Stop Stream Pollution And Save Money With Rainwater Harvesting

Many people don't think about capturing rainwater from the impervious surfaces it falls upon. This is a very important reason to consider a rainwater collection system of your own.

 

 

Even though we have some occurrences of acid rain, for the most part rainwater is clean. Traveling through the air, it remains clean until it hits an object on the earth's surface.

 

Asphalt paving has oils and pollutants that are washed free by the rain as it falls. Roofing also has contaminates that are free to flow along with the water as do most of the exterior objects that rain strikes coming to the ground.

 

This polluted water runs into streams, rivers, and oceans if it is not detained in some manner. Detention and retention ponds help to slow down the pollution somewhat, but they can use all the help they can get. Every home that has rainwater harvesting helps to reduce the pollution of our streams.

 

 

You would be very surprised to learn how much water can be saved in a year's time just from a small roof. If you know the horizontal area of the roof and the average rainfall for the year, you can quickly calculate how much water you can store every 12 months.

 

The roof area is based on the footprint it has, not the area of the roof. A flat roof over a 500 square foot house receives the same amount of rain as a roof that has a high pitch.

 

The formula is:

 

Collection area, which is length times width for square or rectangular area times inches of rainfall per year. This is divided by 12 to get the cubic feet of water falling on the designated area each year. Next, multiply by 7.48 to get the gallons of water per year. This does not take into consideration evaporation or water lost.

 

For an annual rainfall of just 24 inches, our 500 square foot building thus yields:

 

500 x 24 = 12,000 cu. ft. / 12 = 1,000 x 7.48 = 7,480 gallons per year

 

Of course, for the system to work properly, it is important to have a gutter system where water will be diverted to the downspouts and be collected in containers that won't overflow. Think of how much water you can save just from your roof if you have a large home!

 

A professionally installed rainwater harvesting system will truly surprise you when it comes to its many positive benefits.