Rain Water Collection ?

[ccoon520]

Not very well informed, but seems like the eastern US doesn’t have a lot of regulations for water use for a homeowner, but can be very restrictive in the western states.

Riparian rights is a term that comes to mind. Honestly don’t recall what it entails in detail.

Keep in mind most of those regulations are just building permits no restriction on the capacity captured or stored, and in a lot of them it is encouraged that you capture rainwater too. It eases the infrastructure load without tapping into aquafers that farmers use for irrigation during dry spells. Looks like on the west coast the only states that have regulations and don't encourage it are Oregon and Idaho while Nevada (basically a desert so it is kinda understandable the state wants to capture all the water it can get) is the only one that has very limited access to water capture.

I don't include the states like California, New Mexico, Arizona, or Texas because they are regulated but they offer incentives to do it so you get to save money in 2 ways rather than just the lower water consumption.

Other than that it appears that most other states either don't care either way or encourage it without requiring permits.

 

[mikester]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies.
I had seen those IBC Tote things before, but didn't know the name. Kept searching for rain water tank, and those never came up for me unfortunately.

The math that was supplied earlier, for an 8' x 8' roof line to produce 37 gallons of water, with 1-inch of rainfall is amazing... I was not expecting that, but it is obvious math that I should have thought of, as I like math!
With having 3200 square feet of roof line for my shop, this is going to be an overwhelming amount of water.

Regarding the water-Rights, that's not an issue for my situation. This is a property in middle-nowhere Central East Oklahoma, no rules for anything out there, pretty much.

I use the totes as well. I added ABS overflow tubes so I can control where the overflow goes. I also use a hydraulic actuated gate valve run off my loader remotes and use the totes as portable watering cans using my forks.

When you buy them make sure they were used for storing MSDS safe materials, some ignorant/unscrupulous guys sell totes containing carcinogenic or hazardous waste materials.

FYI companies have to pay someone to properly dispose of used totes.

 

[torch]

Riparian rights is a term that comes to mind. Honestly don’t recall what it entails in detail.

Riparian rights are related to surface water, not rain or ground water. In general terms, they are the rights of landowners to the use of a body of water bordering or passing through their land for domestic uses. This could include the drawing of water or construction of a dock. The water is not removed from the watershed. EG: water drawn from a lake eventually makes it's way back through the septic system or through runoff. So a riparian right would not include bottling the water for sale.

I find it strange to hear that it might be illegal to store water for later use in some states. But then, I live in a province with something like 250,000 lakes, so water problems are more likely to involve excess availability than a surfeit. I guess the legislative mindset must be different where water must be carefully husbanded and allocated.

Still, rainwater is just borrowed, not taken. It was just passing through on it's way to the ground; storing it in a tote for a little while before washing the dishes or watering the garden seems like minimal interference in the ultimate outcome.

 

[kenlip]

Depending on your anticipated use of the water, you might want to incorporate a first-flush system. This harvests off the initial few gallons of water, that will contain most of the dirt and contaminants from the roof, before allowing the rest of the, cleaner, water to run to the tank.