Rain Drops Keep Fallin' on My... Garden Bed

Some of you young'ns may not get the reference. But besides movie watching, I've been doing a lot of thinking about plumbing and rainwater capture.

The State of California Energy Commission reported that water-related energy consumption in California accounts for nearly 20% of the state's electricity, 30% of its natural gas and requires about 88 billion gallons of diesel fuel every year! One inch of rain falling on 1,000 square feet of rooftop produces more than 600 gallons of water. Los Angeles average rainfall per year is just under 15 inches. This means that a home with a 1,000 square foot roof can harvest almost 9,000 gallons of water each year. This home's roof is a bit larger (approximately 1,600 square feet considering the garage). I was convinced that I should capture those 24,000 precious gallons each year. Just for reference, the average load of laundry uses 44 gallons. Over an entire year, the average family uses about 6,000 gallons of water for laundry. Rainwater capture would far exceed all of your water use in terms of laundry. Another illustration of the quantity of good ol' H20 you can collect: one square foot of tomato plants requires approximately a 1/2 gallon of water each week or about 26 gallons of water each year. Even if the eventual owners plant 10 square feet of tomato plants. Their captured rainwater will provide for these plants almost 10 times over!

Back to the nitty gritty - there are three options for rainwater storage: above ground, ground level and below ground. I'm deciding where we will put our 3 rainwater storage tanks. One will capture rainwater from the garage and the other two will capture rainwater from each side of the home. I haven't decided which type of tank to purchase and will post more on my research later. If you're looking for a free tank, visit: http://www.larainwaterharvesting.org/

Our garage tank will be above ground and I will box it in with wood siding to match the garage. The higher the tank, the better the head pressure when actually using your rainwater via a hose. That means we won't have to waste electricity to pump the water to a higher level. We have this option for the garage because there is space and it won't be as conspicuous as it would be on the side of the home. The home's tanks will be underground on each side of the home that has gutters and downspouts. You can check out this illustration of how one homeowner has designed her system.

Rainwater capture is a huge boon to gardeners who want to use a bit of this "free" resource on days when you can't water in our desert environment. Moreover, 40% of Los Angeles' drinking water comes from groundwater. Using rainwater and allowing it to return back to the ground replenishes our groundwater supplies. The $120 that the homeowner will save each year is not a huge amount. But her conscience will be singing in the rain!