How much rain water do I need for rain barrels & garden?
This depends on how much rain you get in your part of the country. Arizona gets.7 in per month on average. California gets about an 1.5. Places like Georgia, New York, and WI get about 4, 3.3, and 2.6 inches of rain a month. This number varies tremendously depending on season, drought, and flooding. Never the less, this means that on a 1000 square foot roof and 1 inch of rain you have the potential to catch 623 gallons. In Arizona you could catch almost 430 gallons a month and in Georgia you could keep nearly 2492 gallons. Now you must decide how much plant life and how much water you intend to use for other uses, like washing your car or flushing your toilets. An average household of 4 can use around 12,000 gallons a month for bathing, cooking, washing, recreation and watering.
Outdoor use could account for as much as 40% of the monthly usage. The best use for unfiltered, but soft distilled water is for outside use on plants, gardens and washing your car. So the answer is, as much as possible, but saving any amount will help you get through a drought, local water restrictions or power outages and the chance of scarce or a complete lack of water. You decide how much you want to start off with, be it 55 gallons per downspout or 1000 gallons per downspout. A rain diverter and rain barrel system should allow 1 or 2 tanks to be filled in parallel. If you wanted to save more water, the Daisy Chain Kit can be added and allows for limitless expansion or additional systems could be added to multiple downspouts around the house.
What do you do with the rain barrel overflow?
This is very important to consider. When your rain barrel or tank fills up, which, it will. Where is the rest of the water from your roof going to go? You probably have already invested a lot of money in grading the landscape, drainage pipes, or some type of predetermined path away from your basement and foundation before you planned on your rain saving system. Most of the systems on the market, have overflow tubes that come out the side or just overflow over the top. The danger is, that this water could seep into the basement, create a hazard on a patio or could ruin your landscape. Even if the system has an overflow tube at the rain barrel, then, ask yourself, then what do you do with it, and hopefully it is large enough to dispense enough water during severe weather.
A Rain Barrel Diverter Kit should use an automatic, closed system technology where, when the water fills the tanks, the water is then diverted back to your existing drainage system in the downspout and in the drainage pipes or wherever you use to have the water go, when you didn't have any problems. By easily inserting the small rain diverter into the downspout you are in fact not changing your whole water drainage plan, but just tapping the useful water out for later use. A Rain Barrel Diverter should also be designed with a non-constricting, open flow system, where the fail-safe mode during severe storms and rains up to 3 to 5 inches per hour allows the house's drainage system to work as it was meant for.
What kind of gutter do I have?
What I have found, as I have traveled across the country, is that the majority of houses have a standard 2" x 3" downspout. Much of the new construction and larger residential homes have standard 3"x 4" downspouts. There are small percentages of urban and older houses that have round or custom unique shapes. This is extremely easy to figure out, if you don't already know. Just look at them and measure them with a ruler.
A Rain Barrel Diverter should be designed to work with the standard 2" x 3" and the 3" x 4" downspouts. And should withstand the added volume of the 3" x 4" downspout without constricting the existing system using a 3"x4" downspout adapter. As for the other custom downspouts, a custom solution is required by the installer. (Don't worry, we are working on the last percentage of custom downspouts.)
Where am I going to place or hide rain barrels?
The question is actually where are you going to need it. Landscaping on the corner of the house, garden in the yard, or close to the driveway for your car. Many systems can be centralized but require a pump to move the water around. With a gravity fed system, elevate the rain barrel or tank and keep close to your point of use. This also prevents carrying a hose around the house and adds a water spigot of free water at every downspout, which would be a tough plumbing job for well or municipal water systems.
Depending on each situation, Home owner Associations and the design of your landscape might prevent you from putting the rain barrel directly under the downspout. A rain diverter kit should come tubing to allow for placing the rain barrel around the corner. For disguising rain barrels and rain barrel enclosure some good places would be: out of site under the deck, or even underground. Others might want to show off their rain barrel with rain barrel decorations using paint or unique structures.
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