Water Harvesting

Macro Anemone
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Water Harvesting

Water Harvesting

Additional rainwater harvesting

 

Additional rainwater harvesting

 

The additional capacity is provided by two 800 litres water buts from Ecosure. The two water buts will be linked together to form a 1600 litres or 422 gal. storage. The rainwater does not need to be processed by the reed bed to make it useable, unlike the greywater. This arrangement will therefore reduce the electricity requirement to pump water from the reed bed to storage. Apart that is for any overflow water. The overflow from the new water butts will outfall onto David's old slide, repurposed into a water course, which will then flow into the reed bed.

Back garden hollow blocks 010

 

Natural Swimming Pools

 

Natural Swimming Pools/Ponds

Moving on from my homemade readbed project, not only has an industry emerged catering to Water Harvesting, which is a lot less Heath Robinson than my early attempt, there is also a resurgence in wild swimming. See history of wild swimming. Even the BBC broadcast about wild swimming in one of Kate Humble's programmes, 'Off the beaten track'. Unfortunately Iplayer does not have the programme but here are some clips. Kate with Natasha Brooks, explain why. Kate enters the water.     Thermals back on.

A very different view of wild water with Kate Silverton

We were holidaying in the area and found ourselves at Carding Mill Valley Reservoir just as somebody was going for a swim. The signs allow swimming but not on your own. It was evident that she was a regular.

 

One length done and we don't feel the need to stay for safety's sake, and leave her to her swim.

It looks a beautiful place to swim, very peaceful and quite, with just the bird song. Proper communing with nature.

Some of the comments on Wild Swimming website for this location even suggest skinny dipping is OK.

However, is is eventently cold.

Water harvesting reed beds
Garden and reed beds integrated

My homemade reedbed

 

My homemade reedbed water harvesting project

 

Project overview
Project: Grey water reclamation at home
Client: Me / Planet Earth
Cost / Value: “Undisclosed”
Programme: Spring 2006 – Spring 2007
Client’s Requirements: How to beat the hosepipe ban and save the planet
The inspiration and research: Article on Monday, 13 March 2006

 

 Article on Monday, 13 March 2006, extracted from BBC News.

Hosepipes banned by Thames Water

 

Hosepipe ban
Britain's biggest water company will ban hosepipes and sprinklers from next month, the firm has announced. Thames Water, whose eight million customers will be affected by the ban, says two unusually dry winters have caused "serious" water shortages. The South East has experienced its driest period for more than 80 years

 Rainfall graph

  I used the water usage calculator on the BBC website and estimated that my family uses approximately 400lts of water per day. That equates to 133lts per person which compares favourably to the national average of 155lts per day. Of this about 60% is for showers and baths. However, the above calculation did not include the irrigation system that I have in the garden. I recalculated the water usage including use of a hosepipe to water the garden, but for a reduced time to account for the difference between a hose pipe and irrigation system rate of flow. This added 90 lts per day. Coincidently the water used for showers and baths equates to 80 lts per day.

We already did some water conservation by collecting rain water using a single water butt and leaving the grass to grow a little longer, and not watering it. So it seemed a simple solution to use the bath waste water to water the garden. At this point I should have just decided to have showers with the plug in and siphon out the water with a hose after it had cooled. As sane people eventually did. You can even now buy special products specifically designed to make it easier.

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