Money and Water Down the Drain? Not with Rainwater Harvesting

Several hosepipe bans have been imposed on homeowners this summer across the south of England, while other homeowners are concerned that a ban may be imposed at some time.   Luckily we are not be under such a ban, but we still hear more on the news about low reservoir water levels.  We are all encouraged to use less water, take showers rather than baths and turn off the tap when we brush our teeth.  But is it making a significant difference, to either the water reserves or our water bills?

Where’s all the water going?  There are reports in the news about leaky pipes and the water companies’ responsibility to solve this.  But equally, we have drinking quality water supplied to our homes, with the average household drinking only 13% of it, while flushing about 25% of their supplied water down the toilet!  Globally, only 3% of the earth’s water has the potential to be converted to drinking water and approximately two-thirds of this is frozen in glaciers and ice-caps. Fresh water really is a scare resource.  Many people in countries in the developing world do not have supplies of or easy access to safe drinking water, while here in the UK we are pouring water and money down the drain.

Is it necessary to use drinking quality water to flush our toilets, water the garden and wash the car and clothes in?  Practical alternatives have been hard to come by, especially as most homes only supply us with drinking quality water from the mains.   Nobody wants to stop flushing the loo, but every home does have alternative source of water – rain!  

Rainwater can actually be harvested in each of our homes.  Our homes are already equipped with a large area to collect rainwater – our roofs and gutters!  Instead of directing rainwater through a down pipe to a drain, it can be diverted to a storage tank.  To use rainwater in the home, you just have to install a simple system which filters solid particles out of the water, such as moss, leaves and gravel before the water is stored in either an underground or overground tank.  The water in the storage tank is then pumped to the washing machine, toilet or outside tap. 

How much water you need will depend on the water usage of your family and how many uses it has will depend on how much water you can store.  Your ability to store water will depend on the size of your tank, the size of your roof and how much it rains.  A practical rainwater harvesting system can be installed to top up with water from the mains as a secondary input when the rainwater runs out.   It can be possible to save up to half the amount of mains supplied water you currently use.

Rainwater can actually be better for some of household tasks than mains supplied water.  Particularly for us in the Blackmore Vale, our water from the chalk hills is hard and our washing machines scale up quickly.  Rainwater is softer and better for the washing machine.  Untreated rainwater, unlike our mains supplied water, is chlorine free and so it’s ideal for watering the garden.

Without installing a full rainwater harvesting system for the household, a simple system can still be installed to just to water the garden with rainwater.  A water butt situated under a garden tap will catch any excess water from the tap, and water from the roof can still be directed from the roof gutter straight into a water butt without filtration.  This could supply a large proportion of the water needed for the garden.

Household water can also be recycled.  Water from the washing machine or bath, known as greywater, can be used to water the garden and wash the car. It can also be used again in the household after undergoing appropriate treatment. Natural detergents and products can be used, rather than chemical detergents, which help to make the water more suitable for other uses.

Business and offices can also harvest rainwater and make significant savings on water use.   There are details on www.eca-water.gov.uk that show how businesses are now able to write off the whole cost of their investment of products that encourage sustainable water use, against their taxable profits.   Also, it is now possible to install waterless urinals which are ideal for offices and businesses, you can test ours at DCRS! 

We’re facing a combination of climate change as well as reduced natural resources, and basics such as drinking water are likely to become less available. We really need to save water, yet our homes, the place where we use it most, are not being designed to help us save water.  It would make sense for all future homes to be built with energy and resource saving features such as rainwater harvesting systems, giving us the added benefit of saving money on water bills.  Perhaps this is not yet standard practice as the financial saving is passed to the homeowner, rather than the developer. Until such times, it is easy to have a rainwater harvesting system of some degree installed on any existing home to make water savings both easy and effective.

By Salt Wilmington, DCRS

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