Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Techniques for capturing moisture

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: jedd <jedd@progsoc.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Techniques for capturing moisture
  • Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:54:19 +1000

On Thursday 13 July 2006 1:30 am, sinergyinaction@netscape.net wrote:
] how is it possible to catch and store humidity from air (not rainfall!)?
] Any ideas or experiences?

I believe there's two tried and tested approaches that work on a
decent scale. (For small scale stuff, just having a rock mulch, or
a sheet of metal angled towards the drip zone, will give some
benefit.)

Ponds and piles of rocks, though, can recover sizeable quantities
of water from the air .. but that depends on geography as much as
design, I suspect.

Historically, the English built insulated ponds -- straw, then clay,
then rocks above that. This ensured the water was cooler than the
surrounding soil, and dissippated heat as fast as possible. Site
became important (water-laden air follows valleys) -- so half
way up a valley is ideal.

Going back even further, there are lots of recorded examples of
using a stack of rocks (sitting on top of a big water-proof 'saucer',
usually of rock too) -- but this has to be a *big* stack to be
really useful .. and you need to be in a pretty foggy place for
it to be of much benefit. I believe in ideal situations you can
recover a few thousand litres of water a night from these kinds
of devices .. but not sure how big that would need to be, and
whether there are thermal limitations on the optimum size of
your pile -- or just practical ones.

Jedd.







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page