Rain water tank

How clever is my boyfriend?! Really. I mean, he has what appears to be junkyard crap all over his yard, and has at least one good use for each and every piece of it, but not enough time in the universe to pursue every one. But this time he really followed through. He took a commodity tank from a friend of a friend of a friend of Agway and made it into a rain water tank!



Now why would you need a rain water tank, one might ask? Well, apparently, way down here in the deep south, wells can run dry during a drought. While this is very rarely heard of in the cool, lush hills and valley of the glorious Green Mountains, it is quite common in CT. What is also quite common in CT, is the need to water gardens during droughts. So, in the spirit of conserving water, we can now use the rain water tank to water the garden during droughts. And really, the possibilities are endless: use it to flush toilets during power outages, wash muddy bare feet off before coming inside, the list goes on and on...



Here's the simple design:

1. Rain falls on the roof
   
2. Rain flows into the gutter
   
3. Gutter spout flows into the tank
   
4. Tank has valve at the bottom to which you can connect a hose

That's it! It's all gravity fed. And here's the good news: he has ANOTHER tank, so he can collect rain from both sides of the roof! (He has lots of extra gutter spouts lying around, of course.)



While you might have sensed a degree of sarcasm in all this, I have to say, in all seriousness, I am impressed. We had a 0.5" rain storm yesterday, which yielded a foot of water in the tank (you can see the water line in the photo below). So, being the smartass that I am, I asked Mark, "If he hadn't collected that water, wouldn't it have ended up in the well anyway?" Short answer: No.

"In heavy storms, most of the water from the roof ends up going down the driveway."

Not being convinced of the practicality of it all, I asked, "Why does your well go dry anyway? Is it dug or drilled?"

"It's drilled, but it's only 80 feet deep."

Gotcha. So that puts an end to that. I'm impressed. And with produce prices going the way they are, I'm happy I'll always have water to use to keep our garden alive!



Side note: Mark's only online presence is facebook. Go ahead and friend him! Tell him you read about him on my blog - it'll make him smile. He's an interesting, and very clever, guy! And I love him to death!