Snowbird Homesteading Desert and Forest... Guess our plans changed

Two questions...1) why do you have to filter it if it is just for the plants and trees? 2) are you going to keep the tank in the shade?

I am looking at the same kind of system for my house, but I don't know how to keep the water cool enough. The system I have rigged right now gets the water very hot during our 110 degree days here.

 

I have had one of the black ones now for almost 15 years and never a problem. Also, with black, no alge grows as their is no sunlight.

 

Helixx,

With 14" of rain, how much water will you be able to collect? Not sure what your roof sizes are but that doesn't sound like a lot of water, especially if you have 4 horses to water.

 

14/12=1.167
1.167x5000=5835 ft^3
5835x7.5=43762.5 gallons

that's about 44k gallons per annum not taking into account evaporation

 

You left your units off, Blob...Took me a minute to translate your math.

14 inches/12 months =1.167 inches of rain per month = 0.1 feet of rain per month

0.1 feet of rain per month x5000 sq. ft. house roof = 500 ft^3 of water per month

500 ft^3 of water x7.5 (there are 7.5 gallons in 1 ft^3 of water)=3750 gallons per month

3750 gallons per month x 12 months =45000 gallons per year.

Both of our work involves some rounding, which will account for the relatively slight differences in our final answer. In short:

I concur with Blob's mathematics and his reasoning, and believe us to both have come up with a reasonable expectation for the amount of rain water that will be collected.

 

That should be enough for the animals and land. I'm assuming the well is in play for human use.

 

weeeeem all that math just is over my head, I could tell you how much water I had in a 5 gallon bucket if it rained till it filled it full , an the dogs didn't drink out of it but then again maybe I would have to figure in if it eveoprates before I get out to mesure it..Im so Thank full some are so smart to take up slack for us who are lacking ..

 

Beanpicker-it's not that bad. I wrote out all the units (gallons, sq and cubic feet, etc) so that people could follow along the math.

I know it sure doesn't seem like it, but there are supposedly 7.5 gallons in one ft^3 of water. Just looking at it, to me a gallon milk jug looks almost like a cubic foot, but numbers don't lie.

 

we've had 8.1 inches of rainfall just this month (more than double average), which makes me wonder if the summer will drier & hotter than normal :dunno:

the two acre pond water level has risen about 2 feet due to all the runoff!

that's an estimated 1.3 million gallons of water added to the estimated 10.5 million gallons already there

the almanac predicted lower than avg precipitation for this area for every month except April (+1") and August (+1")

 

:woohoo:

You guys with the math ... just ROCK!!!

 

Jason, as my grand kids say,"Thats over your head grandma" ,, but I have a son like you he can figuer how many hairs are on a person head I bet,,, hee hee