Rain Water Catchment

Rainwater harvesting is an interesting business. As a writer, designer, consultant and installer I am always amazed at the state of the business and that it is growing at all.

I recently completed a project in the Santa Fe area which included both active and passive rainwater catchment. It is a large "green" home built to the highest LEED standards and incorporates a state of the art building envelope, the most efficient windows and skylights on the market, geothermal heating, massive photo-voltaic arrays, low-water use appliances and new trees to provide passive summer cooling.

The rainwater catchment system includes:

3 - 1,700 gallon tanks that capture over 80% of the rooftop runoff
Passive catchment for the remaining 20% of the roof
High efficiency pumps equipped with floats
Overflow to 3 retention ponds which will slowly captue and infiltrate most runoff, even in a 100-year flood
Water catchment from the state-of-the-art cooling system
Rainchains on all canales
Screened canales and filters in all sump boxes to reduce particulates from entering the system
State-of-the-art irrigation controller
Wireless rain detector to shut off the irrigation system when it is raining

This home has won several local awards for its innovation and it's green features. The home is applying to be a LEED Platinum home and, if awarded, would be the first in Santa Fe. The water system encompasses almost all possible water re-use features, except grey water. Grey water was not used as it is worth only 1 LEED point and was deemed to be not worth the effort and money; plus it was viewed as incompatible with a high-end home.

The home has been featured in numerous magazine articles and is truly a vision of what a large "green" home can be. It is a "2030" home - today!

The rainwater system should meet almost all the water needs for the plants when mature. This onsite water system is almost entirely invisible to visitors of the house. On the other hand, the photovoltaic system is highly visable. The PV system generates more than enough energy for the house and consequently the local utility company sends a check every month to the owner.

Meanwhile, the water system will save thousands of gallons of potable water every year and the passive catchment and the retention ponds will save thousands more gallons from being sent to the waste water treatment plant for "cleaning". The system saves the owner and community money, but the owner recieves no check from any utility for saving this precious resource.

With this state-of-the-art rainwater catchment and watering system, the feature that gets the almost all the attention are the beautiful rainchains! Not the water savings of the system, not the money savings, nor the low-maintenance aspects of the system; but the rainchains which literally surround the house. They are eye catching and the only very visible component of the rainwater catchment system. Folks are amazed at both their beauty and their functionality.

Without these spectacular rain catchment accessories; conserving water and catching rain would not be as visible or "sexy" as generating all your own energy. Water conservation is not top of mind, nor mainstream; eventhough, we can live without electricity and we can not live without water! I am hoping this will change as water prices continue to increase, as water quality becomes more and more an issue and as storm water violations and fines grow.

It can happen. In poll in 1980 of US adults asked how many turned off lights when they left a room - the number was around eye popping 2%! When asked the same question last year the number was 80%! Clearly a major shift in attitudes in a mere two decades - all without upheaval or major legislation. Hopefully twenty years from now we will have seen the major shift in regards to rainwater catchment and water conservation.

Water conservation and rainwater harvesting need to become mainstream. It is good for the environment, good for the planet and good for the pocketbook. Energy conservation has gone from a small segment of the population to mainstream. We need to do the same with water, all it takes time, motivation a some education.