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View Poll Results: Do you harvest Rain water ?
Yes 66 44.00%
No 14 9.33%
I will do in future . 68 45.33%
I dont need it . 2 1.33%
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Old 14th March 2012, 15:06   #61
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re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

In Bengaluru, since it rains for a lot many days of the year (not heavy), its very useful to filter and use it directly rather than only using it to recharge ground water?
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Old 14th March 2012, 15:08   #62
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re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

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Originally Posted by srishiva View Post
In Bengaluru, since it rains for a lot many days of the year (not heavy), its very useful to filter and use it directly rather than only using it to recharge ground water?
Ideally if you can catch the rain directly without it falling anywhere else ,I read you can drink it straight .Rain water is purest water .We need to filter it bcos it falls on roof and roof is might have garbage dirt and dust .
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Old 14th March 2012, 15:54   #63
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re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

^^ Yes, the roof needs to be cleaned regularly, to ensure a clear supply, and to prevent the filter from getting choked up too often.

Fortunately in my case , there are no tree branches above the roof, so no headache of bird droppings, leaves, rotten fruits / flowers and the like, so cleaning once or twice a week is quite sufficient
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Old 14th March 2012, 21:55   #64
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re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

I had this done for our home in 2010.
The water from the terrace is routed via down pipes to a Rainy FL-150 filter and then the filtered water is led to the borewell to recharge it. Made a lot of sense since we hardly get BWSSB/Cauvery water supply in our locality and hence we rely on the borewell, so payback time ! Total setup came to less than 14K - the main cost being that of the filter (about 7K) and the rest for pipes, plumbing and minor civil work.
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Old 25th March 2012, 20:51   #65
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Rainwater Harvesting for home use

I live in a place called Areeplachy, near Punalur in Kerala. Our house is on top of a hill, and during summer months the wells used to dry up. In the 50's my father discovered rain water conservation practices that helped keep our wells charged even during extremely dry summers. He then developed methods for rain water harvesting too. I give below a few pictures for other bhpians who may want to practice rain water harvesting on serious scales.
Please remember that rain water conservation and rain water harvesting are two concepts. Both are vital, and both are different.

I give this now because, rain water harvested systems are after all limited to the tank capacities and catchment areas. My tank has started drying up as usual, and this time I am going to tap our large one acre rain water reservoir for the first time. I'll start work tomorrow, and maybe I can post a few pics of that too.

I have tried to explain things in simple terms. Your own ingenuity should help you device improvements.
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Old 25th March 2012, 22:51   #66
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting for home use

Oh! I forgot to mention that this water is NOT used for drinking. Bathing, washing, garden, etc... YES. We have another water well for potable water. That one is recharged by natural rainwater conservation measures, which gives safe drinking water. This tank on the other hand is, shall we say, overclocked?
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Old 25th March 2012, 23:40   #67
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting for home use

Nice depiction! And a very good technique too! Now in today's world, having this much real estate to store water is the biggest problem. And to me the well looks QUITE deep too. Am sure it can scare some people with the total depth.

Off-Topic:
Do we have a compound wall surrounding this well? Unless, I would see this as a threat when we have children playing around in the courtyard.
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Old 25th March 2012, 23:59   #68
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting for home use

There are 2 different kinds of Rain water harvesting.

1) Ground charge method - Where a deep pit is dug in the ground, and a little plumbing done near the roof and few water collecting spots on the house roof, all the water is directed to the secured pit. This improves the ground water level by dissipating water deep into the ground, thus charging the ground with water.

2) Recycle method - A very simple equipments when it comes to Rainwater Harvesting for Homes, All the water collecting spots on a house is marked and proper plumbing is made which helps collect water. All this is centered to one single pipe ( Just like Headers) which joins at a Filter, ( 3 filtering process including Charcoal, and other filtering materials encased in a PVC box) and the outlet is connected to the house underwater sump tank. This water can be re-used for domestic purposes.

We have gone in for the second method and trust me, its good to know, we are conserving a natural resource.
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Old 26th March 2012, 23:05   #69
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

We began work on laying the pipeline to tap harvested rainwater, from a quarry tank, the quarry was intended for rain water harvesting by my father, but it took almost fifty years to be completed. I am happy to say we pumped up the first few litres this evening. Our existing 1hp submersible is not strong enough, so we will have to fit a more powerful one. I have a piston pump that can pump 250 mtrs vertical, but it is three phase, and the discharge is abysmal. I am sorry the pictures show only scenery. I ended up with an awful headache from sun stroke and so after the morning pics, I just got fed up.
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Old 26th March 2012, 23:10   #70
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

@swiftnfurious, I agree the tank is rather deep. There were walls, but in 1992 we had a great deal of rain and two side walls slid into the tank, A couple of years ago the third wall fell in too. I've built green fencing and planted Vetiver grass to hold the soil in place till I was ready for repairs. Now that we have begun to tap our new reservoir, I should be able to repair our trusty home tank.
Thank you very much for sharing the concern. Perceptive arn't you?
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Old 2nd April 2012, 13:05   #71
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting for home use

Quote:
Originally Posted by tomthump View Post
Oh! I forgot to mention that this water is NOT used for drinking. Bathing, washing, garden, etc... YES. We have another water well for potable water. That one is recharged by natural rainwater conservation measures, which gives safe drinking water. This tank on the other hand is, shall we say, overclocked?
Very impressive work by your dad. Truly important issue with water becoming so scarce these days.

