my google search says that santa barbara gets an average yearly rainfall of 19 inches
austin where we use to live gets an average yearly rainfall of 35 inches
so
if you had a structure that had a 100 square feet roof then in a years time you could collect about 50 gallons for an inch of rain
so
in santa barbara that would be about 950 gallons that one could collect off of a roof this size
plus
add to that all the moisture that collects on the roof from the morning fog
or
as ms b calls it its froggy today
since moving here two years ago i have helped put in a 300 gallon rainwater collection system at the elementary school where i volunteer in their garden
i have been itching to do more rainwater collection systems
so
recently the old greenhouse was torn down and another one is being built
i asked the brains behind the community garden and its major supporter
you know if you put up rain gutters and put in some rainwater tanks you could collect around 6000 gallons of rainwater off that structure each year
hopefully he is interested
this area has a water supply problem that is not going away
i think rainwater collections should be encouraged like in texas where there are tax advantages for doing them and laws are passed making it easier for homeowners to do them
ie keeping the hoa at bay
now i put in a 30000 gallon system at the country n in texas
i also helped put tanks at 3 different schools and helped my neighbor put in his 20000 gallon system
so
i have plenty of experience
while standing in the garden one early sunday morning
the best time to be there
i happened to look over at our chicken coop
it has a metal roof
it is out from under the big ole oaks
what a good building to collect rainwater from
i thought
then i thought about
a few weeks earlier when a crew was cleaning up debris from down the hill near the garden
they chunked at old plastic gutter into their trash truck
it was intact
i climbed in the back of the truck and saved that gutter
thinking
i might use that one day
then
i remembered about a year ago when i was walking around the garden perimeter fence i noticed that someone had thrown out these 2 2 inch pvc pipes
the size i used sometimes for downspouts for rainwater collection
so that sunday morning i thought to myself
i want to put up a rainwater collection system off that chicken coop to maybe save a 1000 gallons of rainwater each year
the way the coop sits all that 1000 gallons runs off it down the hill to a creek then out to the ocean
why not keep it in our garden
so
i asked the right people
i got their permission
cleaned it up good
spray painted it
trimmed it to fit the coop roof
cost practically zero
actually it was zero since i had all the supplies already
i took the pvc pipes
spray painted them nutmeg with paint left over from my school rainwater system
trimmed it to fit the coop structure
i did have to run the gutter the opposite way i wanted to since the chicken coop was not level at the roof line
ie it leaned to the left instead of to the right
this is the end product
minus the two 55 gallon tanks which will arrive next week
the tanks will be placed on top of concrete blocks which i also scavenged from the back of that dump truck
gardeners will be able to put a watering can under the spout on the tank to get rainwater to use in their gardens
as a bonus to me for doing this
i will run the overflow line from the two tanks into my garden where i have 1 foot deep trenches filled with mulch in my walkways which i calculate can hold around 500 gallons
so
i have now introduced a rainwater collection system to our community garden saving us around 1000 gallons of water each year
may this introduction lead to more collection systems here
the organicgreen doctor
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