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4,000 gallons in 48 hours
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    How to make a huge rainwater cistern

    We had less than 1" of rain between October 2012 and July 2013.  But, now that July is here, the rain season has started, which means that it is Spring, here!

    We received about 2.5" of rain in the last 48 hours.  The rainwater cisterns are filling up!  We caught 4,000 gallons during this period, which is enough to keep our garden watered for an entire year.

    Here's our roof potential:
    House Roof + tank roofs - ~1,000 gallons of water per inch of rain.
    Barn + barn tank - 500 gallons of water per inch of rain.
    Sheds and assorted tanks - 150 gallons per inch of rain.

    TOTAL - 1650 gallons per inch of rain

    For capacity, we have the following:
    House cisterns - 14,500 gallons + new tank(7,000 gallons, under construction)
    Barn Tank - 7,000 gallons
    Shed tanks - 1,500 gallons
    Swimming pool - 2,000 gallons

    TOTAL - 32,000 gallons

    So, we need about 20 inches of rain to fill everything, if they start empty.

    BUT, our water accounts are about:
    House Tanks - 6,000 gallons
    Swimming pool - 1,000 gallons
    Barn tank - 1,500 gallons
    Shed tanks - 1,000 gallons

    TOTAL - 9,500 gallons

    So, our current capacity is 32,000 - 9,500 gallons - 22,500 gallons, which translates to about 14 inches of rain.

    We typically receive about 25 inches per year, and I think we're now around 5 inches for this year (4 of that is this month).  We can reasonably expect 20 inches of rain between now and the end of October.

    Rainwater catchment information
     
  • 3 Comments sorted by
  • we got another 2.7" of rain last night, which translates into another 4,400 gallons into our tanks. 
     
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    We have a bit of sunshine today, and the fog is clearing.  The final count was 7" of rain in 72 hours, with over 11,000 gallons of water caught in our tanks.  Needless to say, we are very happy, but we look forward to a few days of sunshine.

    http://velacreations.com/blog/sunshine.html
     
  • Beautiful cistern! That's also an incredible amount of rain compared to what we get around here (Central Ontario, Canada).
     

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