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permaculture - Re: Water Catchment Walls

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  • From: Scott Pittman <pci@permaculture-inst.org>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Water Catchment Walls
  • Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 14:17:52 -0700


Toby, I'm not currently drinking roof caught water but am building it into my new house. I have drank cistern water in Australia, South America, and Southeast Asia and certainly trust it more than well or surface water in those areas. I don't know of a single case of anyone in those areas treating water with anything. The primary safety measure is to have a roof wash mechanism which takes the first gallons that falls on the roof and dumps it in growing beds or some other useful place and then diverts the water from the cleaned roof to the cistern. Other than using limestone, or marble chips to raise the pH I don't think anything else is necessary.
There is a natural biological process that takes place in the cistern which sequesters most organic matter in a mat on the bottom of the tank, therefore it is good to have your outlet some 18 inches above the bottom of the tank to avoid the accumulated material. It is a bad idea to clean and sterilize your tank, unless you manage to get a dead animal in it, because it destroys beneficial bacteria.

One of the best sources on Cistern Catchment is through the CSIRO web site in Australia. I have found them extremely helpful in the past.

Scott

At 07:49 AM 12/1/00 -0800, you wrote:
I'm curious to know how many people using rainwater actually drink it, and
what kind of treatment they use.

We have a metal roof (colorbond) and a 5000-gallon concrete tank that we use
for everything but drinking. Our well water sucks, so I'd like to begin
drinking the cistern water, but haven't sorted out all the many possible
treatment options.

The other issue with the cistern is our wood stove. We haven't graduated to
a masonry or other clean-burning stove yet, so the smoke wafts across the
roof, and imparts a faint smoky flavor (creosote?) to the water, which is
the main reason I'm not drinking it.

Toby


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