Texas Lic #0503820 | WATER
Exterior -
| We installed one standard rain barrel (cost $110) in the back of our house and it filled quickly. It worked so well that we decided add two more. Again they filled up quickly and there was yet more water to collect.
While my partner, Warren, was out in at the Lewisville Feed Mill, he found two 330 Gallon tanks that were previously used as Hawaiian Punch Mango Passionfruit Squeeze Box Base. The tanks were $75 each delivered and they even lifted them over our 8ft fence for us.
So Warren got them set up with our gutter system and we went from 50 gallons to 810 gallons. And there was still more water!
Our roofline has about 1770 square feet. In a 1 inch rain we can gather 1062 gallons of water. Dallas gets an average rain fall of 30 inches annually, which equates to 31,860 gallons of rainwater coming off our roof.
Obviously I can't store that much water but I did decide to get 6 blue barrels on Craigslist for $25 each, cut the top and put a tap in the bottom and put mesh over the top to keep mosquitos off. We hooked them in series to the other barrels. Each barrel was 50 gallons more. Now we're up to 1140 gallons. I would love to add more.
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Interior -
| To save water we installed Laminar Flow Non-Aerated 1.5 gallon per minute faucets. These are great because the laminar flow makes it seem like you're getting a lot of water but in reality you're only getting 1.5 gallons per minute.
We also replaced our shower heads to the same 1.5 flow.
What we haven't changed yet is our toilets. We have debated between low-flow and dual-flush toliets. We're still making this decision but will probably start replacing those next. |
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