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Harvesting rainwater is one of the most self-sufficient and environment friendly methods of using water. As much as 80 % of rainwater that falls onto your catchment area can be collected by applying simple methods. This DIY Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting handbook walks you through an easy process of building a small rain barrel system. If you want to start small and inexpensive, this might be a good option for you.
DIY Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting by Sumbal Tasawwar and Ruth Schaldach is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
To get a better estimate of how much water can be collected from a rooftop, please have a look at our second Rainwater Collection Calculator (Rainwater Collection from Rooftops).
Some additional tips about at home rainwater harvesting to remember:
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- Never drink untested and unfiltered water. The rainwater collected using this method can be used for purposes such as watering your garden.
- Never place your barrel close to utility services or septic tanks.
- Drain your barrel once in a while.
- You can place some pea gravel around your barrel. This will be helpful in case of overflow.
- Consider installing a gutter debris filter.
- Clean the gutters thoroughly before installing the rainwater barrel.
- Consider installing a first flush diverter to reduce contaminants.
- You can expand your rainwater collecting capacity by connecting an additional barrel.
- Set up a seasonal maintenance schedule.
We hope you find this handbook useful and hope to hear from you in case you try out this solution.