I have a couple of questions as I would like to do something similar on our estate in Coorg.

Is the water that is now collected potable or easily filtered/cleaned to be potable. If not, is the water at least usable for other work in the house. I ask these questions as we are doing something similar in our house in that we have a borewell which water we use for everything and a well from which we pump for the kitchen only and use that for drinking water via a water purifier. Ideally I want to rationalise it and use one tank for everything.

Is the big pit a mud pit or a concrete/brick pit.

How do you filter out the floating debris when you pump the water.

Do you have a major silt problem at the bottom of the tank and if so, how do you clean it out, or has your tank become shallower now with silt collecting at the bottom.

How often do you need to keep changing the filters.

Mod team note: Removing [Font] tags, please avoid copy paste from external font editors, also do a preview before submitting posts. Thanks

Last edited by Jaggu : 4th April 2012 at 12:14. Reason: Removing [Font] tags, please avoid copy paste from external font editors, also do a preview before submitting posts. Thanks
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Old 2nd April 2012, 22:54   #72
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pganapathy

(Very impressive work by your dad. Truly important issue with water becoming so scarce these days.)
=============
A very cumbersome process I can assure you! So the next time it happened, I let it be. The mud sinks to the bottom, but whenyou have almosr forty feet of depth two or three feet of silt is not an issue.
(How often do you need to keep changing the filters.
)
I put in the charcoal last time (mybfirst time) in 1996. It is overdue for replacement. Thank you for asking. I've been wanting to do it. I think we will do it this year in 2012. We need to make our own charcoal, which IS cumbersome. You need a fifteen feet odd wide one and a half feet deep pit filled with big logs piled four or five feet high, covered with green leaves and packed with wet mud. You need a personwho knows hpw to do things right so that you get good wood charcoal instead of a pilebof ashes.

Mod team: Please avoid Quoting entire large post for replies, effects readability. Thanks

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Old 3rd April 2012, 20:51   #73
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If you are looking for a high quality durable water filter, one of the best in the market is the dusc filters by Ein-Tal, Israel. We used to sell these when we dealt with FAN-JETS and Drippers as dealers for the now defunct NTB Bowsmith Irrigation, Pune. NTB tried to offer irrigation equipment by the the world's best manufacturers.
For rainwater filtration, or for other purposes, disc filters are very good. I do not know if these are still available in India. Maybe Jain Irrigation will have them.

http://www.ein-tal.com/index_files/Page708.htm
You search more information by browsing back from the above link.
Hope this will be useful for someone.
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Old 10th August 2012, 10:12   #74
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

Guys, I dont know if this is a right thread for my query , but this is one was close enough in the search results.

So there is this big, famous builder , who has bought a piece of land near where I live and started construction on it.
Apparently, the land on which he is constructing seems to be an extremely rich source of ground water. While laying foundations about 6 months ago , they started pumping it out, at the rate of atleast a lakh liters a day (My guess). They are still doing it , 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They simply let the water flow out into an open drain outside the premises. This has been going on for about 6 months now.
Even in peak summer there was simply no let up in the force/volume of water being pumped out.
Right now, cabbies/small CV owners and others use this water to wash their vehicles for free.

My question is : What could have been done to preserve such a nice source of water ? Do the municipal authorities have some responbility in this ?
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Old 10th August 2012, 10:57   #75
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Re: Rainwater Harvesting - have you done this? EDIT: Pictorial on Page 5

Quote:
Originally Posted by sajo View Post
Guys, I dont know if this is a right thread for my query , but this is one was close enough in the search results.

----
My question is : What could have been done to preserve such a nice source of water ? Do the municipal authorities have some responbility in this ?
Criminal wastage. This could come to an end if the legislation on ground water comes into play. Apparently, the legislation would in an attempt to recognise ground water as public property. prevent land owners from digging their own borewells for private or commercial use. They will have to get some license to do the same. How effective this will be is not apparent yet, but something is happening towards such indiscriminate extraction.

In Bangalore, resident welfare associations of some gated community layouts have started preventing use of the layout borewell for construction purposes - instead the new plot construction has to source its water from outside (tankers). The idea is when they have to pay for something, the use is regulated.

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