. its the same water that comes out of your faucet.
This always kind of gets me. It seems pointless to use perfectly good potable water for flushing shit, especially when your house is a great non-potable water collection device. I think our toilet upstairs uses around 3 gallons of water per flush. There is also the fact that at least 50% of household waste water is "greywater." This is water used by washing (the aforementioned shower?); that is its "dirty" but not "polluted" with sewage. Such water would be great for toilets. So, imagine this-- a filtered rainwater cistern that could be used for washing that could then be used for sewage. Such a system would drastically reduce a household's water consumption. Just a thought . . . .
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