Rain fall on roof tops of houses,buildings, godowns and sheds can be collected, filtered and stored in open wells, bore wells or storage tanks and re used.The roof should be kept clean for collecting the rain water. Any soluble materials like fertilizers, pesticides, medicines and any rusting metal objects should not be kept on the roof tops. Avoid walking with chapels on the roof during rainy days when roof top collection is made.
The system for roof top collection can be designed by one self or taking the help of plumbers. The system consists of collecting all roof top outlets to a common leading pipe line. A filter chamber is fitted at the other end of the pipe just above the ground.Pipe connections are made to lead the filtered water to the storage tank. A provision is also made ahead of the filter chamber to let off the first few washes /runs as it may contain dust material. This provision is kept open for a few minutes after the start of rain and then closed to allow the rain water to enter the filter chamber and finally the storage tank. Any excess flow that results may be led to recharge the open well or bore well.
The size of the pipe and filter chamber depends on the roof area and the rain that occurs at a time in that area. Based on the domestic requirement, the tank size is estimated and constructed as big as to meet the annual requirement.
The storage tank must be cleaned once in a year. It should be air tight and light proof so that algae, diatoms and other pathogenic organisms do not develop in the stored water. To overcome all these problems lime coating is made inside the wall. Also adding alum, bleaching powder or chlorine tablets in required quantity will enhance the water quality for a longer period.
RAIN WATER HARVESTING IS ESSENTIAL BECAUSE:
- Surface water is inadequate to meet our demand and we have to depend on ground water
- Due to rapid urbanization, infiltration of Rain Water into the sub soil has decreased drastically and recharging of ground water has reduced
- Capturing Rain Water in the land and augmenting water supply at a marginal cost
- Reducing pollution and contamination
- Reducing the water bill
- Providing clean and safe water
- Least capital investment with maximum benefits at household purpose for drinking and cooking purpose
- We can keep the rain water in the sump tank for decades
- There is no need of Softeners in the rain water harvesting house
- To reduce power consumption.
MORE INFO – RAIN WATER HARVESTING
When wells and bore wells contain more fluoride, to get pure water for drinking purposes should make to fall on roof after it can be filtered by different filters. Such water is good for health. By this process, a big cement tank or sump can be build for storing rainwater near the house.
In the next step Rainwater which falls on roads should make to flow through pipes and it can be filtered. After fitting filter, another pipe is connected to the tank. The water collected by this process can be covered to prevent it from sun and wind. At the same time, roof should clean frequently and lime should apply like paint on the roof. And the tank should clean once in a year.
An important note we should follow is starting two minutes rain water at the time of raining has to separate from stored water because it may contains some chemicals or dust particles if we maintain this procedure correctly we will be getting best water to drink.