During our rainy season, we have really heavy rains, but in the dry season, there is no rain for 5 months. This can make it difficult to water crops. The easy, efficient, and free solution is rainwater harvesting. By doing this, water is available during months when there is no rain and you don't have to use your pipe water. I've read that in some countries it is a requirement that you have a rainwater harvesting system if you are building a house. I believe the Netherlands is one of these places. Do you harvest rainwater? What do you use it for?
My parents live out in the woods and it was hard to get water. They had a well but it was not the best in the world. They would always have big buckets outside to harvest the water when it rained. They would use this water to water the garden and things like that. The problem with leaving buckets of water outside was it would attract mosquitoes.
I do not harvest rainwater...I don't really have any need or desire to, though I can see how it could be ideal in some situations. I'm not sure on this, I've only seen/heard the headlines of it, but it seems a few states here in the US are actually making it illegal to harvest rainwater. I don't agree with that, though, who's to say that the rain is anyone's property?
Open buckets will definitely attract mosquitoes. That's why you have to use barrels with closed lids or build an actual system that holds large amounts of water. I know of people who have rainwater harvesting systems that their whole houses run on. Here, it serves many purposes and if you do not have access to pipe water, which many people do not, it serves an even greater purpose. I don't know about the US, but many countries across the globe encourage rainwater harvesting. This is especially important if you live in an agricultural country.
Most people harvest rain water so they can use it for irrigating their gardens. I'd do the same thing, if I badly needed the water and knew that there'd be a drought or something. Good thing though is where I live water, is so cheap that it wouldn't make a difference if you harvested rain water or not. In any case we pay a monthly flat fee regardless of consumption so even if you used more it wouldn't make a difference.
At different times in my life, i have collected rainwater. If you have piped in water and a plentiful supply, then people usually do not bother to collect rainwater; but if you live where there is a short supply of water, or you have no running water and have to haul in to your home in 55 gallon drums, then collecting rainwater is an important thing. I used to have a 55 gallon drum near the end of the house where the water ran ou of the raingutter. we had lids that were just a square piece of plywood, and that kept bugs out of the water, and we just siphoned out water for the garden. In the winter, we had snow. I would go out with a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with snow, and carry that into the house and put it in the bathtub, and do that until the tub was heaped up with snow. During the night, the warmth of the trailer melted the snow, so then I had water to use for the toilet in the morning. If you are serious about collecting water, then putting a large tank in the ground and running pipes from the rain gutters is the best way to do it. Then you just need a little electric pump or even an RV pump to get the water back out and use it where you need it.
Water is a very important natural resource and harvesting rain water is actually not bad. If you have a water system that do this for use in the house, it will save you a lot in your water consumption bill because you can use the rain water to flush your toilet, water the plants, clean the garage, etc. Of course, you have to make sure that the tank is fully covered to avoid attracting mosquitoes. Also, in some urban cities, they have a sustainable water collection drainage system that gathers rain water to a man made city lake to mitigate flooding in urban centers and add beauty to the local parks where people can relax and at peace with nature.
Yes, we do. We use it to clean the yard, the car, and water the plants. Sometimes, we also use it to clean the restroom that is outside the house. There are many uses to it.
Yes. In countries like my own where water is a challenge, harvesting of rain is very important. Water cannot be taken for granted and how important it is to life. We use the water for many things and it is ideal to have a system that is connected to your home. I really love the idea of running the whole house on rainwater and I know a few people who have intricate systems that do this. Large systems are important here because we have extremely heavy rains. A 55gallon drum fills in less than a minute.
